BOG WORKS:
John  Driscoll Instruments @ Washington Project for the Arts

BOG WORKS:  John Driscoll Instruments @ Washington Project for the Arts

1975 – Friday, August 15 @ 8:00 pm
PROGRAM
Bog Works
Three in a Row

Washington Project for the Arts
1227 G Street N.W., Washington, DC
Tickets:  $2.00

PROGRAM
Bog Works – Music by John Driscoll
Electronic/acoustical sound environment which utilizes a number of specially constructed speakers, electronic speed-controlled tape machines and home-built circuitry for simultaneously modifying tape signals.  Bog Works is an installation performance with Maida Withers and the Dance Construction Company  (Brook Andrews, John Bailey, Liz Lerman, JoAnn Sellars, Betty Tittsworth, and Maida Withers).

Three in a Row, Music by Paul DeMarinis
An electronic composition by Paul DeMarinis for custom-built electronic switching modules.  These modules are played as a musical instrument by the switching of electronically generated and concrete sounds.  Music performed by Paul De Marinis and John Driscoll.

*Pnumbral Raincoast: John Driscoll is part of a contemporary performance group.  Members are involved with various aspects of performance including technology, homemade instruments, improvisation, composition, and design for performance events. Bog Works is a solo performance.

Bog Works – Music / John Driscoll comments: 
BOG WORKS (1975) is a solo, live electronic work, composed and performed by John Driscoll.  The piece uses a number of specially constructed resonant loudspeakers, four conventional loudspeakers, and a number of custom made electronic modules, built for this piece. The sculptural loudspeakers are made from fiber tubes, a curved plastic tube, a long rectangular mahogany box, and a large diameter shallow stainless steel dish.  All these loudspeakers are activated by a large variety of audio drivers.  Since each of these speakers only pass a narrow band of pitches, due to their construction, the sound is distributed into different speakers depending upon the pitch of the signal.  This particular characteristic makes it possible for sounds to be moved rapidly around the space with a minimum of manual manipulation.  “Bog Works” is based on one tape recording of frogs, which has been acoustically and electronically transformed, in order to develop other generations of source material.  These tapes are played on digital speed controlled cassette machines, which change speed in relation to the amplitude or frequency of their own signal.  These signals are then taken and fed simultaneously into both the resonant and conventional loudspeakers.  The result of this is a dense, rapidly changing, sonic environment about forty minutes long.”

Bog Works – Dance:  Maida Withers comments:
Dance Construction Company performers:  Maida Withers, John Bailey, Brook Andrews, JoAnn Sellars, Betty Tittsworth are skilled and innovative improvisors of dance. Bog Works began with dancers wearing battery operated lights.  The dancers open script accommodates physical interaction with the audience, other dancers, and the rope installation.   Two battery operated lights hang on ropes that swing, turn on and off, focus on walls, audience members, other dancers.

Bog Works Performance Description by Maida written on the back side of a file in the physical archive folder:
“Homemade speakers were hung around the large open room.  John Driscoll sat in the middle of the room and the audience sat around him.  Battery operated lights were also hung around the space.  Dancers lighted others dancers and acted as both dancers and light designer during the performance.  The dancers worked and danced around the outside edge of space.  The work began with dancers wearing battery operated lights.  The dance had a loose script.  The program lasted one hour.
Bog Works is a fascinating, unusual auditory and light spectacle.
Dancers move among the loudspeakers and the audience, interacting with the space and the sound generated by John’s electronic music.  The hanging speakers put sound into motion (i.e. ropes swing back and forth, wind up and whirl as unwind). Dancers are also lighting designers by choosing to move the hanging battery-operated lights, turning them off and on, spotlighting other dancers, the audience, the composer, and the walls as well as actively swinging and  rotating the lights. The audience is free to move to new locations in the space to hear the sounds in a new way.

Bog Works Press Release:

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