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

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

1975 – Friday, August 15
BOG WORKS
Presented by Washington Project for the Arts, Washington, DC
Admission $2.00
John Driscoll, Electronic Composer/Musician
Maida Withers and the Dance Construction Company

Home-Made Speakers and Dance Program:
Installation performance with John Driscoll, electronic composer/musician/sculptor, with Maida Withers Dance Construction Company in the open theater space of Washington Project for the Arts, 1227 G Street N.W., Washington, DC, in the large, open, 3rd Floor  performance space.

Bog Works information from John Driscoll in 2015, electronic composer/musician/sculptor, in the open theater space of Washington Project for the Arts in the earliest location on G Street, Washington, DC.
Bog Works featured an installation of unique homemade loudspeakers by John Driscoll along with flashlights hung on ropes situated as functional sculptures throughout the space. John was seated in the center of the open space and the audience was seated in the center of the room with the dance and installation in the periphery.  Dancers were also lighting designers by choosing to move the hanging battery-operated lights by swinging, rotating oor focusing the light on dancers or the musician located around the space and on the elevated platform.  The work began with dancers wearing battery operated lights and the dancers had a loose script.  The Program lasted one hour.

Bog Works – Music:   Bog Works music, written and performed by John Driscoll, is an electronic/acoustical sound environment which utilizes a number of specifically constructed speakers, electronic speed-controlled tape machines and home-built circuitry for simultaneously modifying tape signals. John Driscoll, composer-musician.
See detailed description of the music below.

Bog Works – Dance:  MWDCCo dancers: Maida Withers, John Bailey, Brook Andrews, JoAnn Sellars, Betty Tittsworth are skilled and innovative improvisors.  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 – 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 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.

Additional Music Performance:
Music, Three in a Row, 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 by Paul De Marinis and John Driscoll.

John Driscoll / 1975:  (BFA, MFA) John has been involved in sculpture, dance, film making puppetry, air conditioning and intermedia.  His present work with electronic systems for sound, movement and visuals include UNDER THE PUTTING GREEN, a two-year work in progress, and BOG WORKS.  John Driscoll, DCCo composer/musician, is presently performing with Pbnumbral Raincoast, David Tudor, and Maida Withers and the Dance Construction Company.”  https://maidadance.com/collaborators/john-driscoll/

Bog Works Press Release:

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.  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 results of this is a dense, rapidly changing, sonic environment about forty minutes long.