Philip Venables

Answer Machine Tape, 1987

Zubin Kanga – Piano, Live Video and Live Electronics

Pianist Zubin Kanga presents the UK premiere of Answer Machine Tape, 1987, a major new work for piano and multimedia by Philip Venables, created in collaboration with dramatist Ted Huffman and programmer Simon Hendry. It focuses on New York visual artist and AIDS activist David Wojnarowicz and the turbulent period leading up to the death of Peter Hujar – his former lover, close friend and fellow artist –  from an AIDS-related illness in 1987. The work’s focal point is Wojnarowicz’s answering machine tape from the days leading up to Hujar’s death, featuring calls from Hujar, other artists, friends and lovers, to explore not just his life, but that period of the New York art scene, queer history and the AIDS crisis.

Using new sensor technology from the Augmented Instruments Laboratory, the piano functions not just as an acoustic instrument, as a typewriter to transcribe, comment on and illuminate the messages. Answer Machine Tape, 1987 is a work that is enigmatic and meditative, that opens a door for the audience, but requires them to take a step inside.  We eavesdrop into a private world, messages are transliterated into a musical fabric, become character studies, become reflections on a community, become attempts to decipher meaning. Transcription, and its failure in the face of extreme difficulty, becomes a poignant metaphor for the AIDS crisis and its devastating effect on a generation.

Supporters:

Answer Machine Tape, 1987 was commissioned by Zubin Kanga with the support of a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship, Royal Holloway, University of London and The Marchus Trust; Time of Music (Finland) November Music (Netherlands) and Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (UK) with the support of Sounds Now and Creative Europe; and Festival d’Automne à Paris with the support of Diaphonique (France).