Warhol's Surfaces

“Boredom is like a pitiless zooming in on the epidermis of time. Every instant is dilated and magnified like the pores of the face.” (Charlotte Whitton) A unique commission for German radio focusing on the life and work of Andy Warhol. It features rare telephone recordings he made mixed with site specific recordings and music. "SCANNER - WARHOL'S SURFACES (CD by Intermedium) Robin Rimbaud has got to be one of the busiest guys in the sound scene and his crossroads in the fine arts are plenty, including his own work in sound installation. This is a quirky record using samples of Andy Warhol interviews conducted in the early 80s. The recording seems predicated on a quip, a Warholism that goes 'If you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface: of my paintings and films and me, and there I am. There's nothing behind it'. With such folly Warhol may have manipulated his audience into understanding that all taste is biased in a glossy, offset world, maybe a bit cynical, with a ring of truth sharp as a razor's edge but dull as day to day life. Scanner reconstructs the language of Warhol, while his 'bored, art star' appeal remains intact. There are samples of street sounds and other references to New York City throughout. While there are dense moments where the artist seems directly engaged, there are equal parts urban silences and low-tone mixes of motors revving and horns honking. So, even though you may only have to look at the surfaces, you will have to listen closely not to miss the subtleties here. If you are at all familiar with the Big Apple aesthetic this will be symbolic, or maybe even phantomlike in the wake of 9/11. The de/remixing of Warhol's voice creates layers of ambiguity as 'New York City Street Map' takes a sharp turn into the village of unknown squirming echoes. 'Becoming Someone Else' starts by using Warhol's lips as a swarm, duplicating finite syllables repetitively. This take on the artist who met the public eye unflinchingly, but with a calculated reticence, is quite haunting and intuitive. In many ways Scanner has established yet another unauthorized aural biography on a man behind the mask, someone who boldly played the media machine in a less than glamorous field, until he came along. The beats are jungle-like and hypnotic on 'Turning the Dial'. German label Intermedium specialize in sound art productions and this may be the recording that puts them on the conscious map for works that blur genre lines and end up with a great collaboration between sound and vision. (TJN)" VITAL

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