Improvisation with Drumsticks (2008)
Softground etch on paper
Six etchings, 50 x 35 cm each
Improvisation With Drum Sticks is a suite of six prints made by drumming directly on to a waxed copper-plate and then etching and printing from it several times. As I continued to drum and etch my performance was captured on the plate. The more I etched, however, the more my earlier marks were obliterated. The plate I used was the same size and shape as a snare drum or cymbal. This meant that as well as capturing each improvisation the plate was also the instrument with which these performances happened; as the wood of the sticks chimed on the resonate copper surface of the plate both performance and score was both generated and documented. The plate was increasingly covered by drumming marks and eventually destroyed, resulting in the etchings as a score that document the initial improvisation.
First installed at Slade MA Show, 2008. Subsequent installaitions include REMAP 2, Athens, parallel to the 2nd Athens Biennial and as part of my solo show at Southard Reid Gallery in 2010.
© Sam Belinfante 2008