Before the DJ Was Sound, and She Played It

  • Installation view of “Before the DJ…” at Carnegie Mellon University’s Miller ICA. Photo by Tom Little.
  • Five Factors 3 video still.
  • Five Factors 3 video still.
  • Five Factors 3 video still.
  • Five Factors 3 video still.
  • Kalimbrrd, 2022, wooden desk, chair, musical instruments, contact mics, Catholic School loudspeakers, variable dimensions. Photo by Tom Little.
  • Installation view of Electric Boogie Revolution. Photo by Tom Little.
  • 412Step Line Dancing Workshop
  • Installation view of Electric Boogie Revolution. Photo by Tom Little.
  • The Score, 2022, two-sided risograph print on paper, 11” x 17”
  • The Score, 2022, two-sided risograph print on paper, 11” x 17.” Photo by Tom Little.

Before the DJ Was Sound, and She Played It, is a constellation of three interdisciplinary projects: Five Factors 3, Electric Boogie Revolution, and Kalimbrrd. Exhibited together, these sculptural installations are explicit invitations to experience sound and movement as inherited technologies for orienting ourselves in unknowable space/times by listening to music, playing hand instruments, and doing a little line dancing.

Kalimbrrd features a handmade, amplified thumb piano (kalimba) and noisemakers for viewers to play and reshape the exhibition’s soundscape. Electric Boogie Revolution asks viewers to perform a timewarped “Electric Slide” from audio instructions; if viewers choose to dance, a visual score will emerge in the sand under their feet. Kalimbrrd and Electric Boogie Revolution are nestled within and anchored by Five Factors 3, a five-channel television and furniture installation featuring video of Naeem Martinez White, a local Pittsburgh visual and sonic artist, and myself communicating across different spaces and times (Pittsburgh and New Mexico) with acoustic and kinetic gestures.