The sound of applause echoes in the streets...
As a boy, like many other boys of my generation, we could
“motorize” our bicycles simply by attaching playing cards to the fork of the
bike and positioning them so the moving spokes struck the cards while we rode
them. The faster we pedaled, the louder our engines roared!
At the time, I often thought the sound emitted was also like
that of applause.
When I was a teenager, for a time, I kept a magazine
clipping of Marcel Duchamp’s readymade Bicycle
Wheel, 1913. Long since lost, it came to mind when I began following a
series of debates in the 90s regarding the validity of Marcel Duchamp’s
contribution to contemporary art. In these debates, opponents such as the art
critic Donald Kuspit, saw in Marcel Duchamp’s work the seed in what he thought was
wrong with contemporary art today.
This ongoing debate seems inappropriate considering the
extraordinary advances of contemporary art in the last hundred years, the DADA movement
being a driving force in broadening the scope of what art is now, a rich and
diverse vocabulary that allows the collective power of art to offer a deeper
understanding of the human experience today.
My response to these debates is project Applause.
I exhibited an analog version of Applause in Zurich
in 1998 where participants physically spun the bicycle wheel of a copy of
Duchamp’s Bicycle Wheel by hand. As
the wheel spun, the spokes would strike two playing cards (Queen of Hearts and
Jack of Diamonds) creating the sound of applause, and a motor.
The present version of the project has been expanded to
allow the public to participate digitally, activating the bicycle wheel through
their cell phone or computer. The sound created as the wheel spins in the new
version is amplified in the immediate area as well as carried out into the
street at the entrance of the exhibition space via speakers.
By activating the installation, visitors to the exhibition, or
to the exhibition web page, can "applaud" the contributions of Marcel Duchamp and
the DADA movement as part of the development of contemporary art, and in a playful, fun
way, form part of this ongoing debate in the art world.
When I was a boy, I used a simple device as a way to
motorize my bicycle. Now, with project Applause,
I am using this same, simple device to applaud the work of Marcel Duchamp and
the DADA art movement, the motor and driving force of what was to become
contemporary art today.
| 
Press/Texts
