In the latest episode of Studio Sessions I continue my conversation with previous guest Rob Andrews, only this time with a widened perspective as his documentor and collaborator Ryan McManus joins in. Listen to the full interview on Big Red & Shiny by following the link below.
Listen to Studio Sessions: Rob Andrews, revisited on Big Red & Shiny
About Rob: Following our first hour-long conversation, I felt there was such a large percentage of Rob’s work and ideas that we didn’t even come close to talking about. I arranged a second meeting, this time accompanied by his collaborator and documenter Ryan McManus. To recap, Rob’s work often deals with rituals, historical social narratives, mythology, particularly of the Minotaur, and creating situations where outsiders are compelled—either by their own will or the prompting of the scenario—to intervene on the performance in some way.
Join me as I continue my discussion with Rob, and also gain some outside perspective on his projects from Ryan.
**While it’s not completely necessary, I would suggest listening to the first interview with Rob before listening to this interview if you haven’t done so already, as it is not possible to quickly summarize the entire contents of the first interview, and it is likely that this episode will be more difficult to understand without that foundation.
Also, Rob has an upcoming performance in Denver on September 1, 2013. Here is some information regarding the event:
“As a civilization, we’re reaching a transitional moment. It doesn’t necessarily mean doom and gloom and apocalypse and everyone’s gonna die…but I don’t know,” says Brooklyn performance artist Rob Andrews, whose newest piece, End of Empire, seeks to create a catalyst for the end times.
Andrews has created a sculpture called the “Void Seed,” which is held together by the bloody clothing of a friend who chopped his hand off in a wood shop; it’s filled with artifacts such as a coyote pelt, a copy of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, and a Ronald Reagan mask. And it was recently charged up with a ritual at the Brooklyn International Performance Festival. “We created a drone choir, and we sang to it to impart it with the energy that we think would tip civilization toward its end,” explains Andrews. The artist will walk thirty miles with the “Void Seed” from Denver International Airport to Counterpath, 613 22nd Street, where he’ll perform another ritual and bury the object. “Art in a white-walled space seems too didactic for me, so my approach is to sort of take this work and build a frame inside of a city or a sacred space and then crash it apart and see what happens,” Andrews says. “In a sense, we as a culture, we crave this. We crave to bear witness to each other, and we crave to let go in front of each other.”
Members of the community are invited to help bring on the End of Empire with Andrews at Xanadu Street and Colfax Avenue be-tween 4 and 5 p.m., and at Humboldt Street and Colfax at around 7 p.m. The ritual will follow at Counterpath, along with a reception and discussion. For more information, visit andrewsautomatic.com and counterpathpress.org. Andrews will be tweeting and Vine-ing the performance at @andrewsautomat with hashtag #endofempire.
— By Robin Edwards
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