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Evaporated Music is a series of Dolby 5.1 DVD suites full of grossly emotional imagery and monstrously alien sound. In Evaporated Music 1, big-budget hi-gloss video clips by Elton John, Billy Joel & Phil Collins, Gloria Estefan, Celine Dion & Mariah Carey are taken whole and uninterrupted. In Evaporated Music 2 (currently in production), a range of appearances of 'fake' bands on TV shows like CALIFORNIA DREAMS, SAVED BY THE BELL, DEGRASSI JUNIOR HIGH, PUGWALL, THE INCREDIBLE HULK and CHiPs are rescored with metal music.
In both cases, the audio track of music is erased. In Evaporated Music 1, it is replaced by a complete cinematic sound design, constructed to synch to every on-screen movement. In Evaporated Music 2, a song is heard, but it is a completely new metal song composed by Philip Brophy to perfectly match the performers movements and vocalization. This ongoing project continues a long line of work Brophy has been developing in the co-joining of new audio to pre-existing imagery, and Evaporated Music is his most extreme audio-visual meld. The effect is seamless and unsettling – yet utterly bereft of the original songs.
Philip's published writing on audiovision in relation to video clips includes the article Baby You're The Right Kind of Wrong: Pop Music, Cinema & Other Holes plus the series Rock & Pop Video Clips. See also the artist's talks EVAPORATED MUSIC & The Abject In Pop Music - and EVAPORATED MUSIC, Revoicing & Gendered Vocalization plus Image is Asprin - Sound is Sperm - Philip's unpublished response to the questionnaire from the exhibition VIDEO HITS: Art & Music Video.
For information on the second installment of this project, go to: Evaporated Music 2: In The Mouth Of Metal
Evaporated Music 1
2008: VIDEO LOGIC, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (Part 1 a-f) (5.1 version)
2008: TRACE ELEMENTS, Tokyo Opera City Gallery, Tokyo (Part 1 a-f) (5.1 version)
2008: POP SHOP, Gallery Mu, Eindhoven(Part 1 a-f) (5.1 version)
2007: REVELATION, Perth International Film Festival, Perth (Part 1 a-f) (stereo version)
2006: INTERFACE, The Big Reservoir, Berlin (Part 1 a-f) (5.1 version)
2006: SCANNERS, New York Video Festival, New York (Part 1 c+d) (stereo version)
2004: VIDEO HITS, Queensland Art Gallery, (Part 1 a-c) (stereo version)
2004: Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne (Part 1 a-f) (5.1 version)
2004: I THOUGHT I KNEW BUT I WAS WRONG - NEW VIDEO ART FROM AUSTRALIA, Jamjuree Gallery & Chulalongkorn University Gallery, Bangkok; Beijing Millenium Monument (MAAP) (Part 1 c+d) (stereo version)
2003: VIDEO STORE, Foxy Gallery, New York (Part 1 a-c) (stereo version)
2003: Adelaide International Film Festival (Part 1 a-c) (5.1 version)
2003: TREATMENT, Institute for Modern Art, Brisbane (Part 1 a-c) (5.1 version)
2002: LIQUID ARCHITECTURE 3, Treasury Theatre, Melbourne (Part 1 a+b) (5.1 version)
2000: RENT, Overgaden, Oslo (Part 1 a+b) (stereo version)
2000: RENT, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne (Part 1 a+b) (stereo version)
2000: FREEDOM, RMIT Gallery, Melbourne (Part 1 c) (stereo version)
Complete contents of this page © Philip Brophy