Performance of Answer Machine Tape, 1987 at Kings Place, London

This performance was the London Premiere and 10th performance of this work, created in collaboration between composer Philip Venables, dramatist Ted Huffman, programmer Simon Hendry, the Augmented Instruments Lab and performer/Research Lead, Zubin Kanga.

Answer Machine Tape, 1987 focuses on New York visual artist and AIDS activist David Wojnarowicz and the turbulent period leading up to the death of Peter Hujar – his former lover, close friend and fellow artist – from an AIDS-related illness in 1987. The work’s focal point is Wojnarowicz’s answering machine tape, featuring calls from Hujar, other artists, friends and lovers, to explore not just his life, but that period of the New York art scene, queer history and the AIDS crisis.

As part of Zubin Kanga’s Cyborg Soloists research project, the work uses new sensor technology – the Keyscanner created by the Augmented Instruments Laboratory – allowing the piano to function as a typewriter to transcribe, comment on and illuminate the messages. In Answer Machine Tape, 1987, the audience eavesdrops into a private world, messages are transliterated into a musical fabric, become character studies, become reflections on a community, become attempts to decipher meaning. Transcription, and its failure in the face of extreme difficulty, becomes a poignant metaphor for the AIDS crisis and its devastating effect on a generation.

This performance was part of World AIDS Day performances, and media around the performance focused on its portrayal the height of the AIDS pandemic.