CHROMOPHONOZONE

Artist Jemima Wyman

DON’T TELL MAMA
226 BRUNSWICK STREET
CHINATOWN, BRISBANE

Dates 17th June 2006, 24th June 2006, 19th August 2006
Chromophonozone included in the straight out of Brisbane Fesitval

Curator Thea Baumann
Performers Don't tell mama patrons

If 90’s Relation Aesthetics and 60’s Happenings had a love child it would have a striking resemblance to Chromophonozone in the 00’s.

Chromophonozone was a series of one-night gatherings that occurred at Don’t Tell Mama, a Karaoke club in Fortitude Valley’s Chinatown. Through donning masks constructed out of photographic facial features attached to highly decorative and optical fabric balaclavas, participants become anonymous cosplayers (costume players), who where requested to choose a song and perform within the carnivalesque atmosphere.

They sang someone else’s song while wearing someone else’s skin. These events where documented, edited and transformed into a series of video works that where then projected back into the karaoke club where the event took place, once again.

The video, masks and photographs are all that is left of the interactions that occurred at Don’t Tell Mama. They act as indexes to the performers bodies, that where so important in animating the project. This residual evidence highlights how sexuality and subjectivity are registered differently through each of the participating bodies.

The title Chromophonozone aims to also highlight the prominence of the body within this project, as it is a word – play on ‘chromosome’. Chromophonozone is a composite of three words that relate to the major aspects of the project. All of these aspects are registered specifically in relation to the body:

1. Chromo – relating to colour, pigment, saturation and chroming (the illegal practice of inhaling chemical substance for a high, usually associated with metallic spray paint).
2. Phono – relating to sound and speech patterns in the construction of language
3. Zone – the designation of a specific area for a specific purpose usually relating to space but also time, perhaps?

From its inception, the rules for engagement where loose and lo-fi in order to maximize the type of interactions, possible performances and outcomes for the project. This informal structure was based on how street dance styles, like break dancing or more recently krumping out of south central LA, developed.

Chromophonozone evolved from a different set of circumstances to these dance styles however it is based on the same inter-human relations, recombinant styles and chance effects that make generating subcultures exciting and meaningful, opening up new social space for cultural exchange.