From ’73 & ’74: Chicken on Foot, Breaking Glass, Tilt, Hair Comb, Flip Flop, Jump Set, Interface, BrainWave Drawings LA

A compilation of Nina Sobell's videos from 1973 and 1974, including Chicken on Foot, Breaking Glass, Tilt, Hair Comb, Flip Flop, Jump Set, Interface, and BrainWave Drawing LA.

00:10Copy video clip URL Title card: “Chicken.” A performance in which artist Nina Sobell “wears” a raw chicken carcass on her foot and breaks eggs on her knee, bouncing her foot up and down. Better known as Chicken on Foot (1974). 

05:59Copy video clip URL Title card: “Glass.” Sobell breaks glass into increasingly smaller pieces with a hammer and then rolls around on top of it, naked. Better known as Breaking Glass (1973), also known as Break. Artist’s description: “In 1973 I broke shards of glass and mirror, collected over a couple of months time, without any eye protection, having the camera move from my eyes to my mouth to my hands and the glass and back again capturing the internal and external reaction to the action. Breaking myself, crisscrossing in front of monitor playing back Breaking Glass bringing it all full circle.” Another description: “The camera (operated by John Sturgeon), moves from my eyes, to my mouth, to my hands, to the glass, and returns back to my eyes and repeats. I had to position the glass carefully to be able to find the ‘right spot’ to ‘land’ the hammer before breaking for the most part. I had to concentrate very hard and proceed methodically. This concept of observation of the creative process was repeated in a very early live internet performance between MIT and NYU in 1996 and as far as the observation of the creative process goes, Left Brain Right Brain Investigation of the Creative Process (1990) fits right in. Then at the end of Breaking Glass, there’s a sequence where I fall/break naked criss-cross in front of a monitor playing back the glass breaking tape. The camera is operated by Joan Logue. It was meant to symbolized human softness falling/breaking down/ending.”

10:44Copy video clip URL Title card: “Tilt with Susan Krentzman.” Sobell and Krentzman face each other, naked, in front of a mirror. They lean back and forth in alternation in time to a metronomic pulse. 

14:02Copy video clip URL Title card: “Hair Comb One Two, Want To with Susan Krentzman.” Sobell and Krentzman face each other, each combing their own hair. Then they put on bald caps and roll over across a line of hair clippings. They stand in front of a mirror and take turns posing in front of it.  Better known as Hair Comb (1973). Artist’s description: “Flirting with Susan, making moves on her transforming her through miming actions reflecting our masculine selves.”

19:14Copy video clip URL Title card: “Flip Flop with John Sturgeon.” Extreme close-ups of a penis bouncing against a woman’s buttocks, and of a man’s lips sucking on a woman’s breasts. Artist’s description: “A flaccid penis bounces in rhythm against a bouncing woman’s buttocks and breasts; when the penis hardens, the piece ends.” 

20:30Copy video clip URL Title card: “Jump Set with Deb Gordon, Richard Lorber, Florence Matthys, Francois Matthys, Karen Robbins, John Sturgeon, Jon Tillman, Dan Zimbaldi.” Juxtapositions of clothed couples conversing on a couch with images of naked bodies. Artist’s Description: “Two cameras are focused on two couples, one at each end of a couch. Two (m/f ) couples are sitting on the couch. Each one converses with the other’s partner; two are leaning forward while the other two are leaning back alternately. They are partially undressed. The men have their pants off, keeping on their shirts; the women are bare breasted keeping on their pants. They converse with no particular acknowledgement of their partial nudity. At both ends of the couch, there are closed circuit monitors, each person on the couch is able to see themselves. Another camera is focused on a couple (m/f ) in close proximity to the couples on the couch, who are jumping and bouncing to a consistent beat. The man stands on a stool, his flaccid penis flopping level with the woman’s flopping breasts. Another camera focuses on posted phrases like ‘Transient Pleasures’ and ‘When the Talking is Over, the Silences are Worth Waiting For.’ In interface, the images appear randomly, intermittently with no fixed time or expected result. It’s a play upon the typical cocktail party mentality; each one fantasizing about the other, more interested in their own images, and subtext conversations they are having with themselves.”

22:43Copy video clip URL Title card: “Interface.” Sobell, in close-up, stares into the camera while seated, accompanied by an audio montage of noises, slowed-down music, and monologues. The voiceover repeats the words “starts” and “stops.” 

28:39Copy video clip URL End credits: “From 73 & 74 by Nina Sobell. 1974.” 

28:47Copy video clip URL BrainWaveDrawing LA. A Grass Model 6 Electroencephalograph. Images of male/female couples with their eyes closed, with patterns generated by the EEG superimposed over them. Artist’s description: “In 1973, I met Michael Trivich, a systems engineer, through my other engineer friends at Cornell, and we began collaborating on Interactive Brainwave Drawings. I was able to obtain an EEG and we worked with it in my studio a bit. We soon realized that we really needed try our ideas out in a professional laboratory environment. I was referred to Dr. M. Barry Sterman, who was conducting research in sleep disorders and epilepsy at the Sepulveda Veterans Neuropsychology Laboratory. Dr. Sterman was intrigued by my idea, and since it was not on his agenda to investigate this potential phenomenon, he said I could come with my video equipment, and ‘subjects’. If it was not possible to derive any quantitative data from the experiment that could prove my hypotheses-he referred to it as an experiment-then any continued access to his lab would be terminated.

When we arrived with our equipment, Dr. Sterman’s assistants connected a couple of our friends to their huge Grass Valley Electroencephalograph that recorded the amplitude and frequency of their brain wave activity, as an ink trace on paper. The brain wave data was also being entered in real-time into a massive PDP-11 computer , compared to the size of computers today. Mike Trivich connected one person’s brain wave output into an oscilloscope; one on the Y- axis and the other’s on the X-axis. A Lissajous pattern appeared representing the combined brain wave emission of both participants. I arranged for them to sit very closely together, watching their faces on a monitor in front of them, and their Brain Wave drawing was superimposed on their faces.

In order to obtain the quantitative information Dr. Sterman wanted, he performed computations to see if there was any correlation between the two participants’ brain wave signals. He wanted to see whether the two people were emitting the same brainwave patterns at the same time. Could that be seen and proved? The computational results showed along with the ink trace that it was possible to track the simultaneous output of both participants’ brain waves.”

 

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