Paper Art 7: Electric Paper Catacomb Memories: A Multi-media Installation by Dan Senn The title, Catacomb Memories, suggests that this installation is about memories of a burial place, but this is true only to a certain extent. In solving aesthetic problems, I consistantly begin from an action-based and languageless sense which is stimulated by play and imagination and a feeling for what the exhibition space is calling for. Therefore, for this installation, while keeping in mind the required medium, I began by imagining a darkened space; then the sight, sound and motion of what would become the Paper Tube Canopy Lyre; then the sight, sound and motion of the flowing sheets of fax paper speaker strips emanating, at a low resolution, the sounds of the human voice; and finally, the luminous projections in the space above which would redundantly cast a glow over the installation itself. At this point, with the macro-structure in place, I began casting about for a right-sounding sound source, an integrated video source, and a system to develop two scores which would be played simultaneously: a subaudio pulse score to drive the pendulums of the Canopy Lyre; and, a voice distribution score which would logically and sensibly spread, in time and space, the spoken and sung materials. It was only after determining the larger structure that the Catacombs material entered the picture, and while I was aware of its social volatility from the outset, it was chosen primarily because it offered an effect which was beautiful to me. So, while the exterior of this installation may be a poignant commentary on the social attitudes prevalent in the western world of the 1930s, all of which is assisted by a well-calculated drumming, recurrent voices, songs and images, and these may indeed trump the medium and structure itself, it is important to note that the meaning and metaphor here is mostly your own, quite appropriate, and belongs, only after a considerable distance, to me. Given below are the main elements to this installation: a Paper Tube Canopy Lyre, fax paper speaker strips, video projections, spoken texts and pre-1940 popular American songs. The Paper Tube Canopy Lyre is a variation on my first Canopy Lyre which was installed in an old growth forest and extended between tree trunks and over a small rushing brook. The original featured metal resonators fastened on piano wires which were struck by pine beaters, called pendulums, set in motion by the stream below. As the running water vibrated the connecting lines, the beaters would rock back and forth at a rate determined by the stream motion and the off-balancing of the pendulums. For this indoor version, the metal resonators and stream have been replaced by resonant paper cylinders and modifiied speakers, called pumps, playing a score consisting of sub-audio sine waves stored on audio CDs. The fax paper speaker strips are suspended from piezo transducers used to broadcast the sound of spoken text and songs. A different text, or series of texts, is printed on each length of fax paper which corresponds to the text which is heard over that particular length of paper. Each strip is duplicated elsewhere. Because the strips are sensitive to the air currents, the viewers, as they move though the installation, become agents in one of the installation's kinetic aspects. A score which distributes the voices throughout the installation in time and space is stored on cassettes. The texts, which are amplified over the speaker strips, are spoken by seven people who were part of a failed commercial enterprise called the Catacombs of Yucatanãa attempt at commercializing a limestone cave used by Native Americans as a burial ground prior to European settlement. The Catacombs , located on a bluff overlooking a valley filled with dairy farmers, was in operation in 1934-35 and consisted of the cave, a dance hall and some small overnight cabins, but because it awakened the dreams of so many local people during the difficult time of the Great Depression, it exists to this day within the folklore of the region. In 1995, on a grant from the McKnight Foundation of Minnesota, I created a sound and video installation called the Catacombs of Yucatan Sound and Video installation which consisted of my sculptural instruments, videos, and video interviews placed within the cave, and event which attracted many local farmers and small town people. The songs, which are also amplified over the speaker strips, are sung by a dairy farmer who recorded these for his daughter in the mid-1980s on a cheap cassette machine in a barn just 250 meters below the location of the Catacombs.... The singer, named Stanley Hahn, was unaware of the pause-record button causing his otherwise capable voice to weaken over the three hour, virtually non-stop, recording time. Most of the songs are turn-of-the-century American popular tunes leading up to the period of the 1930s and Great Depression. The videos, which are projected in the space above the Canopy Lyre and speaker strips, are of two types: one is an abstraction of the faces of those who's voices are heard over the speaker strips; the others are rhythmic and surface mappings of two overnight cabins which were once part of the Catacombs... enterprise removed to other locations in the late 1930s. Special thanks to Helen Jameson, Oscar Dotseth, Paul Groteboer, Myrtle Jameson (the elder), Myrtle Jameson (the younger), Marilyn Hahn, Stanley Hahn, Anna Staupe and Gladena Reierson for lending their voices to this installation.