Combo Club
1993
two colors with a shaped copper plate embossed in heavy Indian handmade paper, printed by Etching Studio, Houston, TX
23 x 30 1/2 inches
edition of 50
This print illustrates the sculpture Night Rap, an actual enforcement officer’s night stick (MONADNOCK PR-24) beheaded and disemboweled, then reanimated and retrofitted with the electronic intestinal circuitry of a professional entertainer’s wireless transmitting microphone (Audio Technica ATW-32). A hand-formed, nickel-plated microphone head of perforated steel recaps the severed six inches of black polycarbide and protects the new brain, thus returning full enforcement function to the stick. As a weapon/tool hybrid, this object brings instruments of power into a new formation. The policeman’s nightstick is a symbol of authoritarian force loaded with potential for brutality and physical control. The wireless microphone is the entertainer’s choice, which arms the voice with amplification and offers physical freedom to the user. This combined option destabilizes the single-minded path that specialized tools can offer.
Night Rap is a symbiotic mutation that can reaffirm a condition of choice.