Geoffrey Farmer Let’s Make the Water Black

13 Oct 2013-5 Jan 2014

Overview

Geoffrey Farmer, an exciting new voice in Canadian art, presents his most ambitious installation to date. Farmer thinks of this new work as a “sculpture play”. Let’s Make the Water Black – named after a Frank Zappa track – is loosely inspired by Zappa’s avant-garde rock and the counter-culture music scene in Los Angeles in the 1960s. Farmer built the many sculptures in the installation from props he bought from a movie prop hire store. He has robotised them so that throughout the day they respond to a composition Farmer has made from sound recordings based on each decade of Zappa's life. Each day the performance is unique and unpredictable. Channelling the spirit of Zappa, Farmer presents us with the impression of a psychedelic “boneyard” of the 20th century American dream.