I’ve been furthering a process of self-destruction as part of an ongoing history project and also to document my studio’s evolution.

“My Head Turned Up As A Surprise” emerged from poetry that was no longer found once it was written down.

I performed a late radical change in the appearance of my studio & wanted to capture it.

I took down many of the LP covers and posters adorning walls, doors and ceilings and replaced them with genealogical remnants that no one else in my family wanted but which I couldn’t bear to throw away: framed diplomas, certificates, trophies and so on.

I added mixed-media content repurposed digitally as blackout screens: print photos, x-rays, xeroxes, watercolor paintings & movie posters.

There’s also a fleeting shot of my panoramic desktop plus some of the rest of the studio space.

Otherwise?

I’d picked up randomly and was ready to toss in the bin a dusty bag of memories-without-context (coral, shells, rocks, nuts) and something in the bag caught my eye – a tiny little gold head.

I knew at once what it was.

Many years ago I bought an Arthur Murray dance trophy from 1960 at a thrift shop for $1 – a couple dancing the Quickstep.

In subsequent decades the man’s head went missing and was presumed lost forever – I have no idea how it ended up in that bag nor what made me pick up the bag today after all these years in the first place.

Anyway, I’ve attached his head and he is complete. 

I guess that’s the theme of My Head Turned Up As A Surprise: “heads” – my head, the little man’s gold head, heads of others seen in different lights.

At the end there’s a quick time-lapse nod to Giuseppe Arcimboldo (and Jan Švankmajer.)

The audio overall is a soundscape I designed and recorded (“Cherry Blossoms”) which gives this piece a Nipponese sci-fi vibe.