New Transgressive Performance Art: Andrew Harper

Commentary on Lucas Abela’s performance Justice Yeldham and the Dynamic Ribbon Device.

“A barefoot Australian in faded jeans and a beer shirt was strapping on a belt of electronic devices. Two wires led from the belt. One was attached to a large set of speakers and the other was attached to a jagged piece of glass. This was Justice Yeldham and The Dynamic Ribbon Device. The soundman turned on the power and the whole contraption started to hum ominously. Meanwhile our shoeless bloke was squeezing half a tube of KY jelly onto his face and into his mouth. The live music performance was about to begin. He played the device by rubbing his face up against the glass. The sound traveled down the wire and into a set of amplifiers and distortion boxes attached to his waist. This distressing music came squealing out of the speakers at incredible decibels, instantly deafening all other sounds. Eyes widened in uncertainty and hands covered ears but he played on. He played with agonizing passion, sliding his face against the glass while flecks of KY jelly flew in all directions. The front row of spectators inched backwards out of spray range and some fled altogether. I was transfixed. As he glided his cheek across the glass he played with the switches on his belt. The squealing noise varied in pitch but never in intensity. It was like electrified teeth rubbing on a blackboard. It was like uncontrolled guitar feedback played backwards. It shouted of sorrow. It screamed of pain. It was art. Five minutes into the performance and his mouth was cut by the glass as he played the edge. Blood mixed with KY jelly in a red smear. More spectators fled. The sound continued to attack us in volleys of crazed noise until the final spike as he smashed the pane of glass. Then it was over. I didn’t know whether to clap, laugh or pray” (Ravi Jeyachandran performance, 2004, Bierut).

That’s one description of Lucas Abela’s performance Justice Yeldham and The Dynamic Ribbon Device. Lucas is from Sydney and runs what is probably Australia’s most oddly surreal music and sound label, Dual Plover. He plays glass via contact microphones connected to a sound system; with his face.

It’s hard to say what the performance is – but it’s certainly not underground, not now. Lucas has supported famed pop act Regurgitator, although he was kicked off the tour after some people in the front row vomited whilst watching his performance. He has been on the ABC, on the avant-garde music show Set, placing him in a newly contrived canon of important Australian avant musos such as Rod Cooper and the Hi God People (more about both these acts/people/groups in a future article).

A Dynamic Ribbon Device performance is usually brief, and dangerous: it is more usual for Lucas to cut himself than it isn’t, and he has been injured to the point of being hospitalized, on occasion. People react strongly to the performance – it is horrific to watch, as even without injury, one sees the performer’s face distorted against the glass, screaming, covered in lubricant. Watching him move his mouth to the edge of the glass is horrific as well, anticipating the abject moment when he will bite through the glass. All this is accompanied by an intense and distorted sound (some might call this very sound violent but I think that’s misleading). Lucas manipulates the sound via distortion pedals he wears as a belt. He often has it so amplified it hurts the ears of the audience, almost as much as his method of creating noise is an injury to the eye (shades of Le Chein Andalou).

The performance is overwhelming. People gag, look away, become transfixed by horror. People cheer and experience intense catharsis as well. The intensity is thrilling. It’s also confusing. There’s an aspect of this being a sideshow geek act, but the confronting sound ensures this not to be so – so my question is, does this mean that the sound is of greater importance than the spectacle that generates it?

I found the beginnings of an answer by listening. Lucas has released recordings of the performances and I own three of them. One documents the quote that I began with, but there are no images; another has an image of an extremely bloodied t–shirt on the packaging without explanation, whilst the third, a CD, (unlike the other two recorded artifacts which are fine examples of the ultimate rock artifact - the 7” single), has photos, notes and a lovely bit of performance footage rejected by YouTube. It’s a great package, especially those who have yet to encounter Lucas. However, I like the 7” recordings more; they better capture the feel of the performance for me, forcing me to speculate that, despite the astonishing visuals, the performance is truly about the sound. The emotional horror is enabled first by the sound, and assisted by the vision of a distorted bloody face.

I first saw Lucas at the Hobart Fringe Festival. The reaction was astonishing – in five minutes, or less, Lucas provided a gamut of emotion so intense it was palpable. The audience cheered in elation when he smashed the glass over his scarred face. It was amazing.

Listening to a record was a calmer affair, but no less incredible. I found myself truly listening to the sound and hearing that word-like sound forms the maelstrom that I hadn’t really noticed any of the times I’d seen a performance. There was a howling that became disturbing and emotive in quite a different but no less effective way. I found myself playing bits of it again and again, lifting the needle from the vinyl and re-positioning it. It was closer. I was fascinated: the recording, particularly, in this alledgedly outdated medium, had created an intimacy that performance just can’t. There’s more here than meets the eye.

This was underlined for me in a peculiar way when this first listen occurred: I was at a friend’s house in Melbourne, a gallery and performance space inhabited by a long-suffering and very hardened black cat. The cat was used to people and all manner of noise, yet this noise had her mew in discomfort and sit under a chair. We took the record off and she immediately regained a feline composure, but I was fascinated: the noise of Lucas Abela reaches outside of the containment of a considered, human reaction: it disturbs animals.

(Lucas has been to Hobart twice, but performs extensively in Australia and indeed, all over the world. He often performs in a rock context in this country, but take him overseas and he performs in festivals, museums, and gallery spaces. He’s on YouTube if you want a look, but buy the CD on Sweatlung to really wallow in the experience, if you dare.)