LAMP/LICHT DO MADISON
2008, performance
A collaboration with Alan Licht
Performed at The Starlight Cinema, University of Wisconsin-Madison on February 21st, 2008. Alan and I held a conversation at the start, a film and sound performance broke out in the middle, there was no end. Their blurb said it best: "Hailed by one critic as 'Beavis and Butthead meet the Wooster Group', Alan Licht and Andrew Lampert set their site-specific sights on Madison for this one-of-a-kind performance."
“Starlight Cinema had a special event last night. A collaboration between guitarist and former film student Alan Licht and experimental filmmaker/projectionist/archivist Andrew Lampert.
What to say but this was one of the best live events that I’ve ever been to. It blew me away. Not necessarily because they did anything extraordinary, but it was more the presentation. You sat down in the Play Circle - and if you’ve ever been to an MU movie on a Friday or Saturday night you’ve been there - and to the right of you was a projector, and to the left of you was a projector. The stage was covered in rolls of film and only a podium that held a small stereo and two chairs with popcorn and water sat atop the stage. It wasn’t until 7:45pm did the even actually get started, but then again...it was hard to tell if it actually started at all.
Lampert and Licht sat in the chairs on the stage and began talking with each other about the relationship between sound and image. The entire show was carried on as if it was just a conversation between the two of them. Alan Licht, being a guitarist and musician, was expected to play at least something for the show, and he did. A toy guitar no more than 5 inches long. The boombox played noise-pop/glitch/electronica for the time when it wasn’t playing the radio show they had been on the night before here in Madison, which was hosted by Ivan Mairesse (also the programmer of Starlight). If I could give them a thesis, it would be to screw with your notion of the assumed correlation between sound and image, i.e. if you see a sound accompanied by an image the viewer assumes that the two are related.
The only moment of clarity was the moment that Lampert said “thank you,” in a childlike tone that was missing during the show. The show was totally weird and completely enjoyable for those with or without the experimental gut.”