Global fax festival. Alicia Chillida

The project reflects on Communication in the transition from the 20th to the 21st century. Its author, David Hammons, explores and celebrates the change of millennium in the year 2000 with an afro-festival full of fantasy. A premonitory act, since at this time the use of cell phones is normalized, inaugurating a paradigm shift. Faced with the imminent disappearance of paper in an analog versus digital world and in a humorous way, Hammons vindicates low technology,

The exchange of cultures is substantial in Hammons' work; it is its origin and starting point. Thus Sketches from Spainby Miles Davis, was playing during the long assembly sessions inside the building, in a boom-box or radiocassette domestic that the artist requested as an additional working tool. Also some films of Muhammad Ali and Sun-Ra took place in the context of their culture that DH offered us. The film sessions took place at the Café Central, in the Plaza del Angel, a jazz club in the city.

Hammons also invited musician Butch Morris and his band, following the composition-improvisation pattern, as the closing event of the six-month project. During the concert, Conduction #113 broadcast via Internet at a global level (sponsored by Telefónica in streaming DH "plays" the fax machine and "accompanies" Morris by sending messages, emitting sounds and sheets of paper that fly over the musicians...

The role of Tribes in New York, an artistic institution headed by Steve Cannon, was essential to summon hundreds of participants to the "marathon". Long lines of people wanting to send faxes stretched out the doors of 745 East 6th Street. Word spread and we received more than two thousand faxes in the six months of the project. In the month of November "as a tribute to the Orient, to Shinto", the paper completely covered the floor of the Palace and resembled a garden that had to be "cultivated" almost daily, removing some papers torn by footsteps, cleaning...

At the turn of the millennium, there was also a change in the direction of the Reina Sofia Museum. The edition of this artist's book compiles the experience of the project. Its author did not want there to be a text explaining the event, but rather that the only witness be that artifact meticulously designed by him: an opaque plastic folder that integrates a selection of facsimiles of fax sheets, the program of Butch Morris's concert with the album cd rom and a poster with a photo of the authors.

Two horizontal benches in beech wood were the only objects inside the Palace (besides the fax machines and sheets of paper), which provided a time of rest and contemplation for the visitor to listen to the birdsong, which alternated with the ringing that each device emitted when one or more of the nine telephones went into reception mode. Then the "interflight" happened: the newly arrived paper fell from a great height in a slow and sinuous flight. At that precise moment, inside and outside mimicked each other and corresponded.

Conduction #113. Lawrence D. Butch Morris

Conduction #113 has been specially conceived by Lawrence D.H. Morris, conductor, conductor and cornet, for the exhibition Global Fax Festival arkestated by David Hammons, for the MNCARS, Palacio de Cristal, Parque del Retiro, Madrid. It has a top international musical line-up: Joan Saura, sampler and computer; Graham Haynes, live electronics and cornet; Agustí Fernández, piano; J.A. Deane, live electronics and recording engineer. has been specially conceived by Lawrence D.H. Morris, conductor, conductor and cornet, for the exhibition Global Fax Festival arkestada by David Hammons, for the MNCARS, Palacio de Cristal, Parque del Retiro, Madrid. It has a top international musical line-up: Joan Saura, sampler and computer; Graham Haynes, live electronics and cornet; Agustí Fernández, piano; J.A. Deane, live electronics and recording engineer.

The sound will start at 15h. The process consists of programming recordings from the sampler and combining them with the live environment... The park, the space and the musicians at work. Occasionally, the machines will work alone. At other times one or more musicians will accompany the programmed pre-recorded sound.

Approximately one hour before sunset the sound displacement will be directed... For example, the sound of the piano will be directed to where the bugle is... The sound of the fax machine towards the piano... All sounds will undergo a displacement.

At this time all the musicians from their place will play collectively until one hour after sunset. Then a new process of displacement will take place.

This installation has been compared to the drum and its history in forms of communication, I would also like to offer the idea of smoke signals as a source and nexus in this story, a smoke drum.

We will fill our sound with messages and send them to be perceived and received by a free audience to and from "information points" both inside and outside the Crystal Palace.