User:MECarroll-NYC/sandbox

WASTE MUSIC How it began. Waste Music evolved from the genre of Metal in 2014 following the series of commissions for a Metal Festival on April 6, 2014 on the grounds of Revolution Recycling in Philadelphia, PA. The festival was staged as a part of the 50th Anniversary of the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia. The festival developed from 'process' and how the making of anything, be it a work of art, a cultural institution or a piece of drywall, begins with the imagination and the potential of the idea and with whom it originated. That may or may not be followed by its realization. Given the opportunity to create a work of art (albeit the request to create a work of art that would be disposed of at the end of the exhibition) Mary Ellen Carroll in collaboration with the Philadelphia based artist Billy Dufala and Revolution Recycling for the 50th anniversary of the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia—the conceptualization began with their process as potential. It was not to create a work that would go back into Revolution Recycling's waste stream as requested, but to make something that would conceptually expand their processes and the materiality of waste, both as a commodity and as a genre. The material of waste and the genre of waste would be valued and treated in equal volume and in name, as the same thing. The process would utilize the temporal/physical constraints of duration, both for the institution (ICA) as well as the corporation (RR) and in a contemporary manner—to be reenacted. As an expansive proposition, the overall process at Revolution Recycling and the building materials and materials in buildings it recycles were considered as a 'closed circuit'. The most valuable material was chosen for its market value as well as its reflective properties of the process. It would function as the end product of RR's process and as an autonomous work of art—a ready made as well as a construction material. A structure was built from this end product. A festival was held in honor of the material and the genre of the same name. A spectacle took place on the premises of Revolution Recycling where there were spectators, but there was no audience. Two of the end products of process or ready made works of art were placed in the galleries of the ICA. These objects functioned autonomously as sculptures and they also functioned as plinths of potentiality. A special performance was staged that utilized the same genre for the festival and the performers were positioned atop the plinths. There was an audience for this performance. There were didactics at the ICA that chronicled the process at Revolution Recycling and the Festival of Metal at Revolution Recycling and the ICA concert with the metal band METAL EYES who introduced waste music to Philadelphia.