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Dr Zubin Kanga tours major new work

Dr Zubin Kanga tours major new work

  • Date21 November 2022

Dr Zubin Kanga is touring a major new work created in collaboration with composer Philip Venables, dramatist Ted Huffman, and programmer Simon Hendry: Answer Machine Tape, 1987.

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Dr Zubin Kanga is touring a major new work created in collaboration with composer Philip Venables, dramatist Ted Huffman, and programmer Simon Hendry: Answer Machine Tape, 1987. Recently premiered at Time of Music Festival, Finland, it focuses on New York visual artist and AIDS activist David Wojnarowicz and the turbulent period leading up to the death of Peter Hujar – his former partner, close friend and fellow artist – from an AIDS-related illness in 1987. The work’s focal point is Wojnarowicz’s answering machine tape from the days leading up to Hujar’s death, featuring calls from Hujar, other artists, friends and lovers, exploring his life, that period of the New York art scene, queer history and the AIDS crisis.

As part of Zubin Kanga’s Cyborg Soloists research project, the work uses new sensor technology – the Keyscanner created by the Augmented Instruments Laboratory – allowing the piano to function not just as an acoustic instrument, but as a typewriter to transcribe, comment on and illuminate the messages.
Touring dates are: 
12 November: November Music, Den Bosch (Netherlands)
19 November: Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (UK) 
5 December: Paris Autumn Festival (France) 

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