
www.nospectacle.com
nospectacle combines music and video into a mind melting live performance. The trio consists of Walter Wasacz, Jennifer Paull and Chris McNamara. On Friday, November 28 at Cranbrook Art Museum, they performed a set loosely based on “Exploding Plastic Inevitable,” the multimedia experience created by Andy Warhol in the mid-1960s.
Walter collaborates with several other folks around town and hosts paris68.org with Carleton Gholz. He writes a column for Metro Times called The Subterraneans, which is devoted to Detroit dance culture. He talked a bit about performing with his multimedia collective.
nospectacle played some shows this year that have had good publicity. How did those feel, being a fairly young group?
Well, it’s been great. We’ve able to do pretty much what we’ve wanted, which is to bring a Detroit-inspired electronic music and video group project into a variety of venues, exposing it to lots of different people. From the beginning, the idea was to include as many people as possible in what we do, and not do some kind of exclusive, elitist, bullshit artistry thing. We’ve played in clubs, bars, coffee houses, art galleries, museums, colleges, the Movement festival — I’d like to play on the sidewalk one day, just set up and perform for passersby. As long as we could get cords long enough and some sound with a little ooomph…
The members of the group have roots in melding sound, art and visuals. How do you keep this element fresh in your shows?
Chris McNamara has been making original sound and film productions for the past decade as a member of Thinkbox and as a solo performer. He’s had films screened in film festivals and has done sound/visual installations here and in Europe. He also teaches in U-M’s Screen Arts & Cultures program. He’s a really accomplished guy, but totally humble and down to earth. It’s a privilege to play with him. Jennifer Paull is starting to make her own animation pieces and does some digital video editing, as well as audio production and editing. I use a turntable and work the 3-channel mixer, so there is always an element of DJ performance to what we do. It’s all live and in the moment, and we try to turn any glitch or human error into something that works to our advantage. The streaming video is also mixed live, with three projections often going at once. The effects can be trippy or totally calming, depending on how we feel.
Is your studio setup mostly laptop and a couple controllers?
Yes, two laptops (both MacBook Pros), two audio controllers (one M-Audio Evolution, one FaderFox), some audio and video interface hardware, three mini-DVD players, a Technics 1200 … and waaaay too many cords, wires and lines in, lines out. We’re not gearheads at
all, always grumbling and fumbling about the equipment.