WESTERN FRONT – Sexaphone

Description:

In Sexaphone, Mike Haslam explores the artistic possibilities of the telephone and touch-tone dialing.

A television monitor and telephone set are stacked on a wooden table positioned in front of a faux-brick wall. Haslam, who is dressed in a grey suit and glasses, carries out a series of everyday conversations viewed on a simulated videophone. Efforts are made to use telecommunications efficiently, but wrong numbers and other interferences arise.

To further explore the sonic capacities of communication technologies, the performance closes with a musical number in which Haslam activates the telephone keypad as an amplified instrument with accompaniment by a bassist.

Following an intermission, the audience was invited to migrate to the Grand Luxe Hall for a presentation of Haslam’s performance Blue Rider of the Purple Haze.

Video documentation is available upon request.

Mike Haslam stands at a wood table stacked with a television set. He is dressed in a suit and holds a telephone receiver up to his ear while he pushes his glasses up at the bridge of his nose. There is a free-standing backdrop behind him printed with a clock hanging on a brick wall.

Mike Haslam stands in the Grand Luxe Hall with one hand in the pocket of his suit pants. Next to him, a television monitor is stacked on a wooden table that is positioned in front of a backdrop of a brick wall.

Mike Haslam sits at a wooden desk and speaks into a touch-tone phone. Next to him, a television monitor shows two men. Haslam wears a suit and glasses.

Mike Haslam sings into a touch-tone telephone receiver while fingering the keypad held at his waist. He wears a suit and sunglasses. He is joined onstage by someone playing bass guitar. They perform in front of a television monitor and one-half of the freestanding brick wall backdrop.

Mike Haslam sits at a wooden table and speaks into a touch-tone phone next to a television monitor. A backdrop of a brick wall stands freely behind the TV.

Related Events

1979

Blue Rider of the Purple Haze

Captions:

Mike Haslam, Sexaphone (1979), photo documentation, Dec 1, 1979.
Mike Haslam, Sexaphone (1979), photo documentation, Dec 1, 1979.
Mike Haslam, Sexaphone (1979), photo documentation, Dec 1, 1979.
Mike Haslam, Sexaphone (1979), photo documentation, Dec 1, 1979.
Mike Haslam, Sexaphone (1979), photo documentation, Dec 1, 1979.

Western Front is a non-profit artist-run centre in Vancouver.

We acknowledge the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations as traditional owners of the land upon which Western Front stands.