the voice of marcel duchamp

I'm facebook-friends with "Marcel Duchamp". I don't know who actually runs this account on fb. (L: 'Marcel Duchamp's current profile picture. Notated as "Gagador Dali, à la Magritte.") I was asked by someone once if I knew who ran the account; this person told me that the Duchamp avatar had insulted them via fb-chat. Something about his mother. A few weeks later, 'Marcel Duchamp' fb-chatted me, and we spoke in French for a while, which was a challenge for me, because I don't speak French. Also I can never figure out how to get those accents above letters. Eventually Duchamp told me that he/she valued something like "empathetic connection."



This is a recording of the Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) who invented the readymade and said perceptive things like:

The creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act.

Recording of Duchamp reading The Creative Act (1957).

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The background image of this blog is a light-installation by rosalie lichtkunst. I randomly came across a book of her work in the library a month or two ago, and was astounded by her light and set designs for theatre and opera.

Here's a picture of a light installation she made for an orchestral performance:



Another photo. Really inspiring.

Her work strikes me as elemental and ethereal. Apparently the colors would gradually change over the course of the performance. What a setting to perform music in. And check out those sculptural figures in the foreground.

rosalie lichtkunst.