Ken Nicol
A Thousand Times Fuck Off
Toronto, Canada: Self-published, 2013
12.7 x 14 cm
Audio CD, 47:37
Edition size unknown
An audio performance of the artist typing the phrase "fuck off" a thousand times, a companion to his gridded works of the same name [see below]. Housed in a gatefold digipack elegantly designed by Lauren Wickware, and featuring liner notes by curator Christina Ritchie.
The use of the typewriter as a musical instrument can be traced back, I think, to Erik Satie's Parade, from 1917. Typewriters, alongside milk bottles and a fog horn, were used as musical instruments in the score, though these were apparently added by Jean Cocteau, who was directing the ballet for which the music was composed. Satie was reportedly not amused.
However, the typewriter continued as a staple for 20th century composers, and has been used by John Cage, Steve Reich and a slew of others. Pop songs ("Down All the Days" by the Pogues and "Exhuming McCarthy" by R.E.M. come to mind) have also employed the sound, though mostly as an effect. "Typewriter Lesson", from the breakout Cornelius LP Fantasma from 1997 employs not only the sounds of typewriters, but samples from instructional audio.
When filming The Shining, Stanley Kubrick recorded a typist typing "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy"over and over again, for the scenes in which we see Jack typing, but cannot see the pages. To the trained ear it is thought that each key on a typewriter has a slightly different sound, so in order to maintain authenticity, he insisted that the actual words be typed.
"Once considered so obscene that it was censored from the OED, and still likely to cause a stir if spoken by a politician, the word "fuck" has become so commonplace that the Canadian Press guide now offers advice on its proper usage. While still commonly regarded as vulgar, fuck and its many variants have been greatly diminished in their power to shock or offend. The present work is a case in point. Initially executed as a series of typewriter drawings, "a thousand times fuck off" is just what the title says - in this instance an audio recording of "fuck off" being typed a thousand times. If I were listening to the CD without knowing the title it would probably strike me as somewhat innocuous. Even knowing the title, my ear is pulled away from language as such, towards the rhythmic tapping of the typewriter keys, an acoustic pattern in 4 /4 time. There is sufficient anomalous incident, like a melody in a pop song, to keep it engaging. Variations of striking force, the regular return of the typewriter carriage, maybe an extra beat between phrases, and the predictable slowing of the pace as the typist tires give the recording that intimate human quality so prized in music performance. In this respect the recording is much like the drawings: my eye evades the words on the page to see the anomalies in the overall pattern, variations created by tiny shifts in registration resulting from the paper slipping slightly against the roller, differing pressure of keystrokes, the obligatory errors of human/mechanical interface. It may be inoffensive, but so fucking great.”
- Christina Ritchie, liner notes
