DVD HANS TAMMEN + JOHN JANNONE
LIVE AT ISSUEPROJECTROOM


Acheulian Handaxe aha0600. Recorded live 2006 at Issue Project Room, New York. Released 2006. DVD running time 41 minutes. NTSC 4:3, All Regions. 5.1 Surround Sound & Stereo. Dual-Angle Video DVD.

Hans Tammen – Surround Sound Endangered Guitar
John J.A. Jannone – video

Dual angle video DVD with 5.1 Surround Sound audio. Buy  from our webstore here.

In this collaborative video and music work, the sounds of Hans Tammen’s Endangered Guitar are distributed through Issue Project Room’s multichannel sound system, and John Jannones live camera and still image mix is projected above the musician.


Weaving Example
The video consists of two elements; a live camera mix, and processing of digital still images. Ten miniature cameras are mounted on and around Hans’ guitar; these cameras feed two digital video switchers which Jannone controls from his laptop computer using custom software. The laptop also contains a collection of still images taken from a variety of texts on weaving; weaving diagrams are visual metaphor of the piece, linking mathematics, hand craft, the strings of the guitar, and images which suggest musical notation. Jannone controls the progression of these images in a performative manner, and blends them in a variety of ways with the live camera images.

The video is presented as a dual-angle DVD, showing a camera view of the guitarist plus a view of the processed images. Pressing the “angle”- button on a remote allows for switching between the videos.


The audio consists of two independent voices simultaneously drawn from Hans Tammen’s “Endangererd Guitar” – one is a single voice in front of the audience pinned against the other, a micropolyphonic pattern on the multichannel sound system mounted on the ceiling. With a wide array of mechanical preparations for guitar (including brushes, small stones, electric fans, cigarette lighters, Ebows and chopsticks) that are processed with his own custom software and with an unusual take on guitar-based control — perfect for John’s live video processing — he produces sounds that seem chaotic on the surface, with a forest of apparently separate details, interlinked underneath, woven together as a maze of infinite complexity.

The audio is presented as a 5.1 Surround Sound mix, in a way to best represent the audience’s experience that night. In case the DVD is played on a stereo player, the audio of the ceiling speakers is mixed across the stereo spectrum, while the “back” voice appears in the middle.


DVD Excerpt






 Hans Tammen + John Jannone at Rake/Brooklyn 2004