Puck
- Justin Gotzis
- Penn University Life, Platt Student Performing Arts House
-
Independent Creative Production Grant
Rendering of the Puck Sound System, created by Puck collaborator Tim Nelson-Pine.
Puck is a proposed sculptural speaker system which will recontextualize and reflect upon the philosophies of the “Freetekno” movement through a lens of artistic reverence, sacred experience, and identity formation. The “Freetekno” movement is a cultural phenomenon which arose in defiant response to the cultural absorption of Acid House music into the commercial club economy throughout late 20th century Europe. Artists, ravers, misfits, and squatters banded together in caravans transporting their collective sound equipment to create impromptu bacchanalian festivals (“Teknivals”) which synthesized the social familiarity of a block party, the creative exchange of an artist residency, and the anarchic spirit of DIY hardcore music in the detrital infrastructure of post-war Europe. These ephemeral hubs of open cultural exchange invoked a de-hegemonized, metaphysical identity, “an inspiring, unifying force of creativity” (A Darker Electricity: The Origins of the Spiral Tribe Sound System).
Puck’s sculptural form reflects upon the cultural alienation which birthed the Freetekno movement. Freetekno speaker systems traditionally feature several large horn speakers: cavernous maws of resonance which project sound through the same mechanism as the bell of a trumpet. Gotzis and his collaborators conceived of this project in response to the performance of staring into the cavity of the horn speaker, meeting the gaze of the industrially manufactured void. The sculptural qualities of the Puck speaker system exaggerate this performance, mutating the horn into a cave of sonic and physical experience.