One of the exciting things about city living is that there
are buildings you probably won’t venture inside until invited. For
some, SeaDog’s on Gottingen Street is one of those curious places.
Now’s your chance: The sauna and spa, which caters to the gay and
bisexual community, is opening its doors next Wednesday night for
Audio Bathhouse, an installation of audio and video art curated
by the Halifax Audio Club, part of the month-long Sound Bytes
festival.
HAC, an independent committee of Eyelevel Gallery, came up with the
hot idea of hosting art at SeaDog’s over beer. “I don’t even know who
said it, but we were laughing about those speakers that look like
rocks—I don’t even know what came first—and then someone yelled out
‘sonic sauna…'” says artist Eleanor King. Excited by their steamy
plan, the group took a cab to Menz Bar to introduce themselves to Doug
Melanson, who owns both businesses. “He loved the idea from the start,”
says King. A tour was arranged. “I felt really privileged to be able to
go. It is a place for a specific community and it’s pretty much men
only, unless it’s SheDogs, when the lesbian community gets together and
rents it for their own purposes. It’s interesting to make that space
available to a wider public as an art show.”
With location secured, HAC put out a call for audio and video
submissions, asking artists to consider seven rooms in the space, like
the sauna and basement sling room. They received about 40 entries from
all over, and eventually chose eight.
“We didn’t really have a curatorial premise in mind per se of what
we were going to chose, but the curatorial elements emerged based on
the submissions we received,” says King. Non-narrative works under 10
minutes made the cut so that observers can move around the rooms
without time restraints. King says, “We weren’t interested in the more
documentary style or narrative audio or video pieces; not because they
weren’t interesting, but we wanted the experience to be overwhelming
and fun.”
Dawn Matheson, a Guelph radio producer, sent in “Coming Clean,”
which will play in SeaDog’s revolving door. Morrison set up a phone
line where anonymous confessors could tell their secrets. “I’m going to
tell you a see-kwet. I love you…” a kid whispers; next, a man with a
Connery-smooth voice laughs about nipple play and filling up baby
bottles with bodily fluid. Nic Spicer’s audio “Hitchhiker’s Guide to
the Phallixy” will play in a room starkly furnished with a leather
couch and handcuffs. The young Halifax artist and frequent hitchhiker
began discreetly recording conversations with drivers who picked him
up. It’s an astonishing lesson in the not-so-subtle ways older men
attempt to seduce their much younger rides.
“Monkeyboy and Juana Faulk” by Carrie Gates and KERO
“Monkeyboy and Juana Faulk” is a sensual, seizure-riffic video by
Saskatoon artist Carrie Gates and KERO, where two boys in Mexican
wrestling masks and goggles wrestle and battle in a confined
prison-like space behind a layer of flashing digital stripes and
patterns. King says that the video will play on small monitors in the
private cabin rooms. Philip Clark took porn footage and colourized it
in pale pinks and blues. The images are kaleidoscopically abstract, but
if you squint, various body parts are doing their thing, while
distorted moans and groans emerge from under a quirky electronic
tune.
Ian MacTilstra’s romp-on-a-raft video is soothing thanks to its
minimal lapping-water soundtrack, which King says plays well in the hot
tub because “the existing sounds of the room would be overwhelming
enough.” It’s all not sex either: nautical themes float to the top with
Michael Fernandes and Patrick Burgomaster’s version of the sea chanty
“Drunken Sailor” and François Gaudet’s lively musical ode to the
ghost ship Mary Celeste. Winnipeg composer Daryn Bond’s “Lair
Libertine” accompanies those sweating in the sauna. “He wanted us to
play it in the darkest, dampest place we have,” says King. “It has this
exotic, wet feeling and we wanted something calming and relaxing
there.”
A $5 entry fee includes towel service if you want the full
experience of a dip in the hot tub or a chill-out in the sauna, but
street clothes are cool, too. Just don’t forget your open mind and
ears.
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This article appears in Jun 4-10, 2009.