Maxine Mason

UK

Keep-on is an installation built on site. It is one of a series of dance floors that I have recently built on location, growing out of my interest in underground cubs and DJ culture.

With this installation I am concerned with audience and viewer participation, and attempting to make something more interactive, where art extends into the social arena. I am less interested in it functioning as an art object or commodity, but as something that can be engaged with on a more practical as well as emotional level.

The dance floor has always been a site of participatory activity, performance and drama. At times it is a stage, and at other times the object of voyeuristic activity. I am interested in building on the atmosphere and associations that the dance floor already creates, using the language and technologies of the club and disco.

Under the floor is a composed sound piece made especially for this piece. This is a ‘mash up’, using audio sampling techniques to extract key moments and intros from well-known disco and pop tunes. These are cut, pasted and layered together to create a frustrating build of music that vibrates from beneath in an attempt to draw the viewer on to the dance floor surface.

(Text: imagine limerick catalogue, 2004)