Under-History Lessons, 1976
1 CD, stereo sound, 21’25’’
Electronic Arts Intermix Edition, 2001
Vito Acconci belongs to a generation of artists from the 1960's who worked to radically redefine the form and meaning of art, by going beyond painting and conventional sculpture and abandoning the established aesthetics. He turns his body into a tool for experimentation through photography, video and sound recordings. His work is provocative, and often destabilizing in the way it evokes a reaction from the spectator, by submitting him to mentally and sometimes physically uncomfortable situations that cause a resurgence of primary emotions. The presence of the spectator as a witness and a voyeur is incorporated into the work.
Under History Lessons belongs to a grouping of works, entitled Early Audio Works, of which Running Tape, a sound performance set in Central Park, New York in 1969, is a notable piece. While Vito Acconci is running with a microphone in hand and a tape recorder on his belt, he counts his steps out loud, while breathing loudly into the microphone. The artist captures his body's reactions in response to the physical and mental effort that such an endurance exercise demands; transforming his voice and breath. The recording becomes a testimony to Vito Acconci's discrete intervention in the urban space.
In Under History Lessons, Vito Acconci once again uses his voice in a different context. This sound work was produced for the inaugural exhibition of a new art space in Long Island, New York, situated in a former school. The installation consisted of the rough reconstitution of a classroom and two loudspeakers transmitting reminiscences of a lesson learnt by heart. From one of the loud speakers, the artist's voice is clearly heard, expounding on the main points of the lessons, like a teacher; while from the other loudspeaker, Vito Acconci is heard conscientiously repeating the lessons like a good pupil. The artist's different voices respond to each other during the recitation, thus tracing out a story of indoctrination.
In this piece, Vito Acconci works with his voice, through different tracks and tones, using persuasion and good cheer tinted at times by cynicism and irony. The sound mixing techniques that are used allow the artist to diminish his presence by way of his voice and the effects he applies to it. Through repetition and pronunciation, he plays with the musicality of words, and gives the work a disturbing quality.
In this conceptual sound piece, Vito Acconci, simultaneously teacher and student, recites a series of twelve short non-conformist lessons, starting with lesson n°1 "Let's Believe We're in This Together", followed by “We are suckers” and “Don't give anything away” and ending with
n° 12, "Let's be Oppressed". The artist suggests an unusual point of view on the ideological fundamentals of education and teaching methods that conceal intentions other than the purely didactic. He critiques education that assumes an uninviting pedagogy, based on knowledge, rather than understanding. A kind of brainwashing where words lose their meaning.
Priscilia Marques
