The Worst Fucking Gig Ever was a sculpture/performance put together by Los Angeles area artist Robert Wedemeyer who describes the premise here:
I was given an opportunity to install a work of art in the AVAGO Gallery at the Brewery project in Downtown Los Angeles. This gallery is actually a closet sized space that has been modified by local artist/curator Noel Korten.
Noel had installed a door to the space with a veneer of brass, then drilled several small holes of various sizes through it. The larger holes have been fitted with wide-angle security viewers so that visitors can look into the room from the outside. Then he began inviting artists to create artworks using the space/door/peepholes as an element in their work.
I installed a rock band into the cramped space to see what might happen when the aggressive sights/sounds of their live show was confined to the small room (only five feet square), and they were isolated from their audience.
The result was that the audience could hear the band through the walls, and view isolated bits of the room/band through the peepholes. Thus, the audience had the visual upper-hand, (they could see in while the band couldn't really see out), while the band had sonic control (they controlled the amplifiers and drum kit.)
There was a sense of surprise when a viewer would peer into the room through the holes, having heard loud music coming from inside, but not expecting a "live" band to be occupying such a small space. Also quite interesting was the way that the door separated the performers from their audience. In order to see the band, the audience was forced to stand literally inches away from them and peer through small holes in the door. There is a simultaneous closeness and distance inherent in the structure of that situation that reminded me of watching a band perform on television. On TV, you get these tight close-ups that you don't have access to in a live performance, but you miss the experience being in the same room. In The Worst Fucking Gig Ever, this phenomenon occured in a direct way without passing through the filters of the camera and video screen.
