Driven Pile Foundation: Joshua Fried

Joshua Fried emerged from New York's downtown experimental music and East Village performance art scenes of the 1980s. His full-length HEADFONE FOLLIES completed its 12-week run at HERE Arts Center in 2001 with a rotating cast of sixty-four headphone-driven performers. His collaboration with choreographer Douglas Dunn, Spell for Opening the Mouth of N (featuring eight headphone-driven singer/actors and a dance company of ten), premiered in a sold-out run at The Kitchen, New York, and was one of the highlights of the 1997 Lincoln Center-Out-of-Doors Festival. Fried's 30-minute Welcome to the Ice-Box, commissioned by Danish Radio and recorded at Danish Broadcasting Corp. studios, recently premiered on Danish Radio and at Sound/Gallery--25 loudspeakers permanently installed in Copenhagen's main town square. Fried is known for turning technology on its head, challenging its assumptions, while using machines to accentuate the raw human qualities of live events that are unique to the moment. His work partakes equally of minimalism and the rhythmic experimentation of Nancarrow and his followers, as well as contemporary performance art, dance rhythm and sound processing techniques. Fried is also known for his invention The Musical Shoes, four ordinary shoes mounted upside-down on stands and plugged into electronics which are activated by striking the shoes. Fried's 1986 recording "Jimmy Because," with guest guitarist Fred Frith, was released by Atlantic Records. He is re-mix ...