Meet Me At the Woodshop

Suoni Per Il Popolo Festival, Montreal Quebec Canada 2023

Four channel radio transmission, Four day durational performance/ Installation, videos.

Building on their most recent collaboration, Gambletron and Johnny Forever’s newest work Meet Me At The Woodshop explores the erotics of labour and the relationship between the body and its immediate built environment. Sourcing materials, imagery, and sound from their experience in construction, Gambletron and Forever work queer fantasy into the world of quick and dirty home renovation.

The work is an installation activated by several scheduled performances. Gambletron’s rumbling house-influenced beats, roughly hewn from a collection of synths and homemade electronics are layered over tones produced via electric musical saw. This sound comes through heavy-duty jobsite radios via multichannel transmission. Meanwhile, Johnny Forever transforms typical home improvement labour into chaotic, precariously executed queer burlesque.

As a queer couple who have spent many years on nightlife scenes and construction sites, the artists are allowing themselves space to flirt with the image of a babely nonbinary handiperson just doing their job while bringing their usual absurdist experiments with technical failure and material decay into the play space/work site.