Instrumental Transformations

"Ken Butler's is an artist and musician whose hybrid musical instruments, collage drawings, performances, and installations explore the interaction and transformation of common objects, altered images, sounds and silence."

He more or less explains: "My hybrid musical instrument sculptures, collage/drawings, performances, and audio-visual installations explore the interaction and transformation of objects, sounds, and altered images as function and form collide in the intersection of art and music. A spirit of re-invention and hyper-utility attempts to reveal hidden meanings and associations, momentarily creating a striking and re-animated cultural identity for common objects."

Talking about his "Lost and Sound" sculptures, he says: "Found object/instrument forms combine with arrangements of hardware and machine parts to create a reliquary of silent sound shapes that reflect this transition and pay homage to Cubist still life. The iconic, symbolic, and ergonomic guitar/violin/cello/bass body, a mainstay of musical/visual form and function for hundreds of years, is now being replaced with the inevitable playback device/black box as sound samples replicate the physical vibrating object. A spirit of re-invention and hyper-utility attempts to reveal the hidden meanings and associations of common objects, momentarily creating a striking and re-animated cultural identity."

Don't you kinda wish you could talk like that? For me, his work says it better. It says that the things other people throw away are the very stuff of inspiration; that people with an eye for "good junk" are artists in their own right, seeing beyond labels and limits, renewing the world, having fun creating fun.