Australian musician and media artist Peter Blamey is standing very still in front of an upright unshaded electric lamp (Figure 6.1). He holds two solar panels alongside the bright light. Blamey is almost completely motionless, but on close inspection he is moving the panels ever so slightly, and as he does, the sounds being emitted from a speaker change in unison. It is hard to see what he is doing, as the light is very bright and his movements are slight. The audio itself is a slowly oscillating drone being produced by an electric guitar that has been modified from the regular performance style expected from a guitar. Two eBows have been placed on its strings. These devices use electromagnetism to excite the metal guitar string, causing a tone to be emitted without the signature guitar sounds associated with the attack and decay of the pluck of a string. The twist, as it were, is that the two eBows are being powered by the solar panels that are held in Blamey’s hands. The proximity of the panels to the light causes varying amplitudes of power to be sent to run the eBow and thus causes the shifts in volume heard from the speaker connected to the guitar.

Double Partial Eclipse (2014), as described above, is a critique of the narratives of good and bad energy, as the eBows are solar powered by an electric light that is itself powered by mains electricity—and in Australia, that is electricity is likely produced by coal power. The performance of the instrument does not conform to expectations of performativity. The instrument itself is constructed from an amalgamation of technologies (a constant in the media art practices of Blamey) and, as his performance, cannot be judged along traditional parameters of perfection in instrument construction. The performance raises numerous questions, not least of which is:“what is this performance and why is the artist employing this array of discrepant technologies towards a performance?” Some might even question its validity as a musical performance.