In Hairy Banjo, Healy continues her exploration of the body as a machine. Part performance, part installation Healy uses her own body hair to make live musical instruments. The hair attached to the artist’s head is stretched to make strings that are amplified using contact microphones and speakers. The audience can attempt to strum the hair and make music out of it. With the equipment supplied, music can then be archived by making an audio tape of the performance. In My Hairy Banjo, the only knowledge the audience has of the artist’s mental state is from a video camera/computer setup that is programmed (via Max/MSP) to show only a glimpse of her face whenever a hair is plucked. In these performances Healy is static, incapacitated by my costume and reduced to a playful object or automaton to be used by the audience.

About the artist

Joan Healy is an artist and independent curator. Her work combines live and performance art, sculpture and paining. As a she currently co-organises Livestock, a bimonthly Live art night that acts as an open platform for experimental live performance at the Market Studios, Dublin. Her work has been exhibited across Europe and the US (Transnatural, Amsterdam; Bergen Kunsthall, Norway; STRP art and technology festival, Eindhoven and Shunt, London). UK and featured in various publications (Irish Independent, the RTE news, the Metro Herald, Kunstbeeld magazine, Make magazine and Neural magazine).