Work samples
About Terence
Impiety
Terence Hannum: Vocals and Elektron Analog Keys
Recorded by Terence Hannum at Wainscot Caverns / Baltimore, MD
Mastered by Terence Hannum
Artwork by Daniel Castrejon
Released on cassette and digital by Umor Rex (Mexico)
Low Noise
Two of the members have passed away. The original vocalist drove his car as far ashe could into the Florida Everglades and walked out into that giant wetland never to be seen again. The original bass player died in a motorcycle accident five years ago. When I want to think about them I’ll put on those cassettes we made. Something in those sounds makes me embarrassed but also makes me ache. When I feel that incision I think of Roland Barthes’ idea of the punctum from his famous writing on photography, Camera Lucida. The punctum—that accident of the photographic detail that wounds us—can also apply to sound. Through this act of listening I can act as a necromancer. I can communicate with the dead when I listen to the sounds I made with my friends on this tape. That buried beneath the hiss and crackle are ghosts I have access to. This is precisely because it wounds me with its technical errors.
The desire for posterity is one of the many symptoms of grief, I am thankful I held on to those horrible cassettes because I can open that wound and peer inside. The cassette was my archive of these people and our shared memory—though the medium has grown somewhat obsolescent in the dominant music culture. I’ve had the opportunity to digitize them but doing that would erode that ritual of pressing play or the scent of ancient White Out I used to coat the tape shell and scrawl our band name on it. I would no longer have to handle the yellowing j-card. There’s something there to me that honors that time.
Obsolescence is important to me because it signifies a certain kind of death. This is a death that happens all of the time. When we get concerned with technology, one version destroys the past. One medium is better, more accurate, and another must fade away. Or be resuscitated from the brink. In my art I spend a lot of time destroying cassettes and reconfiguring their entrails into something new. I’ll collage the tape itself and adhere the tape and peel the mylar backing off to expose only the magnetic dust into a geometric mass of information. My hope is that it enhances a sense of the uncanny in its presentation of the media as a flat surface to gaze upon so we can reconsider informational time. In this reconsideration I tend to think it can draw into question the ways with which we archive, memorialize and mourn.-
Dead FadeAudio Cassette Tape, Leader Tape and Magnetic Cassette Tape Coating on Panel / 48" x 60" / 2016-2017
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Mirror FadeAudio Cassette Tape,Magnetic Cassette Tape Coating and Leader Tape on Panel / 24" x 36" /2016-2017
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GateAudio Cassette Tape, Magnetic Cassette Tape Coating and Leader Tape on Panel / 36" x 48" / 2016
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Gate "Detail"Audio Cassette Tape, Magnetic Cassette Tape Coating and Leader Tape on Panel / 36" x 48" / 2016
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DeteriorationAudio Cassette tape Coating and Leader tape on Panel / 24" diameter / 2015
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SlicerAudio Cassette Tape, Leader Tape and Magnetic Cassette Tape Coating on Panel /11"x14" / 2015
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SaturationCassette Tape and Leader Tape on Panel / 12" x 36" / 2014
Trihedrons
Obsolescence is important to me because it signifies a certain kind of death. This is a death that happens all of the time. When we get concerned with technology, one version destroys the past. One medium is better, more accurate, and another must fade away. Or be resuscitated from the brink. In my art I spend a lot of time destroying cassettes and reconfiguring their entrails into something new. I’ll collage the tape itself and adhere the tape and peel the mylar backing off to expose only the magnetic dust into a geometric mass of information. My hope is that it enhances a sense of the uncanny in its presentation of the media as a flat surface to gaze upon so we can reconsider informational time. In this reconsideration I tend to think it can draw into question the ways with which we archive, memorialize and mourn.
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Trihedron XVIIMagnetic Audio Cassette Tape Coating on Panel / 12" x12" / 2015
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Trihedron XVI (Detail)Magnetic Audio Cassette Tape Coating on Panel / 12" x12" / 2015
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Trihedron XVIMagnetic Audio Cassette Tape Coating on Panel / 12" x12" / 2015
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Trihedron XV (Detail)Magnetic Audio Cassette Tape Coating on Panel / 12" x12" / 2015
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Trihedron XVMagnetic Audio Cassette Tape Coating on Panel / 12" x12" / 2015
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Trihedron XVIIIMagnetic Audio Cassette Tape Coating on Panel / 12" x12" / 2015
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Trihedron XIIMagnetic Audio Cassette Tape Coating on Panel / 12" x12" / 2015
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Trihedron X (Detail)Magnetic Audio Cassette Tape Coating on Panel / 12" x12" / 2015
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Trihedron XMagnetic Audio Cassette Tape Coating on Panel / 12" x12" / 2015
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Trihedron 2014-2015Grouping Magnetic Cassette Tape Coating on Panel 12" x 12" Each 2015
No Echo
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Trihedron VIIIMagnetic Cassette Tape Coating on Panel 12" x 12" 2014 Inspired by Pierre Schaeffer's theory of the trihedron in modern composition: frequency, duration and intensity.
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Impedance II (Regulator)Magnetic Cassette Tape Coating on Panel 24" x 36" 2014
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Intro/Outro ILeader Tape and Audio Cassette Tape on Paper / 14" x 20" / 2014
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DiffractionCassette Tape, Leader Tape and Magnetic Cassette Tape Coating on Panel 36" x 48" 2014
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Decomposemagnetic cassette tape coating on panel 24" diameter 2014
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Impedance IVCassette Tape, Leader Tape and Magnetic Cassette Tape Coating on Panel 24" x 36" 2014
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SaturationCassette Tape and Leader Tape on Panel 12" x 36" 2014
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Impedance VMagnetic Cassette Tape Coating and Leader Tape on Panel / 24" x 36" / 2014
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Intro/Outro IILeader Tape and Audio Cassette Tape on Paper / 14" x 20" / 2014
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ClippedLeader Tape and Magnetic Cassette Tape Coating on Panel 34" x 48" 2014
Headcleaner
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SACassette Tape and Leader Tape on Paper 12" x 16" 2013
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HRCassette Tape and Leader Tape on Paper 12" x 16" 2013
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AzimuthCassette Tape and Leader Tape on Panel 12" x 16" 2013
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BiasCassette Tape and Leader Tape on Panel 24" x 36" 2013
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High DensityMagnetic Cassette Tape Coating on Paper 14" x 18" 2013
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EndlessCassette Tape and Leader Tape on Panel 18" x 24" 2013
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GammaMagnetic Cassette Tape Coating on Paper 7.5" x 9.75" 2013
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Crystal (Angle)Cassette Tape and Leader Tape on Panel 24" x 36" 2013
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Decay (Detail)Cassette Tape and Magnetic Cassette Tape Coating on Panel 16" x 20" 2013
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DecayCassette Tape and Magnetic Cassette Tape Coating on Panel 16" x 20" 2013
Veils
The Nature of Mirror
Without Music there is no Ritual
Without Ritual these is no Music
Any Move Towards the Profane, Is a Move Towards the Sacred
Where the Audience Becomes the Performers,
And the Performer the Audience
In every Void there is Plenum
In every Plenum a Void.
Acts of Deconsecration are written into every Consecration
The Mundane Contains every element of the Sublime
The Abject shall be Exalted.
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Veils (Installation)"Chiral Cult", 2012 gouache on paper (diptych) with mirror "Halo Study", 2012 xerox on paper "Halo Study X", 2012 xerox collage on paper "Halo Study VII", 2012 xerox collage on paper "Halo Study VIII", 2012 xerox collage
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Darkling VeilGouache on Paper 15" x 22"
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ReconditeGouache on Paper 15" x 22"
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Halo StudyXerox 8.5" x 11"
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Veils (Installation)LEFT TO RIGHT: "Sacred and Malefic", 2012 Xerox and woven paper collage "Corona", 2012 gouache on paper with mirrors "Empyrean", 2012 gouache on paper "Recondite", 2012 gouache on paper "Shadowing Shroud", 2012 gouache on paper
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AbnegationGouache on Paper 22" x 30"
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Halo StudyCollage on Velvet 8" x 10"
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Veils (Installation)Crown of Immortality Gouache on Paper and Mirror 22" x 30" (each)
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EmpyreanGouache on Paper 22" x 30"