PLAY SOMETHING ELSE COWBOY was an interactive artwork and program situated as a cowboy themed cocktail bar that interconnects professional dialogue, personal narrative and recreational pastimes. The installation included a physical bar, telephone, backdrop and plants, with live in-person conversation over drinks.
As an artwork, the bar acted as a locus object and site for participation, as a meeting place. It was also a program of conversations over cocktails that facilitated a generative dialogue between peers.
Play Something Else Cowboy was conceptually positioned within the artist’s practice to investigate sonic agency and social practice as forms of resistance and exchange. Developed as an unorthodox form of exhibiting visual and conceptual ideas, the work invoked a party as an inviting space of both relief and critical reflection.
Originally built during Sydney’s lockdown in 2020, the program began with an intensive week-long schedule of national and international phone calls. When the world opened, it continued on Friday nights with in-person conversations between four participants including hosts Joe and Chanelle.
Ending early 2023, more than 100 contemporaries participated in conversation at the bar over the 2 years. This included take-overs by curatorial program TwentyOne (2021) and Plato’s Cave, by artist and writer, Peter Hill (2021); and off-site iterations at the Vermont Studio Centre (2022) and The Renshaw’s Gallery Christmas Party (2022).
No recordings or broadcasts were made of participant’s voices in order to preserve the free exchange of conversation, all that remains is quotes written on paper or glass. Accompanying Play Something Else Cowboy is an ongoing series of cocktail glasses engraved with unattributed quotes from guests.
