Nighthawk

1972-76, videotape, 4 channel tape, slides, and live performer.

Solo opera, 3 ½ hours.

part 1 - live reader and 2 slide projectors;
part 2 - 4 channel tape and 1 slide projector;
part 3 - colour videotape and stereo soundtrack.

Burt describes part 3 of Nighthawk as “a four level video mix in hard key colourized on an EMS Spectre Video Synthesizer … accompanied by a 4 level audio mix. Each level of the video mix has a corresponding level of the audio mix but they are not in synchronization, and indeed sometimes only suggest each other.”1
The base image is made up from a series of newspaper hoardings.

Performed: UCSD 1975

• (pt. 1 - staging by Ned Sublette) University of California, Santa Cruz 1974.

• (pt. 1 - staging by William Brooks) La Trobe Uni. Music Rostrum Festival 1976.
• Sydney Opera House (Bill Fontana's Sunday afternoon series) 1976.
• Adelaide University.
• San Diego State University.
• University of Illinois, Urbana.
• Oberlin Conservatorium.
• Experimental Intermedia Foundation, NYC.
• University of New Mexico, Albuquerque.
• State Uni. of NY, Albany.
• California Institute of the Arts, Los Angeles, 1977.
• (part 3) Plug In & Switch On, NGV, 1978.
• (part 3) La Trobe Uni. 1978.
• (part 2) La Trobe Uni. 1981
• Part 1 published by Lingua Press, Iowa City, 1976

1Warren Burt, Interviewed by Robert Randall and Frank Bendinelli, Access Video, vol.4, No.4, (Spring 1978), 19-21.