SOUND & LIGHT ENTERTAINMENT
In 1987, Tim Gruchy left Zip Troupe and began working on Clout collaborating with other Brisbane artists and performers Mark Loutitt, Eugene Carchesio and Ginny Barratt on the performance of Fine Fragments. "The initial idea came one night when I was in Adelaide with Zip Troupe. I was messing around with the projectors when I stumbled on the techniques combining visual art, music, dance and theatre, it's more to do with ways of seeing, tricks of perception than with specific themes”.
In the early ‘80s, Tim studied experimental music and recording techniques at the University of Queensland Music Department. His techniques using hand-made slides got a very good reaction. In 1981, he showed at the George Paton Galleries In Melbourne. He has been developing the technique ever since.
Tim Gruchy was one of several Brisbane artists who developed the experimental audio-visual-music packages Zip Start, Zip Too and Zip Three. Then In 1984, Mark Ross invited Tim to participate in his sequence of Ironing Board Dances. And so the performance group Zip Troupe was established. "From the beginning of working with Mark, our intention was to merge dance and visuals. The first attempt was at La Bamba with Belltower on the Night of the Ultra Violent Sophisticated Boom Booms”. After an excellent reception at the 1986 Adelaide Arts Festival, Tim left Zip Troupe to pursue his own projects, although he still intermittently works with Mark.
In 1986, Tim worked on a series of performances with Ginny Barratt and Michelle Andrlnga with Mark Loutitt engineering the music. "For one of the performances, Eugene Carchesio was invited along. It just clicked. We formed Clout.”.
Clout has already produced a cassette album, and... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline