Having never heard of Wajid Yaseen and Joel Cahem’s Scrap Club, the concept is direct and powerful. Inspired by Metzger’s destruction works, it reads on the website;

‘The bottom line is that audience members are direct participants and are given sledgehammers, crowbars, bats and pipes to destroy various household objects such as TVs, washing machines, cookers, computers, musical instruments, office furniture and the occasional car in safely controlled zone. All the objects are sourced from a wide variety of locations, and everything is scrap. All of it is sent to a recycling plant once dealt with at Scrapclub. Safety is paramount so participants are provided with professional PPE equipment such as goggles, helmets and gloves (professional first-aiders are always on-site). Names are chosen randomly, 10 people at a time get 10 minutes in the ‘scrap pit’ and everybody gets a turn.’

To the unknowing spectator bashing a metal bin repeatedly may seem rather strange, how can this be art? That is the interesting part, Auto-Destructive art flips our perception of art on its head. The art is the act, rather than the act producing art. This is something I wish to explore further in later work.

As a key theme in my assignment, I wish to approach my destruction in the same vain as the Scrapclub. Originally my intentions were to destroy and tamper with musical equipment but proving costly and impractical I have decided upon whatever I can find; records, glass bottles, broken speakers and an old window. I will individually destroy these objects, recording the act on my H4N recorder and Shotgun mic in order to focus on the sounds of destruction.

There is something very ritualistic about communal destruction in relation to the scrap club. The beating of scrap with sledgehammers is similar to the continuous beat found in most African rituals accompanied by encouraging screams and shouts from spectators. I can imagine it takes a while for people to get the confidence to ‘let everything’ go and just break something. The sonics of the scrap club give strength to maybe the more cautious partaker.