These sculptures are made from paper printed with sheet music for Billy Preston's 1974 song Nothing from Nothing — the first song ever performed on Saturday Night Live. We fold this paper along concentric circles, and combine multiple such pieces into a woven Something from Nothing from Nothing.
These pieces were originally inspired by an invitation to create artwork about “nothing” in A Show About Nothing, curated by Michael Hosaluk, and exhibited at the Saskatchewan Craft Council's Affinity Art Gallery in July–September 2014. Earlier we participated in their conceptual show about the wedge.
Not only is the paper folded from sheet music, but the resulting sculpture is a musical instrument. In this music video, the Demaines stroke the sculptures in a variety of ways with paper straws from the same paper.
[0431] “Something from Nothing from Nothing” (2014), elephant hide paper, 9" × 10" × 9" high:
[0432] “Something from Nothing from Nothing II” (2014), elephant hide paper, 7" × 8" × 9" high:
[0433] “Something from Nothing from Nothing III” (2014), elephant hide paper, 11" × 11" × 13" high:
[H0404] “Music in a Bottle” (2018), Mi-Teintes paper and hand-blown glass, 5" × 6" × 12" high:
