Charmaine Wheatley and Taketo Shimada - chachacharmaine.com - chachacharmaine take to charmaine

tape 1 "SPINS" [0:00.00-0:03.16]
Ms. Wheatley's namesake: CHARMAINE, comes from the title of a song "CHARMAINE" - her father's favorite song. The song is a standard show tune from the 1920's. Over the years it has been covered by a diverse group of musicians and composers. Using this song as a starting point, Performance Artist, Charmaine Wheatley and DJ / Sound Artist, Taketo Shimada have developed a performance based collaborative project. Ms. Wheatley sings and dances in a custom made provocative costume while Shimada collects, DJs and composes. The artists play with seduction, mystery, fantasy and threat and their audience participates. "SPINS" involves Wheatley dancing round with audience in the dark wearing glow in the dark see-through bikini with big swinging fish hooks while Shimada cuts and mixes various versions of the song "CHARMAINE" on turntables. The darkness, costume, activity, and music calls into question one's own perceived social taboos an appropriate behaviors for public and private. This video chronicles a selections of "CHARMAINE" record spins accompanied by Ms. Whittles dance spins. Each time the "SPINS" is performed, the tape is updated with the last session's spins and dated. The video is a growing collection of spins performed.

tape 2 "Serving Moonpies" [0:00.00-0:05.09]
Wearing a fresh white paper dress with clear plastic bustle, Ms. Wheatley serves crowds of people "moonpies" while Shimada set the mood of eating by muzak like "CHARMAINE". Fresh and residual "moonpies" remain for the rest of the exhibition. Each taste of chocolate documents the collapsed space between Ms. Whittles anus, pussy, buttcrack, and it's goosebumps, and a collection of participating audience member's lips, teeth, tongue, and fingers.

STATEMENT
Charmaine Wheatley and Taketo Shimada have been working together to build and demonstrate the personality of CHARMAINE using performance and functional sculptures. CHARMAINE projects makes direct reference to Fantasy, Gift giving, Sound Art, Contemporary Feminist dialogue and Pop culture. Investigating such issues as Intimacy and sexual tensions.
Functional sculpturess include: Gameboy cartridge, "CHARMAINE SAVES THE WORLD"; Cellphone software; T-shirt/ cantaloupe works. Once these objects leave our studios, they live on thru wearing, copying, playing and sprouting.

SPINS
Ms. Wheatley's namesake: CHARMAINE, comes from the title of a song "CHARMAINE" - her father's favorite song. The song is a standard show tune from the 1920's. Over the years it has been covered by a diverse group of musicians and composers such as Michael Legrand, Mantovani, Dorothy Ashby, Bil Henderson, Frank Sinatra, Julia Lee & her boyfriends, etc. Using this song as a starting point, Performance Artist, Charmaine Wheatley and DJ / Sound Artist, Taketo Shimada have developed a performance based collaborative project. Ms. Wheatley sings and dances in a custom made provocative costume while Shimada collects, DJs and composes.
The artists play with seduction, mystery, fantasy and threat and their audience participates in their game. "SPINS" involves Wheatley dancing round with audience in the dark wearing a glow in the dark see-through bikini with big swinging fish hooks while Shimada cuts and mixes various versions of the song "CHARMAINE" on turntables. When audience dances with Ms.Wheatley, darkness, costume, activity, and music calls into question the audience's abilty to notice one's own perceived social taboos and question appropriate behaviors in public and private.

BIKINi
Glow in the dark trim; clear plastic; fish hooks & fishing lines. Medium size Ms. Wheatley wears this outfit when we perform "SPINS"
mermaid, siren, hooker, hooking, hooked, tension push/pull, between seduction & threat, clothed but naked

Charmaine sings Charmaine
Ms. Wheatley sings Charmaine in various styles: softly with guitar, or piano, spoken free style hiphop track, etc etc over various tracks produced and played by Shimada. "Charmaine sings CHARMAINE" has often been performed right before our "SPINS" performance.

serving moonpies Performance
Within our "CHARMAINE" performance we have several options (please visit our website http://chachacharmaine.com for more detail). "serving moonpies" is one of them. "moonpie" the object is an accurate copies of the space between Ms. Wheatley's bum cheeks. Solid chocolate casts, the sculptures are crescent in shape resembling a quarter moon and measures 7"x3"x4" and weighs approximately 1.5 lbs. The initial casts were made by Ms. Wheatley in 1999. When used in performance, Ms. Wheatley wears a White paper formal gown with a clear bustle and she serves moonpies to the audience. The residual moonpies are kept as records of the interaction between the Ms. Wheatley and participating audience members. It usually performed after the song performance.

Wearing a fresh white paper dress with clear plastic bustle, Ms. Wheatley serves crowds of people "moonpies".
tyvek paper
clear plastic bustle and train
Medium size

Limited Edition CD (edition of 40) 2002
CHARMAINE Guitar (Edition of 20), CHARMAINE Piano (Edition of 20)
Shimada produced 2 new arrangements of "Charmaine":
Piano: piano with roland CR78 induced waltz beat Guitar: bossanova arrangement with solo guitar
Both version with vocals by Ms. Wheatley and she made drawings on each of the CDs using nail polish and markers.

SPINS Video
Each time SPINS is performed, the video grows longer with more spins. The later the date on the video, the more valuable the videotape. Comes in GOLD case with GOLD CHARMAINE logo.
VHS Video 3 min 16 sec (as of 9/30/02)

CANTALOUPE KIT
We eat a cantaloupe and save the seeds. We plant a seed by using an index finger to push it about an inch beneath the earth's surface. A little wooden CHARMAINE seed marker flags the planting. The remaining seeds are packaged in pairs, accompanied by a seed marker, ready for distribution. Our objective is to spread cantaloupe seeds worldwide. We encourage digital snap shot of Cantaloupe plants from the people who received our cantaloupe kit.

Gameboy & Cartridge Charmaine Saves the World! >
Hacked Gameboy cartridge, reverse engineered by Shimada. The original "The Little Mermaid". Gameboy Cartridge ROM (Read Only Memory) has been flashed into PC and the original code has been rewritten, so that the Characters and graphics in the game can be changed. Once the coding has been recompiled, it gets burned back onto a Gameboy cartridge. It plays on Gameboy console just like any other Gameboy games.

Game Story
Saturday morning breakfast (8/24/02)
Taketo Shimada goes for the New York Times & blueberry muffins from Bonsigneur Cafe, on Jane Street in the West Village. Charmaine Wheatley boils eggs&water for green tea. Upon feeding Sparkly blood worms, she telepathically receives a red alert message: ENEMIES GAINING POWER, DOOM FOR ALL HUMANOIDS! MISSION OBJECTIVE: SAVE THE WORLD FROM PRIDE, GLUTTONY, GREED, IGNORANCE..

Amythewhore; with evil whacked out junkie eyes keeps her legs spread eagle; iamDennis&iamDavid impose misplaced self important pride on cute girls; Martyıs super long & slobbery tongue, poised for deepthroating opportunities; Witch Glasheena, frequent eruptions of $$$ assaults, promoting late-capitalism fever, Judge Jayne hurls misguided dogma.

Shimada returns. Ms.Wheatley explains the urgency of the situation. Shimada gallantly offers to help. Ms.Wheatley declines: "Itıs too dangerous! Just stay put & read your sports section." Before he could protest, she was gone.
Ms.Wheatley dove into the East River, the waves licked her legs transforming her into CHARMAINE the super mermaid Š

mini Software for Cell Phone >
Mini software consists of a ring tone and an animation sequence that activates when a call comes in. Ring tone is a loop of Charmaine song melody rearranged into FM synthesis of cell phone ringer. When the phone is inactive, pixel Charmaine on the screen is taking a nap, but once the call comes in, she opens her eyes wide, and starts spinning with joy to the ring tone.
Also, to a lucky few who purchased this software and registered the cell phone number to Charmaine Database, they will receive gentle suggestions from us everyday for a week.

love triangle
Heart with holes
SIZE: approximately 10mmx10mmx2mm

Little bit of sweet nothingness...sentiment like a wisp of air...gesture of love or appreciation for special friends, family, and true loves & lovers ...hole of the heart strung up on a red thread chain... made with love amidst love...a souvenir of love...an attempt to make love last...sustain it...make tangible a nothingness...thingless but still a more felt thing than air.
the necklace is so light and frail it invariably gets lost. you can't hold onto it. this is a good symbol though because the notion of love always slips away when held onto. it is an accurate visual reflection of the exchange of love.

Gameboy Cartridge Blinking Heart

Shimada's responded to Ms. Wheatley's Heart with hole and holey heart. Touched by the sweetness, Shimada attempted to return the gesture with another heart in kind. When inserted in a Gameboy, a teeny tiny heart begins to blink or wink, repeating its motion, like your heart racing, faster, and faster. The program chip is encased in transparent Cartridge with purplish tint.
Edition of 2

from these 2 pieces come Love Triangle
(rough note on Love Triangle based on CW & TS phone conversation, morning of 10/14, monday)
Spectators experience Heart w/ Hole and Blinking Heart and put these two together in their heart. S/he will receive our heart into their heart. The heart of the viewer is where Heart w/ hole and Blinking Heart come together. Without it, they stand alone on a corner, waiting. The piece cannot be completed without the participation of the spectatorship.