Head Crushing Machine was a sound based project first imagined by artist Bob Dorsey within the studio walls of titanic anatomy, inc on the 2nd Floor of the Bering Cigars/Corral Wodiska building in Ybor City. It was 1990. The very first sounds were created for Joe Griffith and Brian Taylor, who had a sculptural exhibition called Dander Rain in 1994. Using a Tascam cassette recorder and various other cassette players, Bob began building experimental soundscapes in an effort to duplicate the sculptural processes that he witnessed his studio mates Joe and Brian using for their sculptures. A 45 minute composition was broadcast at the show’s opening from a boom box. The recording was on both sides of a 45 minute cassette the played the second side as the first side ended. 1990’s technology at it’s best. As more artists proposed exhibitions and performances, more accompanied soundtracks were created.

There have been several collaborations with performance artist AA Rucci. Rucci’s Pogo Performance was a memorable one, with 4 performers jumping on pogo sticks on a very large room sized canvas. There were assorted paint trays along the edges of the canvas. The performers would pogo into a paint tray and hop all over the canvas leaving circular marks on the canvas. The 20 minute soundtrack played while the performers eventually slipped and fell to the ground and began wrestling with each other, creating an unexpected work of art.

Skins was a group show in 1996 that included some local fashion designers and artists that created a Catwalk Runway that the models walked up and down. The show was when titanic anatomy, inc moved to the Kress Building on Cass Street in downtown Tampa. Several tracks were created for the artists in the show. Tom Kenney, Joe Griffith, Brian Taylor and Joe Morris, to name a few. There was a soundtrack created for Brian Taylor’s Composite Heads exhibition in 1996.

While still at the Cass Street location, for the first time ever, I created a soundtrack for my own installation of paintings, prints and drawings called One Armed Man/One Man Army.

Image Brewery hosted AA Rucci in 1998 where he and his company of performers performed to his works Gum Bum and More Cry Than Wool.

Brian Taylor’s Thumb Fetish project has yet to be exhibited, but the soundtrack exists.

These were the humble beginnings of a 3 decade commitment to sound design. These were all composed and broadcast on a tape cassette.

In 2004, Apple released GarageBand software.

More soundscapes were created for Experimental Skeleton projects, including Rediva, The exhibition was first shown at Locust Projects in Miami July/August 2007, then at Flight 19 in Tampa in 2008 and most recently at the Paul Robeson Galleries, Rutgers University, NJ in 2011. Sounds were created for Joe Griffith, Kym O’Donnell and Bob Dorsey’s sculptures.

Joe Griffith’s Box Full of Autumns exhibition had a soundtrack created with PropellerHead’s Reason software.

After moving to New Mexico in 2016, Head Crushing Machine projects began to be inspired by the paintings of the fabulous artist Katy Hernandez Dorsey. One particular project included ongoing discussions of Quantum Entanglement, led by local geniuses Jon Herr and Dan Green. One night, while we were having a social event in Katy’s studio, Jon stood up and explained how her recent painting, a diptych, perfectly illustrated Quantum Entanglement. Inspired by the work and the conversation, I created an album of 6 tracks based on the paintings. Disappear/Reappear.

We’ve continued to collaborate on projects such as our first performance video and soundtrack called Burial.

I woke up one morning and said to myself, “I want to make a giant papier-mâché head”. Without hesitation, I gathered newspaper, flour, water, chicken wire and a beer keg and got to work creating a large scale version of my own large scale head. Why? I envisioned a mask to wear for a musical performance. From that moment forward, Head Crushing Machine evolved into a performance based project. In 2021 Silver Bar Studios hosted the very first Head Crushing Machine musical performance. Hondo Wolf Dorsey sported a head with a Fez by his own design.