Friday, August 8, 2008

coming attractions

You'll notice a new link on the roll to your right. Jeff is an asskicking photographer and there are plenty of strange/beautiful things to look at on his site. Jeff and I are collaborating on an upcoming show called CORROSION, which will premiere @ 1617 Main St., KCMO (2nd floor, above Nara), Friday September 5th, 6 pm.

I attended one of Jeff's shows a while back at a loft at 18th & Troost. A friend of his contributed some very interesting ambient music as a backdrop, which I thought complemented his artwork very well. That gave me an idea: why not try to create a single piece of music that would not repeat at all during the entire time the gallery was open? I bounced the idea off of Jeff, who loved it. We started talking about this in fall of 07 sometime, so this has been in the works for a long time. It's evolved considerably since then; the amount of stuff we've decided not to do is pretty huge....

The audio and images will have some themes in common (in particular processes of decay and urban blight), but the material in each will be independent. However, due to an effect called pareidolia, since the work is very abstract, each and every viewer/listener will interpret what they experience uniquely. If you are looking at the picture of the semi-destroyed pianos while the music is chaotic and percussive, you will make sense of it one way; if you are looking at the same picture while the music is tranquil and drony, you will understand it in another way.

The very abstract/experimental nature of both the music and photography will encourage this effect, and hopefully the extreme length and open form of the music will make it impossible for anyone to experience the same combination of music and art. Also, the speakers being scattered around the room means that the "sound" of the room will fluctuate unpredictably depending on where you are in the room and how many other people there are, whether they're talking, etc. Since there will be no one "correct" way of experiencing the show, one is left only with their five senses as guide.

I am getting very close to completing the work; running time is going to be just slightly over four hours (looks like it'll be about 4:03, but I'm not quite done yet....), which has presented some interesting technical challenges in creating, storing, manipulating, and compiling the whole thing. Most of it is texture and drones; one sound drifts into another, usually without clearly delineated boundaries (although there are several abrupt transitions and surprises scattered throughout).

You can view what Jeff will be displaying in the "glassworks" gallery on his page. I'll have some mp3 previews up shortly (once I can figure out what the hell to excerpt!).

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