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Event
Image Haze: A Tribute to Gretchen Benders So Much Deathless with Black Rain & Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith
On the occasion of Gretchen Bender: So Much Deathless, Red Bull Arts New York and ISSUE Project Room co-present Image Haze: A Tribute to Gretchen Benders So Much Deathless. Held on Saturday, May 18th, the two live audio-visual performances have been organized in response to Benders unfinished work of media theater, which was to be entitled So Much Deathless. In writing on Benders earlier Total Recall (1987), the critic Jonathan Crary compared her electrifying performance to the narcotic image haze of 80s television, stating that Bender outlines survival tactics for artists to maintain a mobile position at the boundaries of mass culture. These performances follow in Benders footsteps, and continue to sketch survival tactics for our evolving media and cultural landscape. This co-presentation is a special event with limited seating and free tickets available for ISSUE Members.
The evening begins with a performance by Benders frequent collaborator Stuart Argabright and his post-industrial band Black Rain, set against a mesmerizing new video score by contemporary artist Philip Vanderhyden. The second act features an interactive performance by electronic musician Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, who presents her most recent album, Tides: Music for Meditation and Yoga, as a guided meditation. In collaboration with video artist Sean Hellfritsch, Smiths performance is set within a newly commissioned light therapy/video installation.
Argabright and Vanderhyden were introduced in 2012 while Vanderhyden was curating the exhibition Gretchen Bender: Tracking the Thrill, which toured from The Poor Farm (Manawa, WI) to The Kitchen (New York, NY). Their collaboration began with Argabright supplying sound for Vanderhydens multi-channel video installations, and has since expanded to feature the work of Argabright and Soren Rois band Black Rain. For this performance, Vanderhyden provides intricate computer graphic visuals as a complement to the bands atmospheric techno-futurist soundscapes.
The performance will be their most ambitious collaboration to date, with Black Rain debuting new music set to an immersive installation created by Vanderhyden specifically for ISSUEs distinctive architecture. Black Rains sci-fi meta-music becomes a programmed and improvised response to Vanderhydens videos, which draw together parallel themes of financial anxiety, developmental psychology, virtual reality and sexual gratification into a dreamy tableau.
This will be followed by a performance of Smiths atmospheric recent album, composed of field recordings and ethereal sounds made using a Buchla Music Easel synthesizer, a rare analog instrument first produced in 1973 that generates her musics uniquely breathless swells and climaxes. Smiths performance will be accompanied by a site-specific video and light installation created by Hellfritsch, with whom she has frequently collaborated. Creating iconic, other-wordly music videos for musicians such as Björk and Grizzly Bear, the artists visuals will become a space for contemplation and reflection.
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LocationISSUE Project Room (View)
22 Boerum Place
Brooklyn, NY 11201
United States
Categories
| Kid Friendly: Yes! |
| Dog Friendly: No |
| Non-Smoking: Yes! |
| Wheelchair Accessible: Yes! |
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