Important new media artists and “software jockeys” DJ Spooky, 242.pilots, Golan Levin, Art Jones, and Greg Hermanovic will combine live performance with digital audio and video processing in “The Computed Moving Image in Live Performance,&#
The computer’s versatility as a real-time media processing system, as well as the emergence of the “VJ” (or video jockey), has made possible new creative forms characterized by the performance of moving images with audio.
The American Museum of the Moving Image will explore this new art form in “The Computed Moving Image in Live Performance,” comprised of three special events in May. The award-winning international video-art ensemble 242.pilots will perform a live improvisational concert on Thursday, May 8; artists and software engineers Greg Hermanovic, Art Jones, and Golan Levin will demonstrate and discuss real-time audio and visuals as performance and the software that makes it possible on Thursday, May 15; and DJ Spooky will present his provocative work-in-progress, “Rebirth of a Nation,” a radical remix of D.W. Griffith’s landmark film “Birth of a Nation” on Thursday, May 29.
The performances and demonstrations function as an engaging primer on audio-visual media performance, its history, and its future directions.
The events are part of <Alt>Thursdays, an ongoing series of artist talks and performances, presented in conjunction with <Alt>DigitalMedia, the museum’s highly acclaimed gallery space focused on creative, probing, and playful explorations of the digital moving image and software-based art.
Schedule
Thursday, May 8
7:30 p.m.
242.pilots Performance
The three artists who comprise 242.pilots, HC Gilje (Norway), Kurt Ralske (U.S.), and Lukasz Kysakowski (Poland), use laptops and custom-made software in live performances to dynamically generate video and sound. Their performance will be structured as a series of solos followed by the group working collaboratively with a guest musician, much like a jazz ensemble, to create a layered image and soundscape. The resulting composition evolves through creative exchange and non-verbal communication. Described by The New York Times as “an intriguing, compelling alliance of sound and motion,” the group’s current DVD project, “242.pilots Live in Bruxelles,” won the 2003 Image Award at Berlin’s Transmediale festival.
This event is cosponsored by Harvestworks Digital Media Arts Center. Tickets ($12 public / $8 members) can be purchased in advance by calling the museum at 718-784-4520.
Thursday, May 15
7:30 p.m.
Talks and Demonstrations: Moving Image Performed with Software
Through discussing their own work, artists and programmers Greg Hermanovic, Art Jones, and Golan Levin will provide an overview of audio-visual performance systems, its history, and future.
Hermanovic, co-founder of Derivative, Inc, will demonstrate Touch, a new real-time 3D graphics performance tool based on his Academy Award-winning digital compositing software, Houdini.
Levin will present an illustrated history of real-time moving image performance. His piece, “Floccus,” is featured in <Alt>DigitalMedia and he recently orchestrated “Dialtones: A Telesymphony,” a concert performance comprised solely of the carefully choreographed ringing of the audience’s cell phones. Art Jones will present a mini-lecture on “The Fine Art of VJ-ing,” with audio-visual accompaniment. His work often concerns the inter-relationships between popular music, visual culture, history, and power. Tickets ($10 public / Free for members) can be purchased in advance by calling the museum at 718-784-4520.
Thursday, May 29
7:30 p.m.
DJ Spooky Performance, “Rebirth of a Nation,” followed by a discussion
A special work-in-progress performance, “Rebirth of a Nation,” by conceptual artist, musician, and writer Paul Miller, otherwise known as DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid, “remixes” D.W. Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation,” the controversial historical epic that established the rules of narrative filmmaking while portraying the Ku Klux Klan as the saviors of the Civil War. In Miller’s hands, the film is transformed into a meditation on how “myths migrate through the culture’s operating system.” Miller said. “Remixing this influential film the way a DJ would change a pop tune, I am trying to uncover the blueprints of the future we now inhabit.” Miller’s work employs a wide variety of digitally created music and multi-media to create a form of post-modern sculpture in the tradition of composers such as John Cage and Afrika Bambaata. He has collaborated with a wide variety of pre-eminent musicians and composers such as Ryuichi Sakamoto, Killa Priest of Wu-Tang Clan, Yoko Ono, and Thurston Moore from Sonic Youth amongst others. This one-hour performance will be followed by a discussion with the artist. Tickets ($15 public / $10 members) can be purchased in advance by calling the museum at 718-784-4520.
MUSEUM INFORMATION:
Gallery Hours: Tuesday through Friday, noon-5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Group tours by appointment, Tuesday through Friday, 9:30 a.m.-5 p.m.
Location: 35 Avenue at 36 Street in Astoria.
Subway: R or V trains (weekends, R or G) to Steinway Street. N or W train to 36 Avenue.
Program Information: Telephone: 718-784-0077; Web site: www.movingimage.us.
