From: Thomas Beard (email suppressed)
Date: Fri Nov 13 2009 - 06:21:36 PST
Untitled Performances
Emma Hart and Benedict Drew
Performa 09 at Light Industry
220 36th Street, 5th Floor
Brooklyn, New York
Tuesday, November 17, 2009 at 7:30pm
http://www.lightindustry.org
Light Industry is proud to present Emma Hart and Benedict Drew in their
first collaborative performance in New York. Juxtaposing and transforming
the mechanics of 16mm film, video and sound, Drew and Hart will present
Untitled 1. (2005), Untitled 2. (2006), Untitled 6. (2009) and other
selected works.
³The collaborative work of Emma Hart (born London, 1974, lives in London)
and Benedict Drew (born Kyneton, Australia, 1977, lives in London) returns
cinematic experience to its constituent elements of image and sound.
Exposing the interdependency of these two elements within a live setting,
Hart and Drew orchestrate events informed by their respective expertise.
Although both of the artists actively pursue their personal practices‹Drew's
background of musical composition and experimental sound, and Hart's
interrogation of the still and moving image‹the pair collaborate without
hierarchy or specific roles.
³Working together since 2005, the artists' have produced four collaborative
performance works to-date: Untitled 1. (2005) through to Untitled 4. (2008).
With nods to the history of 'expanded cinema' and artists' film (both
Richard Serra's Hand Catching Lead, 1968, and David Lamelas' 1960s and 70s
films are echoed in their practice), Hart and Drew transform the 'black box'
space into a notably mechanical and sculptural environment. All of the
performances take the destabilisation of the moving image as their start and
end point. In Untitled 1., for example, loose white washing powder lies in
the cone of a speaker. The sound of the live projector fan plays through the
speaker and the powder is moved in time to the audio. This movement is
captured on camera and simultaneously projected. This technical process
produces an image which is at once hypnotic and epic, while also challenging
the usual precedence of cinematic visuals over scored sound.
³This Mobius-strip approach applies increasingly to the artists'
collaboration itself, and is visibly intensified in their subsequent work,
Untitled 2. (2006). One artist loops clear and black 16mm film leader
between a film projector while the other, illuminated in the beam of the
projector, extends the same ribbon through the strings of an electric
guitar. In an abrasive performance, the guitar is dramatically recast as a
mechanical extension of the filmic apparatus. The film strip is drawn across
the metal guitar strings like a violin bow, as the projector simultaneously
produces a flashing beam. The performance appears as if in a zoetrope or
filmic countdown, to the soundtrack of a relentless score. The event becomes
a test of endurance as well as a precarious endeavor: a willful
misappropriation of tools to the point of their physical destruction, ending
with the final snap of the film reel.² ‹ ICA, London
About Performa 09
Performa 09, the third edition of the internationally acclaimed biennial of
new visual art performance presented by Performa, will be held in New York
City from November 122, 2009. The three-week festival will showcase new
work by more than 80 of the most exciting artists working today, in an
innovative program breaking down the boundaries between visual art, music,
dance, poetry, fashion, architecture, graphic design, and the culinary arts.
Presented in collaboration with a consortium of more than 60 arts
institutions and 25 curators, as well as a network of public spaces and
private venues across the city, Performa 09 will ignite New York City with
energy and ideas, acting as a vital ³think tank² linking minds across the
five boroughs and bringing audiences together for brilliant new performances
in all disciplines.
Performa is a non-profit multidisciplinary arts organization established by
RoseLee Goldberg in 2004, dedicated to exploring the critical role of live
performance in the history of twentieth century art and to encouraging new
directions in performance for the twenty-first century. Performa launched
New York¹s first performance biennial, Performa 05, in 2005, followed by
Performa 07 in 2007. www.performa-arts.org
Tickets - $7, available at door.
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For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.