AV Performance

Darkness is to space as silence is to sound

2018, 16 minutes, three-channel live performance

Sourced FM transmissions from around the earth and their landscapes as viewed by satellite. The fragments are heavily cross-pollinated to produce an omnipresent survey of our relentlessly witnessed world.

This digital (output capture) documentation was recorded live from a three-screen performance at the Music Gallery, Toronto, Canada, 2018. Composed especially for Bear Witness's curated program of X Avant XIII.

strict JAWA cutting

A Line Has Two Sides

2017, 18 minutes, three-channel live performance

Using glitches harvested from an Atari 2600 game console, a triptych audiovisual spectacle is performed in real-time. By triggering hundreds of clips and positioning them in space and time, the audience is wrapped in a pulsating foil of visual music made entirely from the sound of the source clips—a signature of the JAWA method first developed by Richardson in 1996. Manipulating these ghosts in the machine through synchronized cuts of the seen and heard induces an anxious immediacy as the nervous system responds to light and the heart rate responds to bass rhythm. The result is a fierce, abstract expression inspired in equal parts by Kandinsky and Pan sonic.

strict JAWA cutting

The New Flesh
Curated by Tasman Richardson

Saturday, January 21, 2017
The Music Gallery, 197 John St.

"What does this soul without a body mean for performance? In the established practices of performance, the body is the medium: its endurance, marks, memories, and the trappings of the host identity. What if the body were reduced to catalyst and operator? Media might dip into the pool of universality. Invoking the vocabulary of abstract expression, forms could separate and coalesce free of gender, race, and age. However, performance includes the risk of live action, generative signals, images generated by sounds, and vice versa. This evening, artists gather to surrender their bodies, project their signals, and serve you The New Flesh."

Robin Kobrynski , Katie Switzer / Paul Moleiro, Jenn Norton / Steph Yates, Bruno Ribeiro, Tasman Richardson, Jeremy Bailey, Sherri Hay. Many thanks to Scott McGovern for shooting this and to the Ontario Arts Council for assisting in the exhibition of my piece Ouroborus / Hydra through the sponsorship of SAW Video.

Timelords

2015, 11:19 minutes, live performance

Chasing the futurist utopia of recording our moments to be shared, manipulated, and stored in the highest fidelity. Time travel both simulated and speculative. Sampled from the golden era of home video and the dawn of consumer controlled time based media. Commissioned for the final Videodrome event on the closing night of the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, prior to it's corporate transformation into the CEO directed MOCA in Toronto.

More and more I find I reuse certain clips like an authour reuses familiar language. In this case, the thread started with Lethe Baptism, evolved into this and finally was adjusted for the duel screen performance called Doppelganger.

strict JAWA cutting

Photo documentation courtesy of Artur Augustynowicz

Doppelganger

2016, 14:25 minutes, live performance

Live dual projection performance using manually warped time markers in addition to regular cuts.Induces a sensation of doubt and deception, through manipulations in temporal continuity. Sources evolve from mirror reflections in cinema to recording errors in vhs, to complete signal failure and pulsing erratic noise, each layer rending the veils of simulation.

This is a demo, of what would have been on two separate but parallel projection screens. Commissioned and Curated by Brett Despotivich for his media performance series CHANNEL at Katzman Contemporary, Toronto.

temporal warping without cutting, strict JAWA cutting, analog glitch

Hydra
Collaboration with Nohista

2013, 25:00 minutes, live performance

Inspired by the New York school of abstract expressionism (Rothko, Kandinsky), game glitch culture, and Greek myth, Hydra pits human compositional decisiveness against unpredictable machine generated content. CRTs display expressive signals generated from Atari 2600s. The only way to "tame" the audio/video is to black out the power. By converting midi into voltage, the Ataris are transformed into rebellious instruments. For every head we cut off a new defiant signal replaces it.

analog glitch

Temple

2012, 17:00 minutes, live performance

The performer has replaced the shaman/priest, and the screen/sound has replaced the performer. Pulling from the cultural dictionary of cinematic micro phrases to deliver a ceremonial edit of sigils and signs. In this post-faith, post-flesh world, our spectacular séance will weave recorded media (aka the power of the dead) into a spastic orgy of cut ups.

partial JAWA trigger

Firing Squad

Original in 2010, revised HD in 2011, 17:00 minutes, live performance

A projected wall of television sets, targets the audience like paparazzi. Powering off older tube televisions results in the electron gun producing a unique fingerprint and sound as it collapses. These brief recordings are triggered in real time with midi sequencing. The televisions are filmed with perspectives suggesting camera flashes or machine guns, leaving the audience to decide if they are the celebrity or the victim.

strictly JAWA triggered

Weird War Tales

2007, 09:11 minutes, colour, English, virtual dj set

Appropriated military fusion epic which composites a broad selection of absurd violence both missile and melee, abstract and personal. All edits are strictly JAWA style so the "music" you hear is entirely constructed from cut and paste video edits.

strictly JAWA edited

Modern Problems

2007, 11:48 minutes, colour, English, virtual dj set

Appropriated distopian futures coalesce into a raving spectacle of the retro, the explosive, and the stroboscopic. All edits are strictly JAWA style so the "music" you hear is entirely constructed from cut and paste video edits.

strictly JAWA edited

Pirates of Breakcore Island

2007, 20:23 minutes, colour, English, virtual dj set

Epic mega mix of appropriated sea (and space) faring sources. Takes us on a mashed journey from man eating sharks to titanic zombies and screaming ship captains of the past and future. Naturally, all edits are JAWA style so the "music" you hear is entirely constructed from cut and paste video edits. This one's layered HEAVILY so look closely.

strictly JAWA edited