ROOTS AND WIRES
Installation Work
Audiovisual works for warehouse spaces...
Dreamplay - Workspace, San Francisco (2010)
This is a video composition mixed in Resolume. It was one element in a large scale multi-artist installation themed around dreaming. Imagine being wheeled into the event space on a large four post bed by a mysterious figure in a bridal gown. Moving through ocean waves, symbolic of the Unconscious, projected onto billowing clouds of smoke. As you emerge into the cavernous warehouse space, large scale props play with your sense of space and scale. Inner and outer worlds interpenetrate and synchronistic magic runs wild...
In addition to this visual piece involving a journey through dream healing temples in Turkey (Ephesus), we had a contemporary dream incubation temple at the event. Guided into the chamber by a mysterious fox being, participants found themselves in a sea of pillows. With consent, I recorded participants dreams into Ableton Live, which then played through this chamber, dancing with ambient music and playing in field recordings from dream healing temples, along with the dreams of others recorded that evening.
Dropping into reverie, some could appreciate meaningful intersections as the group dream danced along with those of individuals...
Cause - Tehran, Iran (2022)
I was contacted by Shide Ghafarian, an actress and performance artist from Tehran, after she found my piece below on Instagram. We had a nice flow and connection. I was keenly aware of inhibition towards expressing freely, due to the political and religious reality in Iran. As well, language was limiting, so I don't well understand the nature of the performance. Here's a link to my composition that inspired our interaction (please click bottom right of video to activate sound!):
The video footage is from my studio and along Coastal California, composited in Videoleap, which allows for surprisingly powerful key framing. Naturally, it's not nearly as powerful as After Effects, but I find it much more fluid, allowing for a more improvisational flow. As I've moved into more technical camera rigs, that require quite a bit of setup and work in DaVinci Resolve, I still feel a fondness for these simpler iPhone flows...
Some of my other Instagram compositions feature my children playing on the beach, as well, holding hands as they look out into the vastness. The Ultraman figure symbolizes play and its capacity to transform overwhelming emotional experience. The sound waves behind him, pregnant with meaning... Certainly the transpersonal dimension to sound, which mediates between the macro and the micro, Brahman and Atman. As well, music as a salve that carries us through life, contacting all ranges of experience - including the difficult - supporting us in growing towards bearing it.