Elliott Sharp Janene Higgins
SUSPENSION
April 17th - May 8th
2-channel video installation with sound
Opening Performance
Thursday, April 15, 8 pm
Janene Higgins: video mix
Elliott Sharp: electro-acoustic guitar,
bass clarinet, laptop
Artist Talk
Saturday, April 17th 1pm
Produced by Nina Colosi
Elliott Sharp is a
prolific composer, producer, installation artist, and improvising
multi-instrumentalist, considered
to be one of the founders of the "Downtown scene." His
powerfully rhythmic compositions draw upon chaos theory and fractal
geometry. As a performer, he has pioneered extended techniques for
guitars, wind instruments, and computers to create a personal syntax
and vocabulary.
Janene Higgins' videos and digital media have been presented
internationally at numerous festivals and galleries. Using laptop,
video mixers,
and camera, she developed a technique for live video performance,
and has collaborated with many of New York's preeminent composers
and improvisors of new music. Her performances have been called "abstract
narratives: undefinable journeys filled with sudden layerings and
allurings."
Together, Sharp and Higgins perform vibrant duets of image and
sound that finely balance the structure of composition with the
immediacy
of improvisation. The result is a veritable dialog, an eloquent
and compelling interaction that pulls the audience in and through:
simultaneously
parallel, conflicting, complementary. As a duo, they have performed
throughout the US, as well as in Italy, Germany, and Montreal.
For the Chelsea museum, Sharp and Higgins present Suspension,
a new 2-channel installation of video and sound exploring the awareness
of momentary stillness in a large and bustling city: the contrast
of the instant and the extended duration, suspended in time, traversing
the metropolis. "Suspension of disbelief" as an essential
component of the cinematic experience. Mystery, calamity, suspense.
The man in suspenders noticed on Canal Street. The Brooklyn Bridge.
Two juxtaposed projections alternately connect, conflict, and
interact. The audio may coalesce into discreet rhythms and the
recognizable
sounds of guitar and bass clarinet, but more often pools in liquid
abstraction, overall static but constantly in flux.
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