The History of Visual Art

A look back at the 10 year collaboration between Rodrigo Constanzo and I.

Rod again

Rod Again. Video editing as performance.

You and me and us and me and you

About a year back I decided I wanted to make work that I could just make on my own, spontaneously and anywhere. I was reacting against the Takahashi pre-performance preparation that had to happen. At the time, they required other people, stretching canvas, setting up electronics equipment, a projector, and then having all the things communicate with each other. It was hard to do spontaneously. So I decided to just draw. White paper. Black pen. And me.

In tandem with those drawings I started becoming curious about color. There was shift in the Takahashi performances from paint to [colored] light, and this set up no longer required me to stretch a canvas or use a projector–another move towards pre-performance simplicity (though pursuing this colored light stand wasn’t done for that purpose specifically). I could just plug in and go. Though it’s still very technology heavy, spontaneity and technology are not in opposition. So now, working in the muck of the Takahashi lights and the ink drawings, it felt to me like I was exploring two things: precise line work (absent of the consideration for color), and expansive pure color.

Yesterday, during a Takahashi rehearsal with Linda Jankowska and Rodrigo Constanzo it occurred to me the water color works are actually perfect for use in the Takahashi light set-up. It’s like one part of my brain has just let another part of my brain in on what it’s been working on. I think these works are somehow perfect populators of the Color Picker sample space (the color granular synthesis max patch), which before only had a “place-holder” image. I really want everything to be personal, and resonate with me. The body of line drawing work I’ve been doing, now with the addition of water colors, are hugely significant to me and this period of my life–creative and personal. So here we are.

I just want to make beautiful things…and it feels like an explosion.

(above work owned by Rocio Bolaños)

Photos by Linda Jankowska.

It feels like I am dreaming

Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Life is but a dream.

Some video documentation of the Takahashi, light-based, approach.

There are sensors inside mask which inform how the lights function.
Everything is being generated and controlled by a Max patch and the (wireless) sensors are built around the x-io x-OSC and x-IMU devices.

*all visuals happened in realtime. No effects/editing was used to create the banding/glitches. They are a happy accident manifestation of the refresh rate of the DMX lights and the camera not playing nice together.

The audio is recordings during a previous performance. The nature of those performances where such that the canvas was turned it into an instrument. In this session (in the video), that is the audio that can be heard, but it was being processed live during this interaction between performers.

Watching this now, it feels like this is who dreamt that past…

Human Seeking

Takahashi’s Shellfish Concern performance at Human Seeking:

Human Seeking from Rodrigo Constanzo on Vimeo.

HOSTED BY MEeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Friday May 25th / 8pm / Kro bar on Oxford Road M13 9PG (across the street from The Academy)
Free Entry

Let’s explore sonic and visual information through improvisation.
The role of technology is considered, with each artist prioritizing it differently with regard to their own practice and human creative potential.
Performances . Talks from the artists . Q&A
Oh…and I’ve made this all tie in with my MA assessment, which means you will probably see me get grilled by my tutors (Helmut Lemke and Louise Brookes) at the end — but I welcome it!! Should be a really great night.

FEATURING

HELOpg
HELOpg (the Huddersfield Experimental Laptop Orchestra postgraduate group), established since October 2009, is a laptop ensemble based within the music department at University of Huddersfield. Interested in exploring the use of the laptop as a performance tool, HELOpg performs, records and tours experimental laptop composition and improvisation with a diverse mix individually created instruments. HELOpg currently consist of Samuel Birkhead, Julian Brooks, Sam Freeman and Scott Hewitt.

Takahashi’s Shellfish Concern
Takahashi’s Shellfish Concern is Angela Guyton and Rodrigo Constanzo (And on this night, sound diffusion artist Sam Salem will be working with us). We try to create moments where the boundaries between visual information and sonic information get muddied. We do this through performance. We do this through improvisation. We are trying to receive and transform information. The result is a feedback loop of interaction between two disciplines and three humans, hopefully yielding subtlety, grit, focus and beauty.

Richard Knight
Raised in the surroundings of conflicting natural beauty and industrial decay of northern England, many of Knight’s primary influences are based around the clash between organic and electronic. He began producing music and playing in diverse experimental bands/projects in and around Leeds, but had always been motivated by the the possibilities of encapsulating avant-garde stylings within more immediately unassuming mediums. In addition to using computers as artistic tools, Knight often utilises specifically controlled feedback as an instrument. The unique method uses mixing desks as sound sources: a typically passive audio device subverted to become an expressive instrument. Of most intrigue is the tenuous area between feedback and feedforward – the hazy and perplexing cusp between order and chaos.

Kate Freeborough
The artist highlights idiosyncrasies by merging with gathered items whilst responding to the space around her.

and a virtual appearance by
Danishta Rivero
Danishta Rivero is a musician and sound artist who resides in San Francisco. She performs solo improvisations on the Hydrophonium, a water-based electro-acoustic percussion instrument, with which she has toured the Pacific NW. Danishta also does vocals and digital processing in Blood Wedding, a just intonation noise duo with Chuck Johnson on steel guitar and modular synth.