In the Ether

Live activation of video installation with sound (45 min.)

Finissage of the Black Air exhibition

In the Ether is a live video performance of the installation comprising five suspended CRT monitors and a set of VCRs, connected with an abundance of black cord. Lisa Slodki, a long-time participant in Chicago’s experimental-noise community (who performs as Noise Crush), sources found footage from prerecorded tapes, uses digital and analog mixing techniques to manipulate the video, and then returns it back onto the same magnetic-tape media. Each of the five monitors displays a seamless black-and-white video loop.

During the performance these images will evolve and morph together, expanding the original series of dynamic, kinetic vignettes into a woven narrative. Many of these images have been pulled from natural science or mechanical sources, yet the ambiguous scale of the now abstracted gestures evokes celestial phenomena such as solar flares, cosmic rays, and upper-atmospheric lightning. 

The performance will be accompanied by a soundscape performed with an etherphone (more commonly known as a theremin), an electronic instrument played by contactless motioning through the air. 

Illustration: Ibrahim R. Ineke