Saturdays
April 5, 12, 19 & 26
2 - 8 pm
Free
Opening Reception: April 5, 6 Ð 8 PM
David Galbraith
IgOpre
an audiovisual installation
lgOpre
(luh - GOP - ruh) is an audiovisual installation of multichannel sound
and projected digital animation created with real-time software that links
vintage grid pattern algorithms with vinyl record lock-groove samples.
The software behind lgOpre, written by the artist, uses customized abstract
image generation routines (c.1970), appropriated color schemes, and self-similar
number patterns to create an animation that is also a visual controller
for a modular digital sound studio. Each of the 34 grid pattern building
blocks used for lgOpre is mapped to its own set of processed and unmodified
lock-groove samples. The color of the underlying grid is used to select
which sound will play as the basic grids from each animation frame are
visually highlighted in turn for a determinate duration before advancing
to the next frame. Aleatoric color scheme variants introduce a degree
of chance to the sound-image mapping.
Compositionally, lgOpre first introduces each visual building block as
a full-screen matrix using black and white, grayscale or a few saturated
colors to create monochromes or relatively simple patterns accompanied
by solo sound samples. The screen splits in half horizontally, then vertically,
producing four quadrants with increasing pattern complexity. New color
schemes and faster sequencing within a single animation frame trigger
the look of blocky color video games or visualized computer core dumps
and densely layered multichannel sound.
Locked grooves and the title of Galbraith's 2002 video Open Research which
juxtaposed animated black and white 'big bit' grids with human-sized inflatable
sculpture from the late-1960s helped give lgOpre its name: locked groove
Open research.
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About the Artist
David Galbraith is a composer, performer and media artist who lives and
works in New York. Galbraith explores the couplings between art, music,
technology and the body through his sound installations, video works,
custom software and performances using self-built analog electronics.
In 2005 Galbraith's Composition 2005 No. 1: Two Straight Lines Displaced,
Nudged and Gently Spun was shown at Diapason and will be included in a
forthcoming DVD archive of works exhibited at Diapason.
In 2006 Galbraith received a Finishing Funds grant from the Experimental
Television Center/NYSCA for lgOpre, his custom software for sound and
image. Galbraith enhanced lgOpre in 2007 to support analog synthesizers
at STEIM (Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music) in Amsterdam. His compositions
and performances have been presented at The New Museum of Contemporary
Art, Tonic, The Stone, Art in General, and free103point9, among other
New York venues. Selected solo and group international performances include
Erase & Reset: International Night Of Experimental & Electronic Music
at Staatsbank Berlin; Garage Festival, Stralsund, Germany; and Musica
Pro Nova, Bremen, Germany. Galbraith also performs with the analog synthesis
collective Analogos at Diapason.
Galbraith's visual work has been included in museum exhibitions at P.S.1/MoMA
(New York), The New Museum of Contemporary Art (New York), and KW Institute
of Contemporary Art (Berlin).
Galbraith holds an M.F.A. from California Institute of the Arts (1996)
and a B.S. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1988). Galbraith
also participated in the studio program of the Whitney Museum Independent
Study Program in 1996-97.
www.soundsokay.com/djg.html
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