S t u d i o F i v e B e e k m a n
sound and intermedia gallery
Ian Nagoski & Chris Rice
Green and Dying
Continuous Sound and Projected Video
Saturdays
2 - 9 PM
November 6 - 13, 1999
video still by Chris Rice
The title is from Dylan Thomas:
Time held me green and dying,
Though I sang in my chains like the sea
The images are from found, anonymous home movies. Frames of the film were scanned and reanimated by cross-fading them on a home computer. Chris has been making films by editing other people's home movie footage for eight years. Phill Niblock was kind enough to loan the video projector. Thanks, Phill!
The sounds were recorded at home on four-track cassette. They are derived from commercial recordings and a tone generator. Michael Schumacher pointed out the possibility of automatically raising and lowering the volumes of each track very slightly with the computer. It certainly adds another dimension to the sound.
It's pretty simple, really. Like the line from Jobims's The waters of March, "It's a truckload of bricks in the bright, morning sun." Hopefully, it's a feeling/moment. A little murky, maybe. Future pieces (music-wise, at least - I'll speak for myself) will be more vivid.
Chris and I met five years ago through Allison Herdan in Newark, Delaware. He was an English/ Film grad, writing and doing design for the music and human interest magazine Yakuza. I was a record store employee. We started drinking and listening to music and formed an improv group called Astronomeous with our friend Jason Glover. When Chris started a new music magazine called Halana, I helped out. With a wave of his scepter, Chris dubbed me Contributing Editor, which I'm very proud of. Chris also does design for CDs (Azusa Plane, Richard Youngs, Caterpillar, etc.), and I make this music and do a little writing about music.
Since I started work on my CD Warm, Coursing Blood (Colorful Clouds for Acoustics), we have done a handful of presentations of music (recorded and live, mine and others) and film (Chris's and others'), often with our friend Mike Chaiken. This is sort of an extension of that.
Now you know everything that I know.
Ian Nagoski October, 1999
For more information:
web site: www.halana.com/greenanddying
e-mail address: iannagoski@yahoo.com
