A Long Term Memory For Light
A LONG-TERM MEMORY FOR LIGHT
House Show
12 | 12 | 14
Artists
Matthew Bradley | Wayne Grim | Anjali Sundaram | Phoebe Tooke
Music
For the site-specific exhibition, A Long-Term Memory for Light, participating artists respond to the possibility explored by some scientists regarding the capturing and storing of light without changing its quantum coherence. If we can store the images and data that light holds for long periods of time, how will the record of our visual memory change our experience? What will captured light tell us about our past? Artists Anjali Sundaram, Phoebe Tooke, Wayne Grim, and Matthew Bradley will create an immersive, interactive experience with these questions in mind.
Matthew Bradley, San Diego artist, has researched conspiracy theories for two years, mainly those swirling around the so-called Illuminati and alternate versions of history, which some folks believe explain today's corporate and political power structures. He received his MFA at the School of Visual Arts, NEW YORK, NY in 2006.
Wayne Grim is interested in temporal extremes in music and sound. He develops generative music software, builds homemade sound objects and collaborates with artists of other disciplines. Grim's highly structured, minimalist compositions for instruments are closely associated with rock music. At the heart of this work are the absurdity, humor and poetry of modern life, myths and mysticism, history and the subconscious, and a love of musical counterpoint.
Anjali Sundaram uses fiction, found-footage, installation and mock-documentary to explore memory, imagined futures and pseudo-science. Sundaram’s recent multimedia collaborations with the collective I, Daughter of Kong have appeared at The Lab and Southern Exposure in San Francisco, Swing Space in New York and Galerija Miroslav Kraljevic in Zagreb, Croatia.
Phoebe Tooke is a San Francisco-based filmmaker whose work bridges experimental and documentary genres. Her work has screened nationally and internationally, including screenings at the Academy of Motion Pictures, the Pacific Film Archive, the Telluride Film Festival, Slamdance and the San Francisco International Film Festival. Her film Circles of Confusion received a Student Academy Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and a Golden Gate Award from the San Francisco Film Society.
Live music by RITUAL HOWLS
Detroit three piece Ritual Howls new album tells stories fit for Poe or Lovecraft. On their debut full length for felte, titled Turkish Leather, they incorporate a variety of styles into an ominously self-assured statement of intent, Ben Saginaw and Chris Samuels' sounds providing an imposing form for Paul Bancell's darkly alive lyrics to inhabit. Their influences range from English post-punk to Nick Cave to the industrial sounds of Skinny Puppy, and the band melds them expertly. Combining field recordings with electronics, this music is sound design turned pop. Many tracks here feel cinematic – whether it's the industrial clanging of “A Taste of You,” which brings to mind a Lynchian bar scene, or the gothy synths of “Take Me Up,” a slow burning track that escalates into full on melodrama.
It's easy to imagine these twangy guitar lines gracing a scene in a Jarmusch film: their aesthetic owes as much to Tom Waits as it does Ennio Moriccone. Ritual Howls manages to take all these influences and come out sounding uniquely morbid, raw and unyielding – never derivative. It's a record that holds nothing back: the band announcing themselves to the world with all of the confidence of long time professionals. Their future audience will greet them with enthusiasm.
