frey

a brief abstract

In a performance for live electromagnetic sensors and digitally manipulated video, we will explore relationships between invisible electromagnetic waves and their primary visual manifestation – aerials, antennae, and satellite dishes.

We start with realtime sound input from electromagnetic sniffing devices that are moved around the stage by our performing assistances, and analyse this to bring forth live data to feed to our voracious video manipulation and sound creation engines. Using the same data source to drive both the video and audio, we hope to create a tight interlinking between the visual and aural parts of the performance.

personal profiles and background

Damian Stewart is a musician, programmer, and artist, originally from New Zealand and currently based in Europe. In his predominantly realtime performance-oriented work he aims to incite personal senses of the now, to find moments of pause, and to halt thought, even if just for an instant. Sound, repetition, and a fascination with process act as his raw material.

Damian has a diverse background that includes study in electroacoustic music, interior architecture, and computer science, various music performances including free-jazz orchestras, solo shows, and an electronic dub outfit, and professional software programming work on interactive museum installations and PlayStation2 games. He is a member of the New Interfaces for Performance (N.I.P.) and Polar Produce collectives, has performed internationally alongside artists including Biosphere and Deadbeat, collaborated on projects in New Zealand, Spain, Portugal, Austria, the UK, and the Netherlands, and has been artist-in-residence with the Modulate collective in the UK and at the Home residency with André Gonçalves in Portugal.

Chris Sugrue is an artist and programmer from the United States whose software – driven art works include interactive installations and live audio-visual performances. Her works re-imagine digital technology, and attempt to bring strange and unique worlds to life using code, cameras, projection and video.

Chris holds a Masters of Fine Arts in Design and Technology from Parsons School of Design in New York City, and has worked as a developer with several internationally renowned media artists including Zachary Lieberman, John Gerrard, Klaus Obermaier and Trevor Paglen. In the past, she has held positions as a researcher and interactive developer at the Ars Electronica Futurelab, a production fellow at the Eyebeam Art and Technology Center in New York, and artist-in-residence at Hangar in Barcelona. Currently, she is an artist-in-residence at the Casa de Velazquez in Madrid.

media illustrating the project

http://www.frey.co.nz/content/audio/avlab.sound.mp3