Join us at Gallery 1412 for performances by visiting artists Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson and Jeff Carey, both of whom work with electronic sound but eschew the impassive, near-motionless performance ethos typical of the field in favor of an intense physicality. Sigmarsson’s performances are equal parts concert and inscrutable theater, in which his body discharges wild, cryptic gesticulations and extreme vocalizations. Carey realizes his hyperkinetic audiovisual spectacles by means of a custom interface incorporating video game controllers, which he jerks and pushes around as if trying to defuse a bomb that to all appearances is already in the midst of a prolonged detonation. Local heroes Blevin Blectum and Greg Kelley provide supporting sets.
$5-15 sliding scale
Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson is an visual, sound and performance artist born in Akureyri, Iceland in 1977. He studied Sonology at the Royal Conservatory Den Haag, Holland in 1997 to 1998, and received MFA at Fachochshcule fur bilende kunst Hannover, Germany in 2004. Sigmarsson exhibits his paintings & drawings internationally but is probably most known for his energetic performances at a wide array of venues. His approach is that of the trembling artist, struggling to make sense and direction out of a creative impulse. Regardless of the medium, there is a continuous search for order and chaos throughout his body of work. With his series of drawings Sigmarsson distorts the normal, daily life by drawing very common objects in an abstract way. For some time he has been releasing solo recordings with albums on Trente Oiseaux, ERS, Helen Scarsdale, Fire Inc., Hanson Records, Bawag Contemporary Vienna, Korm Plastics, Bottrop Boy, Ultra Eczema and De Player.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_kYFdvEUWk
Jeff Carey is an interdisciplinary artist creating radical computer music. He performs electro-instrumental synthetic noise with custom software controlled by a joystick and gamer keypad. His instrument also controls an array of strobe lights making shows totally immersive and visceral.
https://jeffcarey.bandcamp.com
Blevin Blectum (born Bevin Kelley) is an electronic musician and multimedia artist whose work explores “polyphasic avitronic wordless sonic worldbuilding.” Currently based in Seattle, Blevin is perhaps most best known as one half of the recently reformed and reunited groundbreaking digital duo Blectum From Blechdom (with Kevin Blechdom aka Kristin Erickson) who received the 2001 Ars Electronica Award of Distinction in Digital Musics for their album The Messy Jesse Fiesta. In 2013 she co-founded the electroacoustic-radioplayers The Traveling Bubble Ensemble with fellow sci-fi enthusiast and sibling Kelley Polar (Michael Kelley). Left to her own devices, Blevin produces turbulent electronics with a more oblique slant on the basic BFB sensation of things-not-quite-right-here – clanking, creaking grooves and anti-grooves as a coal-powered spacecraft from some post-steampunked parallel universe potentiality. She can be heard in radio plays, electronic toys, theater spaces, film/television scores, advertisements, clubs, concert halls, headphones, and galleries. She has releases on labels including Aagoo, Estuary Ltd., Tigerbeat6, DeluxeRecs, Praemedia, Vague Terrain, and Phthalo.
http://www.blevinblectum.com
Greg Kelley began studying the trumpet at age 10. He attended the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore, where in addition to studying the Conservatory curriculum, he immersed himself in a deep study of avant- garde and experimental music, eventually coming to the conclusion that his musical focus fell outside of the academic sphere. After his studies, Kelley moved back to his native Massachusetts, quickly insinuated himself into the local avant-garde circles and soon commenced a period of intense travel and collaboration, bringing him throughout North America, Europe, Japan, Argentina & Mexico. In 2014, he relocated to Seattle. He has appeared on over 100 recordings and plays in a number of long running groups including Nmperign (with Bhob Rainey), the BSC and Heathen Shame (with Wayne Rogers & Kate Village of Major Stars). Other collaborators have included Jandek, Keiji Haino, Donald Miller (Borbetomagus), Anthony Braxton, Kevin Drumm, Christian Wolff, Pauline Oliveros, Joe McPhee and Lionel Marchetti. In addition to playing the trumpet, Kelley has also recorded music using electronics and musique concrete elements, sometimes utilizing trumpet based sound sources, other times not.
http://ordinaryfanfares.blogspot.com
