Tuesday Night Faceoff
Review by Gretchen Holmes
Download audio from performance
Swaggering riffs bounced from one soloist to the next as chilled-out summer rhythms encouraged head-bobbing both awkward and suave...but that was just Tuesdays on the Terrace. Inside the fortress walls, MacBooks replaced the horns and a massive nest of white cable stood in for the rhythm section as Chicago Phonography grabbed the baton for its leg of Here/Not There. The sound collective, featuring Eric Leonardson, Chad Clark, and Brett Ian Balough, created a 30 minute improvised soundscape mixing audio samples taken at the MCA and in downtown Chicago. After white-wine-ing it up at the jazz BBQ bacchanal outside, climbing up to the 4th floor atrium for Sound Art and intense introspection was like stumbling from a frat party to a LAN party.
Comparing Chicago Phonography's Tuesday night performance and the live jazz outside (this week, Henry Johnson played) becomes a fascinating exercise when phrases like "incorporating similar principles found in free-jazz" and "live improvisations using audio recordings" pepper the MCA's description of Chicago Phonography's work. Where Johnson and his group illustrate our expectations of jazz and improvisation, Chicago Phonography confounds these expectations and creates work that is cerebral where it might be sentimental, introverted where it might be responsive, and intense where it might be entertaining. That might sound maddeningly neutral, but this is work more likely to be described as "interesting" than "beautiful"--and interesting is great, as long as you're not looking for pretty.
Chicago Phonography's Here/Not There project includes three live events (Tuesday's plus performances on Saturday and Sunday) and a sound/video installation in the McCormick Tribune Orientation space (12x12 gallery) through Sunday. Though the performances and installation function autonomously, both use the connection between sound and place to transport viewers to an uncanny space collaged together from familiar urban fragments, and both offer plenty of interesting. Tuesday night, the incredible sense of focus exuded by the performers, as each stared intently at his laptop, penetrated the entire space: the sizable audience gathered in the 4th floor atrium stared intently at the performers, channeling every ounce of energy into the technology networking everyone together. Strangely, the gallery installation presents an experience that is more social than the live performance: synchronized audio and video elements transform the space into a subtly visceral environment, encouraging, as the Olafur Eliasson show does, exploration and play. A four-channel, preprogrammed soundscape envelopes the viewer as the same audio samples used in the live soundscape mix and mingle across the space; the video projection renders the physical proximities of buildings as relative transparencies (depicting closer buildings as more opaque and far away buildings as more transparent), providing a visual translation of the way we experience sound.
Three weeks in, Here/Not There is taking shape as a lively survey of diverse artists whose particular investments in both performance and object-based work present a curious, well-rounded dialog. Last week, I contemplated the shifting balance between live body and sculpture, time and space, process and product as each new piece moved in; however, what's truly exciting is the way these works are beginning to inform each other. Curators typically have the luxury of presenting their entire treasure-trove to the audience in a single blow, but Tricia Van Eck and Michael Green reveal their hand slowly with Here/Not There. Viewers who return to see each new installment will join a dynamic conversation framed by innovative work, and the ongoing installations provide weekday visitors with a compelling incentive to do so.
Chicago Phonography performs live this Saturday, July 25, at 11:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. in the 4th floor atrium, and Sunday, July 26, at 11:30a.m. and 2:30 p.m. on the MCA's front plaza.
Gretchen Holmes has been covering the MCA's Here's/Not There series weeks and will review the final installation next Tuesday. Please read Part Two and Part Three.
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Tags: brettianbalough, chicagophonography, ericleonardson, gretchenholmes, henryjohnson, herenotthere, lanparty, olafureliasson, soundart
