Cosmic Chambo Meets Death Factory Uptown
The Midwest arts screening series returns to Indianapolis Sunday, August 21
Please join me at the Companion exhibition space in Indianapolis on Sunday, August 21, 2022 at 6pm where I’ll be presenting two video works as part of this month’s Death Factory session.
DEATH FACTORY is a screening series that is dedicated to serving the midwest arts community.
We’re clawing our way out the grave for a brand new show! Join us, there’s old friends, and new friends, snacks and drinks, and *new work* being screened by fantastic DEATH DEFYING midwest artists!
We are delighted to announce we’ve partnered with @thisiscompanion (3715 Washington Blvd, Indianapolis) for our Indy debut (and future events)!
Aaannnndddd a performance by two immensely talented artists: Nick and Astro (@tickgay and @scribbledotz )
Who knows how much time we have left, so this is one recurring semi-monthly show YOU DONT WANNA MISS!
Companion is located at 3715 Washington Boulevard in Indianapolis, Indiana. Almost literally next door to the Indianapolis Zen Center, and just up the street from StorageSpace, a former home of the Basking in Gravity drone yoga installation: There goes the neighborhood!
As for my contributions …
Daniel Chamberlin + Glass Canyon Ensemble
Collision Mandala: EeOhLay (2022)
Digital video
5 minutes
EeOhLay is one of two Collision Mandala video complements to Glass Canyon Ensemble's Collision Theory album. Glass Canyon Ensemble is a collective of sound and image that embodies the fragmentary nature of interdisciplinary perspectives that must come together egolessly to arrive at an understanding of the calamity of Anthropogenic climate disaster. It is our effort to present insights on how to conduct ourselves as communities of attention and care.
EeOhLay is a tribute to several kinds of Thrushes seen migrating and breeding in the Chicago region every year. The photo of a window-strike Hermit Thrush was taken by ornithologist and musician Rob Frye (Bitchin Bajas, Cave, Flux Bikes) while working with Chicago Bird Collision Monitors in 2021. The digital still was manipulated by me (Dead Bird Blues, 2019). All of the forms and colors in the video were taken from the original photo.
Melodic phrases transcribed from Wood Thrush song were recomposed by Rob for the Glass Canyon Ensemble composition. A slowed-down recording of an individual at Buffalo Rock State Park in Illinois is heard, revealing the shape, modulation, and repetition of one of Eastern North America’s most beautiful yet declining songs.
Glass Canyon Ensemble is Rob Frye, Satya, Nick Alvarez, Max Beckman, Oli Harris, and Ben Lamar Gay.
Read more about the Collision Mandala project’s history, and listen to a Very Special Episode of Inter-Dimensional Music in this previous issue of the Void Contemplation Tactics newsletter:
Thanks to Chicago Bird Collision Monitors, Experimental Sound Studio, MoSI and The Institute for Bird Populations. This project was partially funded by a grant from Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events Individual Artist Program.
Daniel Chamberlin + PJS
Eco (2022)
Digital video
14 minutes
Eco is a a long-form ambient composition from the 2022 Environments album by PJS – the British Columbia-based duo of Patrick Dique and Jordan Christoff – accompanied by an abstract psychedelic documentary about the White River as it runs through East Central Indiana. The slow-motion digital video was captured on the White River Greenway near our downtown Muncie apartment. Each section of the video concludes with a mandala that is composed of dozens of overlapping images excerpted from the preceding sequence. I shot the footage in August/Winter 2020 during my daily walks.
The river becomes swollen each winter as temperatures rise upwards of 40ºF on many days throughout the season, sending any overnight snow melting away into the not-quite-freezing drizzle. I became fascinated by abstracted waveforms of the frigid, sluggish water as it slushed through deep channels and frothed around bridge piers and submerged debris. I also lurked near the steaming drainage culverts that are bordered by warm moss and choked with algae.
The Greenway passes by the former studio of the painter Bob Ross as it runs through downtown Muncie, but I was usually the only primate on scene. Along with beavers, groundhogs, ducks, geese, carp, and eagles, the heron in the video (one or many herons?) was one of the creatures that I often encountered. A sudden movement might send the bird flying downriver and into the trees, or upriver for a game of hopscotch along the embankment.
Working with PJS was one of the highlights from a surprisingly productive year of pandemic-inspired social isolation. It was truly a pleasure and a privilege to spend so many hours coordinating my heavily manipulated footage with their sublime, bass-heavy ambience.
Read more about PJS Environments album in this previous issue of the Void Contemplation Tactics newsletter:
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