Programmed in conjunction with “Performance Archiving Performance,” a presentation of works that engage archive as medium, on view in the Fifth Floor Resource Center from November 6, 2013–January 12, 2014.
Accompanying an improvised performance by Jennifer Monson, composer Jeff Kolar provides a sound design that responds to the delicate and sophisticated atmospheres and shifting spatial parameters of bodies in relationship to one another on-site in the New Museum’s Sky Room. The soundscape for the performance is generated live through field experiments in AM/FM, shortwave, citizens’ band, and unlicensed radio spectrums. The instrument arrangement of hand-built radio transmitters and receivers responds directly to external weather phenomena, wireless technology systems, and human activity. The body of the dancer and the shifting bodies of the audience, in concert with constant shifts in environmental conditions inside and outside of the New Museum, generate interference that provides the raw material for an improvised composition.