Victor Grauer
Ocean of Silence (1988/89)
Personal computers, audio equipment
1414 Monterey, 3rd floor
In a darkened room, high and low pitches vibrate, sometimes shrilly, sometimes imperceptibly, always changing and evolving. Light, emitted from computer monitors placed in the recess above and behind benches, reflects off the black surfaces of walls, floors and ceilings. The artist's computer program generates sound and light in an endless pattern.
"Ocean of Silence is an attempt to invoke something I call 'sympathetic presence' by means of the total control of light and sound ambiance. By sympathetic presence I mean the creation of something not simply registered via some sensory mode, but felt to be directly present to the participant. This primarily spiritual experience should, ideally, lead to a sense of oneness (sympathy) with the 'being' evoked by the work.
"Within a completely darkened space, two hidden computers are the source of constantly moving and changing indirect light, casting almost subliminal interweaving shadows on the opposite wall. At times the shadows are visible, at other times only vaguely intuited. At times one has a sense of the enclosing space, at other times it seems to dissolve.
"Computer-generated sounds produce a continuously shifting set of overtone relationships, giving the impression of a single very soft tone continuously being transformed. Both visuals and sound follow the same process, based on the independent cycling of individual elements with slightly different periods, something that can be done only with computers."
Selected Intermedia, Performance, Installation
Book of the Year Three Thousand (performance), The Kitchen, New York, NY
Orbis Factor (computer video), Off-Forbes Festival, Pittsburgh, PA
Veil 4 (video-sound installation), Contemporary Media Study Center, Dayton, OH
Exorcism of the Photographic Image (photo-sound installation), Hallwalls, Buffalo, NY
Polyhyperchord (music, lights, video), Evenings for New Music, Albright Knox Gallery, Buffalo, NY
Selected Film Screenings
Film Makers Cinemateque, New York, NY
Film London Festival, London, England
Film Oasis, Los Angeles, CA
Eye Music, San Francisco, CA
Hallwalls, Buffalo, NY
New York Film Festival, Lincoln Center, New York, NY
Référence: http://www.mattress.org/Catalogue/grauer.html