short bio
plastic fantastic TRANSforms
2011 ~ for computer processed audio and video
composed for the
National Gallery of Art
November 9, 2011
Ross Karre, video and William Brent video technology
National Gallery of Art East Building Auditorium
November 9, 2011
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Steve Antosca – audio, Ross Karre – video and William Brent – video technology
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plastic fantastic TRANSforms takes as its starting point the concept of Andy Warhol’s transformations of traditional images, and stretches reality into a color saturated environment. Working in both audio and visual domains, subtle transforms in plastic fantastic TRANSforms transition sonic and visual elements presented in their raw form, into composite layers. Compositionally, this allows a limited and specific set of materials to be stretched across a substantial amount of time and over numerous transformational dimensions.
There exist two levels of transformation, both obvious but nonetheless significant. First, there is the transformation from the "real" images – sonic and visual – into the constructed, hyper-exposed timbres and colors, some of which are close to real, others, further removed. And then there is the series of transformations, that is, the sheer quantity of variety, shifting subtly at times, and at other times more radically, representing the extremes. The audio, an entirely electronic score, is a series of malleable events which form into a continuous thread of processed transformations, each adding to the previous transform, constructing an immersion into an environment of saturated and spatialized audio. The transformation of the images involved shooting silk screens with a camera Macro Lens, capturing the textures of paper and the inks as well as the vibrancy of the colors. Pre-made video files are triggered at specific points in the music and temporally transformed.
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program notes by Steve Antosca and Ross Karre
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