Synesthetic artists deliver in new Performance Space

Synesthesia art productions such as demux and the likes of fuxus, expanded cinema and glitch, play on the modalities of audio and vision and how these two interplay to deliver the audience member an insight into both the artist’s and their own understanding of the elemental truths of the sounds and images.

Set in the Performance Space’s new home in Redfern’s CarriageWorks, after moving across from Cleveland Street, the four demux performers lined their ‘work stations’ in front of

a packed theatre.

Western Sydney based artist, Andrew Gadow, “abused” technological equipment from the analogue era enlisting jagged shapes and primal colours to explore the textual feel of rudimentary buzzes, whoops, glitches and whirs. Gadow’s primal version of this contemporary medium was refreshing and laudable, given the constraints he indirectly imposes on himself.

Samuel Bruce emitted a wash of “dirty” noise as the backdrop for twist and turns of a labyrinth of noodle arms and legs all stemming from an unidentifiable nucleus. In contrast to the other artists, Bruce’s emphasis was clearly on the image at the expense of the audience’s ears.

Te two stand‑out performers were incidentally the co-creators of the demux label, Wade Marynowksy and Peter Newman. Marynowksy lunged the audience into his deep digital exploration of signals, aptly buffered by fluid and water drunk images. In a well structured piece taking the audience into his void, Marynowsky was in control of his movements, while the audience’s ears filtered bubbling high pitched signals and subtle syncopated beats.

Sydney musician and artist Peter Newman peeled back the theatre’s screen in the final performance to exhibit on the coarse and antique Eveleigh rail yard wall. In cinematic style, Newman cast an apocalyptic setting

–  trees and the sky moving in fast frames with the wind in what seemed to be an endless night

–  before taking the audience on his crescendo of shaving and grating sounds offset by splinters of light in his projection.

Keep your eyes and ears peeled for an additional two releases by demux (www.demux.org) later in the year with the support of the Australia Council of the Arts.

Source: South Sydney Herald April 2007 – www.southsydneyherald.com.au