SynesthESpace is a 4 part series dedicated to site-specific, multichannel, immersive audiovisual environments created by local multimedia artists. This season we will start with “That Look Upon Your Face” by Alex Keller and Sean O’Neill on March 3rd at First Street Studio. Upcoming in our series:
LIMITED HANGOUT w/Kyle Evans+ Lucas Dimick
Lauren Gurgiolo + Wendy Mitchell
Katrina Fairlee

All artists will introduce their work in addition to presenting a live performance component to stimulate the environment during the evening. The concept for this project is originally based upon LaMonte Young and Marian Zazeela’s ongoing light and sound installation called the “Dreamhouse” in NYC.

For optimum satisfaction, audience members are encouraged to spend time and explore subjective physical and phenomenological experiences, activated by the sound and visual output of each unique environment. Please bring cushions, mats, pillows and blankets for relaxation and enjoyment during each event.

“That look upon your face” by Alex Keller and Sean O’Neill, March, 2018

Keller/O’Neill will use sound, light and video to delineate constantly shifting boundaries within an open space. High-contrast imagery sourced from microscopic video and crude video synthesis will mirror and juxtapose with the sounds created from field recordings and homemade or industrial-grade sound synthesis.

Stroboscopic light and sound that can include a hypnagogic effect may occur.

The artists will periodically interact with the sound space created.

Alex Keller and Sean O’Neill have collaborated in performance and installation pieces since 2015. Using field recordings, vintage telephone test equipment, magnetic oscillators, light and space, their work has addressed the agents and artifacts of change in the urban and acoustic realms.

In 2017, they released an LP called Kruos on the Elevator Bath label, and a CD called LCLX on the Mimeomeme label.

Alex Keller is an audio artist, sound designer, curator and teacher based in Austin, Texas. His engagement with performance, installation, and recording is an outgrowth of his interest in architecture, language, abstraction and music.

Sean O’Neill is a multi-media artist, who explores both the visible light spectrum and the audible frequency range to determine how they influence our lived environments, and vice versa; he has a stated interest in how perception shapes the dynamics of spatiality.

“…a complex, nuanced work of sound art, conjured up from some rather rudimentary sources, largely just field recordings and a telephone test synthesizer. It is a bit of a difficult, unsettling experience at times, but a strong one nonetheless.”

– Creaig Dunton, Brainwashed

Tickets $7 on door.

This project is supported in part by The Cultural Arts Division of The City of Austin