SPRING/BREAK BKLYN IMMERSIVE 2017
82 drawings, each 44" by 30", together covering 800 sqft.
Visitors of SPRING/BREAK Art Show’s inaugural installation-based iteration, BKLYN IMMERSIVE, will enter the fair through Ring of Fire, a site-specific atrium installation for which Brooklyn-based digital mixed media artist Anne Spalter has created an 800 square foot charcoal sound drawing.
The tiled pattern is an analog representation of rhythmic tribal drums. Though it draws its initial inspiration from a French Polynesian fire dance witnessed by the artist while traveling, the piece doesn’t represent any one culture but rather taps into the cross-cultural use of percussion to energize groups of people. In alignment with Spalter’s Buddhist studies and advanced martial arts training (she is a black belt and Sensei in Kenpo karate), the intense audio sequence and visual analog accompaniment is meant to encourage solidarity rather than to incite violence or agitation; to “rally the troops” in a figurative sense.
The work is a sound drawing: audio from the original footage is heavily processed and played along with the drawing to create a more immersive experience. The piece’s production started with a video of the fire dance, which the artist digitally manipulated into a tiled kaleidoscopic loop accompanied by the drum track. She then executed a still from the digital work in the form of an 800 square foot charcoal drawing in order to reduce the drums’ cathartic beat to its most fundamental, monochromatic form, frozen mid-beat as a constant message amid the oscillating rhythm.
The work’s title, Ring of Fire, represents both the rhythmic nature of the tribal drums in the audio accompaniment and the fact that the entire piece is made out of charcoal – a byproduct of fire. Additionally, the production of the 80 “tiles” (charcoal drawings on 30x44” paper) that comprise the piece was a meditatively circuitous process.
CLICK HERE for press release.
CLICK HERE to see Drawings installed, with sound.
CLICK HERE to see a Time lapse of drawing being made.
