It Pays My Way and it Corrodes My Soul, 2011, Performance by Stephen Cornford(UK) and Paul Whitty
Last Saturday LEAP, the Lab for Electronic Arts and Performance, launched a new bi-monthly series called Body Controlled, presenting
artists dedicated to performance art and exploring sound using electronics and other art forms. For its first installment titled, Other Spaces, the artists used the dynamic of preexisting architecture and virtual spaces as a point of departure for work on display through December 2, 2011. Highlights of Saturday’s inaugural event included Robert Henke’s twelve-hour installation/performance, Microsphere. Well known within both academics and club culture Henke has been involved in negotiating the evolution of computer based music for decades and helped pioneer today’s standard software for live performance, Ableton Live. While I only stayed for the first two hours of his set visitors were welcome to pass by until mid-morning the next day, breakfast was apparently served in the final hours. During the time I was present I took notice of Henke’s peaceful performance demeanor, the invisible anxiety that permeates most was non-existent. His expert execution allowed sounds to develop within the space breaking down typical audience-performer barriers. Focus returned to the audience and the space as Henke took short smoking breaks and even ate some grapes while he played at what looked like a recording station from the future. Massive cabling protruded from the back of a desk that was under lit by a florescent red tube and a carefully rigged computer screen floated, suspended from the ceiling. Fluctuating between listening to the development of sound, Henke added various traditional and non-traditional instruments to the mix and their play back became part of a developing new sound and spatial atmosphere.
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