February 7, 2020
Doors at 7:30. Music at 8.
OSCILLATIONS presents performance artists Jenna Boyles and Erica Gressman, performing with handmade and hacked instruments and wearables for the first concert of the 2020 series.
Jenna Boyles will present a new performance that delves further into the modularity of her hacked object-combinations produced from trash and e-waste. Through the layering of sound and the act of rearranging she will evoke an ever expanding landfill where she will play within the feeling of futility and potential energy. Largely improvisational, the performance will utilize RMPUNSS (Repurposed Modular Percussive Units for Networked Surround Sound), a modified CD player turned wearable instrument, and an e-textile analog synth.
Erica Gressman uses light-sensitive sound instruments to dissever the body, exploring the current divisiveness and its internal effects. In conversation with Gordon Matta-Clark's divided suburban house in "Splitting," this piece uses these instruments to create a visual effect of division while using the quasi-musical sounds generated by the light to express the intensity of severing of the pragmatic from the emotional self, the divergence of classes, the splitting of families, the building of border walls, and this country’s division.
Artist Bios:
Jenna Boyles (b. 1989 Pittsburgh) aka Jenna Junk is an e-waste hacker who gleans sound from objects labeled trash or obsolete. Driven by a desire to collect and sort through both digital and physical refuse, she expands upon the concept of waste as a form of storing and accessing memory by rewiring found electronics and embedding soft e-textiles into her installations and wearables. Her work articulates the ubiquity and resonance of unwanted things while playing on the sensitivity between squishy-body and hard-wired machine.
Combining sound art, music composition, technology , and performance, Erica Gressman explores her mixed latinx queer identity. She uses noise art inspired by Miami’s punk underground and performances drawn from the bizarre culture clashes that punctuate daily life in Florida and now Chicago. She builds her own theatrical sets, interactive electronic instruments, and costumes to create an immersive experience that conjures synesthetic responses to sound, light, and body movement. She strives to amplify the body while erasing the human by using dramatic stunts such as self surgeries, tearing down a wall filled with light, stripping away layers of skins, suspending a body with 10 extra limbs, and more.
She received her BA in Humanities with a concentration in experimental music from New College of Florida. Throughout her musical career, Gressman played in experimental bands, eventually touring Europe with her solo drum project. Her background in noise art began with creating handmade electronic analogue synthesizers that interacted with light. After she received her MFA in Performance from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, working as a fabricator and is currently a Design Engineer. These experiences have greatly influenced the interactive structures that function as the sets for her compositions. She is currently an Illinois Arts Council Fellow and her work Wall of Skin was recently written and published in the Performance Matters online journal. She has given lectures and performances Northwestern University, the Royal Danish Art Academy, Museum of Contemporary Art, Krannert Art Museum, MANA gallery, Brooklyn’s Grace Space Gallery, UIUC, Miami Art Convention Center, Links Hall, and Defibrillator Gallery.