Since 2018, Gino Robair has been developing letterpress-printing techniques modeled on the approach he uses as an instrumentalist, in order to transform what is normally considered a craft-based practice into a performing artform.
By applying the concept of extended techniques to the printing press, new perspectives about the tools and materials emerge. Chance operations, game-based structures, and text prompts are used as generative processes that expand the language of printing in compositional and improvisation contexts as well as refocus the activity towards a time-based, performance practice rather from its traditional results orientation.
The artifacts generated by performance-based printing are the subject of Robair’s most recent research: Letterpress printing as a real-time score generator. The concept is to establish a feedback system within a performance where the printer’s output is reintroduced as input to the performers. For example, printed objects that materialize through the printer’s interactivity with other artists are presented as graphic scores intended to further inspire the participants over the course of the event.
Six of the seven prints in this exhibit—B through G—are the results of this concept, many of which have been reimagined as scores for other pieces. The score in print A is included in this exhibit as a precursor to the real-time, score-creation concept, where the practice of letterpress printing played a major role in the development of the work.
Bio
As a composer and visual artist, Gino Robair explores how scores with nonrepresentational imagery influence interpretive performances across different media—music, dance, video and theatre. He is currently a PhD candidate in Performance Studies at the University of California, Davis, developing performative models for improvised papermaking and letterpress printing. Special thanks for the San Francisco Center for the Book (sfcb.org) for the use of their Vandercook proof presses.