Performance/opening November 2: Judy Dunaway, Free Improvisations and “Balloon Tapestry with the Sound of Its Own Making”
For the opening on November 2nd, Judy will present a performance version of “Balloon Tapestry with the Sound of Its Own Making” featuring herself, Kattt Atchley, Brenda Hutchinson, Cheryl Leonard, Brent Miller and more TBA. Judy will also perform solo free improvisations on amplified latex “tenor” and “twister” balloons. These balloon instruments function like an instrument string. Imagine a violin string spread out into an orb. The balloon orb has an overtone series like a string. The balloon can be stimulated with the hands in the same “stick and slip” fashion as a bow on a violin. The latex, however, is so sensitive and bouncy that when the note sounds, it breaks into a mutating harmonic series. The latex stretches and contracts many times within the milliseconds it takes to make the simple squeak, thus the harmonic series is always changing. When this sound is slowed through time-stretching one can hear how a pitch in the harmonic series can waiver as much as a whole step before it goes to the next harmonic. The balloon is amplified with a small microphone attached to the surface.
Artist’s Statement
This composition/sound installation is about the sound of the weaving of “twister” balloons and the visual culmination of that sound. Balloon twisting is both an art and a skill. Commonly used by street and party entertainers, it has also been used to weave artistic creations and even for fashion. These professionals use “twister” balloons, long thin latex balloons manufactured especially for this purpose. However, as a “sound artist,” my interest is in the sound of the weaving. At various times during exhibition hours, “twister” balloons will be woven together on site and afterward hung in the space. An audio recording will be made of the weaving. When the balloons are not being woven, the recording of the weaving will be played back softly in the room. The twister balloons will gradually deflate over the course of a few days or weeks, and new balloon tapestry squares will be added on a regular basis. It is a futile exercise, as the creation is constantly dying. However the audio recordings will accumulate, making a longer and longer loop. The form of the piece will change throughout the duration of the exhibition. Guest performers/weavers: Kattt Atchley, Brenda Hutchinson, Cheryl Leonard, Brent Miller, and more TBA. Materials: 100% natural latex twister balloons (photodegradable), biodegradable ribbon, air, audio recording device, method(s) for audio playback.
Bio
Judy Dunaway is internationally known for her numerous works for latex balloons as sound producers, including sculptural sonic performances, sound installations, interactive pieces and acousmatic works. She has presented these works at many notable locations including the Academy of Media Arts Cologne, Alternative Museum (NYC), Audio Art Festival 2016 (Krakow), Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art (MACBA), Cafe Oto (London), Bang on a Can Festival (NYC), Everson Art Museum (Syracuse), Expo’74 at Mass MoCA, Frau Musica Nova (Germany), the Guelph Jazz Festival (Canada), Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors (NYC), the New Museum of Contemporary Art (NYC), Performance Space 122 (NYC), Podewil (Berlin), Roulette (NYC), the Roy and Edna Disney Center (Los Angeles), Seltsame Musik Festival (Austria) and STEIM (Netherlands). Her awards/grants/residencies include Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant, iii Instrument Inventors Artist-in-Residence, Elektronmusikstudion Stockholm, New York State Music Fund, the Aaron Copland Fund Recording Grant, the American Composers Forum’s Composers Commissioning Fund, Zentrum fuer Kunst und Medientechnologie, Harvestworks Digital Media Arts Center and the National Endowment for the Arts performance fund. She has given academic presentations about her works at many colleges and universities, including Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera (Milan, Italy), Berlin University of the Arts, Brown University, Columbia University, Concordia University (Montreal), Hochschule fuer Gestaltung Karlsruhe (Germany), Juilliard School of Music, Musik Akademie Basel (Switzerland), New England Conservatory, Rennselaer Polytechnic, University of California at Santa Cruz, University of Gothenberg (Sweden), University of Huddersfield (U.K.) and University of Michigan. She has a Ph.D. from Stony Brook University and an M.A. from Wesleyan University (where she studied with Alvin Lucier). She has been teaching at Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston since 2005. Website: www.judydunaway.com
Press Quotes
Although it is a household object that is associated with childhood and celebrations, Dunaway’s works for balloon rarely expounds on such quotidian functions. Her practice challenges these assumptions, compelling audiences to wonder how such a mundane object can engender such complex sounds and meanings….Instead of presenting a narrative, many of Dunaway’s works strive to create a sense of space…In a context that features ambient rather than rhetorical material, these micro-components of sound become of primary interest to the listener. Thus, in addition to transferring listening capacities to other areas of the body, this physical approach to music-making slightly shifts the focus on what audiences should listen for. – Tonia Ko, “Acts of Envelopment: Implications of Touch in Judy Dunaway’s Works for Balloons” from “A Portfolio of Two Essays” by Tonia Chi Wing Ko, Doctoral Dissertation, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY:
- https://ecommons.cornell.edu/items/be59d7b8-223e-4a99-b42e-d54495e38651
The embodied relationship that Dunaway has developed with the balloon over the past decades resulted in an artistic practice extremely tuned to the sonic proprieties of every inch of the latex balloon. – Carlo Patrão, Sounding Out!, April 22, 2019
https://soundstudiesblog.com/2019/04/22/play-against-levity-experimental-music-and-the-latex-balloon-part-two/
Dunaway is utterly fearless in her approach to her craft, and unflinching in the face of inevitable backlash from both her classical and avant-garde contemporaries. – Meredith Yayanos, Coilhouse Magazine, October 2007 (Review of “Mother of Balloon Music” CD on Innova Records)
https://coilhouse.net/2007/10/the-amplified-pneumatic-squeakitude-of-judy-dunaway/