/artists/jack ryan & chi wang

Top: Jack Ryan, Obtuse Isometric Electronics, audio electronics, cardboard, steel, wood, audio broadcast, variable demensions, 2014-2015. Bottom: Chi Wang, performance documentation, 2015. Images courtesy the artists.

Jack Ryan & Chi Wang

ARTIST BIO

Chi Wang is a composer and performer who makes intermedia art involving Computer Human Interaction. Wang’s current research and composition interests include data driven instruments, performance, and sound design. The artist’s live interactive performance compositions have been presented in Musicacoustica, Beijing, China; Society for Electro-Acoustic Music, Virginia; Kyma International Sound Symposium (Leicester, UK; Brussels, Belgium; Lübeck, Germany), Muzyki Elektroakustycznej, Poznan, Poland; and the International Computer Music Conference (Dallas, TX; Utrecht, The Netherlands).

Jack Ryan is an interdisciplinary artist who uses sonic theory, sculpture, and optics as a conduit to explore trance and contemporary culture. Ryan is the co-director of Ditch Projects in Springfield, OR and the founding director of Pacific Sky Exhibitions in Eugene, OR. He has exhibited at Palace of Fine Arts, Ministry of Culture, Cairo, Egypt; Dublin Electronics Arts Festival, Ireland; Maison Laurentine, Paris; Ausstellungsraum Klingental, Basel; The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C; MICA, Baltimore; the Banff Center, Canada; and the University of California in San Diego. In 2015, Ryan received the Hallie Ford Fellowship in the Visual Arts; the Precipice Award administered by PICA and supported by the Andy Warhol Foundation and Calligram/Allie Furlotti; and a Djerassi residency supported by the Oregon Arts Commission and the Ford Family Foundation.

 

ARTIST STATEMENT

Using a series of recorded sounds, synthesized sounds, and combinations of spectrum content at different transpositions of beta and theta frequencies, our sound performance and design process involves real-time control through brainwave entrainment to activate dream states fused with states of high functioning awareness.

Using sound and trance theory we will compose, perform, and broadcast audio frequency arrangements into the front courtyard during the Portland2016 Biennial’s launch to open channels of cognitive mindfulness in the audience. We will also design and perform separate sound works for other venues in the state. Our compositions will begin by cross fading beta frequencies and theta frequencies; this collision propagates an audio moiré pattern. Beta frequencies are those generated during normal waking hours in which you are active and alert having a frequency of 14-28 cycles per second. Theta waves are often achieved during dreams or periods of deep relaxation. The audio moiré creates an otoacoustic effect on the audience. We are going to tune the audience as they move through the Biennial’s launch and at other satellite events in the state.

Faced with our affable sound bath as the audience moves into the venue we imagine “bodies without organs extending in celebration of physicality and multiplicity” (Thousand Plateaus).

Reception: Saturday, July 9: Disjecta Contemporary Art Center 6–10pm; Friday, July 22: Art Center East 6–8pm

Venue 1: Disjecta Contemporary Art Center

Gallery Hours: Wednesday–Saturday, 12–5pm

8371 N Interstate Ave | Portland

Venue 2: Art Center East

Gallery Hours: Mon-Fri, 10am – 4pm

1006 Penn Ave | La Grande

Website: http://volcanophile.com/

Residence: Eugene

Top: Jack Ryan, Obtuse Isometric Electronics, audio electronics, cardboard, steel, wood, audio broadcast, variable demensions, 2014-2015. Bottom: Chi Wang, performance documentation, 2015. Images courtesy the artists.