December 13, 2010
WIKSWO KRAUSAS ALEXIS PAYNE “WATERLAND”
Right on the heels of its global screenings and performances throughout France, Germany, Taiwan and ten cities in the United States, my video installation WATERLAND has been released by Catalysis Projects and is available for purchase online. The project was an altogether delightful collaboration with composer Veronika Krausas, poet Andre Alexis, actor John Payne, soprano Kira Dills-DeSurra, and Aron Kallay of People Inside Electronics.
Waterland is a monologue by Canadian writer André Alexis of the mental meanderings of a child hallucinating with a fever, juxtaposed within the fractured visual memories of a dying fighter pilot shot down over the Aleutian Island.
CLICK HERE TO ORDER THE DVD THROUGH CD BABY.
Two small excerpt clips are featured on the Catalysis Projects vimeo page – to see the first clip CLICK HERE and then to watch the other clip CLICK HERE.
Originally created and premiered as video projection over interactive live performance and electronics, the installation has since been transformed into a remarkable single-channel video with the assistance of Studio Grushky in downtown Los Angeles.
This was a marvelous experience from start to finish, and my first encounter working visually with another writer’s text (rather than my own.) I was the final collaborator in the project, and thus the challenge was to counterbalance my visual imagery within the highly evocative rhythmic and aural landscape of the written text, spoken voice, musical score, and soprano performance. Navigating these elements in a way that amplified and complemented was exhilarating.
It’s a really lovely bit of packaging that also features one of my photographs that wraps around the cover. I’m particularly happy because the DVD case is a lovely, plummy, thick fiber board rather than plastic.
CD NOTES:
VERONIKA KRAUSAS
“…her works, whose organic, lyrical sense of storytelling are supported by a rigid formal elegance, give her audiences a sense that nature’s frozen objects are spring to life.” – The Globe & Mail (Toronto)
The works of composer VERONIKA KRAUSAS are performed internationally, where she is recognized for her innovative use of theatre, acrobatics, and video. She is presently on faculty in the Composition Department at the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, a lecture at the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and a member of CATALYSIS PROJECTS. www.veronikakrausas.com
QUINTAN ANA WIKSWO
“…Quintan Ana Wikswo uses obsolete technology and manual techniques to capture decaying, paradoxical locations and traditions; drawn as she is to the ruins and outskirts of urban centers, Wikswo is documenting a a discarded world.” – THE Magazine
Artist QUINTAN ANA WIKSWO works at the intersections of poetry, fiction, printmaking, photography, video, performance and installation. her projects have been recognized by fellowships and artist-in-residencies internationally. Wikswo’s work appears in galleries, museums, performance spaces, and publications throughout Europe and North America. An artist with CATALYSIS PROJECTS, her studio is located in Los Angeles. www.QuintanWikswo.com