MUSIC

Nameless Sound presents Keith Rowe and Kjell Bjørgeengen, at 14 Pews, Friday, September 23 at 8pm.

An important innovator in contemporary music, British guitarist Keith Rowe has been called "the godfather of electro-acoustic improvisation." Rowe has been a major influence, with a radical approach to his instrument and performance in general. Starting his career playing jazz in the early 1960s, Rowe was deeply influenced by abstract painters (Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock) and contemporary composers (John Cage and Morton Feldman). Searching for his own method, Rowe took inspiration from Pollock and laid his guitar flat on a table. Taking inspiration from Cage, he prepared the instrument with various objects, turning it into a source of pure sound making. Rowe was first known as a founding member of AMM, a group that made pioneering electro-acoustic music for over 40 years. His importance continues (and increases) as he collaborates with dozens of artists from a new generation who are deeply influenced by his work.

Live video artist Kjell Bjorgeengen (pictured above) joins Rowe. Bjorgeengen has recently focused on working live with a wide range of musicians. The live works feature the production of flicker videos, which have been presented in various exhibitions since 2002. The flicker image is perhaps the most simple and fundamental image we can think of, the oscillation between shades of light and darkness, given from the outside as a simple binary pairing of the visual experience. The flicker videos came about as a counteraction to an easy intellectual approach to art viewing. The flicker works can be harsh to watch, as they are perceived on a physical level. There is a threshold that needs to be overcome. The black and white works are often perceived in colors. A still image from the video reads like a minimal work; set in motion the work turns into its opposite.