Past Exhibition
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BUILDING STEAM | LYNN KOBLE September 18 - October 24, 2010 Lynn Koble, Pundit (2009), Audio track, mp3 player, speakers, felt, fabric, wheels, wood, cardboard, paint, 60 x 58 x 54 inches; Photo: Jason Mandella Building Steam | Sound Program
Swarm Gallery, Oakland, CA is pleased to announce the September 2010 launch of Building Steam, a year-long program dedicated to sound art created by local and national artists,
to coincide with the 2010 01SJ Biennial. Like a locomotive that literally creates its power source by cultivating the steam that drives its wheels, Swarm Gallery's program of sound art will spend its first year laying the
groundwork for a broader understanding and appreciation for sound art, in the Bay Area and beyond. By focusing on the abundance of local talent, as well as reaching out to artists
across the nation engaged with sound, Swarm Gallery hopes to create a supportive framework of listeners and makers that together, and in dialogue, will nurture and further grow this
art form. Swarm Gallery's ultimate aim is to create a world of listeners that are deeply aware and appreciative of our diverse sonic environment. Swarm Gallery is pleased to be a part of the 2010 01SJ Biennial and sees Building Steam as a natural fit for the biennial's theme, Build Your Own World. Within the context of
so much that challenges our world today, and in lieu of the recent economic calamity that threatens the productive activity of creative makers and innovators of all types, Swarm Gallery
believes that it is incumbent upon any institution that supports creativity to step up to the challenge and bring shelter to those whose ideas, projects, and forward thinking solutions
do not always fit the norm or necessarily conform to established economic models. Sound artists often operate in this space, asking us to consider the world with our ears through a
variety of strategies, creating new worlds or in other cases bringing us back to ones we've forgotten, overlooked, or have simply ignored. Often, these artists do this with little
institutional support. Lynn Koble | Inaugural Exhibition
For the September 2010 launch of Building Steam, Swarm Gallery will present an installation by New York-based artist Lynn Koble. Koble's current work reflects her
interest in the many forms of constructed and simulated environments - physical, social, psychological, natural - that exist in a technology-saturated world. She is also curious
about how people experience, order and disrupt these environments according to systems, both scientific and personal, tangible and virtual. Most often, Koble creates interactive sound installations and sculpture to explore this idea of environments, presenting participatory experiences that engage multiple senses: vision,
sound, touch. She sometimes offers participants the opportunity to shape their experience through interaction with technology systems. These systems exist in the context of exaggerated,
hand-made sculptural environments, which offer a richness of texture, color, scale, and sound that mocks and transcends the referents from the "real" world. Recently, references to the natural world have played an increased role in her work. Conceptually, these unfold as questions about sustainability (psychological and environmental),
encoding, and the complex relationship between people and nature in a techno-centric culture.
Lynn Koble, Porta-wall (2003), Audio tracks, mp3 player, felt, speaker, wire, casters, styrofoam, plastic, wood, 85.25 x 48 x 16 inches Lynn Koble, Chorus (2005-2006), Audio tracks, microcontrollers with proximity sensors, speakers, wood, metal, dimensions variable PREVIEW WORKS
Project Space | de.layed de.layed is a hand-cut vinyl installation by collaborative team t.w.five, featured in Swarm Gallery's project space. t.w.five comprises Brazilian artist Paula Pereira and Swedish artist
Pernilla Andersson. With a multi-cultural perspective, their ideas intermingle into what they describe as, "a new hybrid of in-between." The large scale vinyl works depict public sites that could be
anywhere, places like train stations, bus
interiors and airports. For the artists, these locations represent sites of displacement, places where people are in-between destinations. Living in between two cultures is a
day-to-day reality for t.w.five. For them, the works are giant postcards that boldly announce their unsettled relationship with their geographic and mental states. They write,
"this project started off as a personal journey. Both of us our immigrants in the US and are dealing with a new country, a new language and a new culture while holding on to our
past selves." Pernilla Andersson, aka "five," was born in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1972 and currently lives and works in San Jose, California. She received a BFA and MFA from San Jose State University. Paula Pereira, aka "t.w.," was born in Brazil, in 1964 and currently lives and works in San Francisco, California. She received a BFA from San Francisco Art Institute and a MFA from
San Jose State University. Her street artwork is featured in the book "Graffiti Women" by Nicholas Ganz. |