Rockstar welcome at Shadow Show opening
Gordon and I powered up yesterday for a long trek across back road Rhode Island & Connecticut to Hartford for the opening of The Shadow Show at Real Art Ways. It featured our first attempt at multi-media art: "ROCKSTAR" (accomplished only with Aerostatic's profound help in music and videography!) Rockstar is a short demonstration of how an ordinary piece of granite capable of producing a self-generated petro-voltaic charge can be used to summon a video and sonic representation of considerable visual complexity and sonic appeal. The over riding intent of the work is to illustrate the capacity of Nature, even in one of its most modest forms, i.e. a small piece of rock, to be capable of profound interaction with people and the environment.
This event was Gordon's first ever experience of being considered an artist in an art show! His name was right there in 4 inch letters at the door!
We were not disappointed in the least in the display. Real Art Ways, was located in a large industrial building in a run down section of Hartford, but sported a huge gallery/performance space with a first class staff. ROCKSTAR had its own dedicated gallery/theater, with a few chairs placed in front of a 10x15 ft. screen, with the rock itself spot lit in the back against the wall. The viewing room was entered through dark curtains. The video resolution and sound rendering was excellent. (We had never seen it above computer screen resolution before!) People seemed to thoroughly enjoy the presentation and actually understand the subject matter! Nature & Aerostatic & Masahiro were properly credited. An opportunity for a live performance with Aerostatic in the future looked promising!
The show itself had three other galleries of mainly well thought out artworks, including three other excellent multi-media pieces. Two performances were held that evening, one, a dance, in our sponsor Liz Keithline's exhibition of hanging wire form sculptures. The sculptures cast delicate shadow forms against three walls, which interacted as shadows with the dancer as she swept through them. The other was a music and poetry event in the gallery cafe. The show was suprisingly well attended, with people still arriving at 8PM when we left. Real Art Ways is a very good place to consider any group multi-media art event.
