monium: news
Black Galaxy - 'Photon Hex' in Birmingham, February 2008
Black Galaxy collaborate with Cinemaphonic at the MAC (Midlands Arts Centre) in Birmingham (UK) to present an evening of artists cinema and live sound as part of their ongoing Photon Hex series on Sunday 10 February 2008.
Experimental image meets live sound in an exploration of representation and abstraction as the Black Galaxy ensemble perform live improvised sound responses to poet Ira Cohen’s maximalist ritual hallucination ’The Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda’ (1968) and the alchemical animations of artist Harry Smith’s ‘Early Abstractions: 1 - 5, 7, 10’ (1939/1956).
The musicians (Simon Mabbott & Nicholas Bullen (Black Galaxy), and sound artist Helena Gough) combine composed and improvised approaches, and analogue and electronic sounds from a range of instrumentation (including laptops, electronics, guitars, percussion and amplified objects) in order to create dialogues with the work onscreen.
The live performances are complemented by screenings of Carolee Schneemann’s multi-layered diary ‘Plumb Line’ (1968/1972), Stan Brakhage’s sexualized psychodrama ‘Reflections on Black’ (1955), and the Brothers Quay’s dark exploration of a collection of medical artifacts in ‘The Phantom Museum’ (2003).
MAC (Midlands Arts Centre) website