Chapman University
One University Drive
Orange, CA 92866
Performance Program
October 16 – 20, 2024
Location details forthcoming
Energy Fields: Vibrations of The Pacific is an exhibition, publication, and public program co-curated by Robert Takahashi Crouch and Lawrence English. The exhibition presents a diverse and dynamic collection of works from artists working out of Japan, Australia, Canada, Chile, New Zealand, and the USA. These works trace a path of investigation that intersects the fluctuation of time and space through gravitational waves, the geologic dynamism of tectonic and seismic activities and examines how sound, light, and electro-magnetic spectra affect the body and perception. The exhibition recognizes the Pacific as a zone of entanglement where these energetic forces resonate amidst the world’s most seismically active continental plates.
David Haines and Joyce Hinterding’s Telepathy (2008)—a single-occupancy anechoic chamber—allow audiences to experience and contemplate an interior relationship to sound and vibration, that which exists within our own bodies. Steve Roden’s ear(th) (2004) installation deepens this, offering an opportunity for people to recognize the energetic nature of seismic activities in Southern California. Malena Szlam’s film ALTIPLANO (2018) creates visual rhythms against a soundscape generated from infrasound (below human hearing) recordings of volcanoes, geysers, and Chilean blue whales and Alba Triana’s sculpture Music on a Bound String No. 2 (2015) operates at the nexus of light and sound waves. Virginia Katz’ works On-shore Flow and Off-shore Flow (2008) collaborate with different wind conditions, visualizing a phenomenon we intimately experience but only see through its effects.
Energy Fields will also present a vibrant public program of artist talks, lectures, and performances including presentations from William Basinski, Ellen Fullman + Theresa Wong Annea Lockwood, and Jeneen Frei Njootli, amongst others.
Energy Fields: Vibrations of the Pacific is made possible with generous support from the Getty Foundation and will be presented as part of PST Art: Art & Science Collide in 2024.
Video footage from Alba Triana: Music on a Bound String No. 2, 2015. Courtesy of Alba Triana Studio and Oriol Tarridas.
