Left: Marian
Zazeela, Abstract #1 from
Quadrilateral Phase Angle Traversals, 2003, copyright © Marian
Zazeela 2018.
Right: Jung Hee Choi, Environmental
Composition 2017 #1, 2017, copyright © Jung Hee Choi
2017.
La Monte Young Marian Zazeela Jung Hee Choi
Dream House
Sound and Light Environment
Extended Exhibition at MELA
Foundation
Opening: November 1, 2018, 6 pm
Hours: Wednesday-Saturday, 2pm-midnight
275 Church Street, 3rd Floor, New
York
T 917 972 3674
Admission: $10.00
MELA Foundation presents a
collaborative Sound and Light Environment by La Monte Young, Marian
Zazeela and Jung Hee Choi, an extended exhibition at Dream House, 275 Church
Street, 3rd Floor. The environment is open Wednesdays,
Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays from 2 PM to midnight. Admission is $10.00.
This long-term exhibition will open Thursday, November 1 at 6 pm, 2018 and
continue for the season.
In the current environment
we are presenting the new configuration of the Young and Choi collaborative
sound environment within the ongoing Zazeela and Choi site-specific light
environment. In the light environment Zazeela presents three works: Abstract #1 from Quadrilateral Phase Angle
Traversals, Ruine Window 1992 from Still
Light and Dream House Variation
I. Together with Zazeela, Choi
presents two works: Environmental
Composition 2017 #1 and Color (CNN),
live realization.
Conceived
for the Dia 15 VI 13 545 West 22 Street
Dream House in 2015, this unique sound installation presents the La Monte Young The Base
9:7:4 Symmetry in Prime Time When Centered above and below The Lowest Term
Primes in The Range 288 to 224 with The Addition of 279 and 261 in Which The
Half of The Symmetric Division Mapped above and Including 288 Consists of The
Powers of 2 Multiplied by The Primes within The Ranges of 144 to 128, 72 to 64
and 36 to 32 Which Are Symmetrical to Those Primes in Lowest Terms in The Half
of The Symmetric Division Mapped below and Including 224 within The Ranges 126
to 112, 63 to 56 and 31.5 to 28 with The Addition of 119 and the Jung Hee
Choi TONECYCLE BASE 30 HZ, 2:3:7, The
Linear Superposition Of 108 Sine Wave Frequencies Set In Ratios Based On The
Harmonics 2, 3 And 7 Imperceptibly Ascending Toward Fixed Frequencies And Then
Descending Toward The Starting Frequencies, Infinitely Revolving As In Circles,
In Parallel And Various Rates Of Similar Motion To Create Continuous Slow Phase
Shift With Long Beat Cycles sound environments in simultaneity. We first
heard this possibility at our installation in Berlin in 2012 at the Vila
Elizabeth where the Young sound environment was the audio centerpiece of the
second floor Dream House and the Choi sound environment was presented in the first floor entrance lobby. Although the two sound
environments had substantial distance between them it was still possible to
hear harmonious interrelationships of the frequencies in acoustically
transitional locations.
Based on the impression of the
Berlin environment simultaneity Young decided that it would be possible to
perform the two sound environments as a simultaneity in close proximity. Young likes to compare this simultaneity with
the Charles Ives concept of having two marching bands playing music coming from
opposite directions toward the center of the town.
In her writing, Choi pointed out
the opposite nature of the two sound environments. Choi writes, “Young’s sound
environment in the Dream House
contains complex intervallic ratios of continuous sine waves that would
theoretically sound eternally without any aspirations of melody or rhythm. The long sustained
tones are locked and remain constant projecting eternal stasis. However, any
smallest and unavoidable action of the listener such as breathing or blinking
of the eye, changes the perception of the tones. With the human body the audience cannot ever experience the constant nature
of the work. In contrast, the sine wave frequencies in my sound environment, Tonecycle Base 30 Hz, 2:3:7 are constantly
revolving, and never stand on any one place
long enough to satisfy the definition of a traditional musical pitch. The
motion of the tones is extremely slow and therefore, the sense of the pitch
shift is practically imperceptible. However, because the tones are moving in
constant speed toward the same direction and the relationship of corresponding frequencies remains relativistically invariant, it creates the aural illusion that the frequencies of tones
remain unchanged. Rather, the interactions of the moving sine waves create the
gradual development of distinctive melodic and rhythmic patterns over time as
the result of the acoustical phenomenon of phase interference.”
By presenting Choi’s imperceptibly
and yet continuously moving frequencies together with Young’s fixed frequency
constant, it becomes possible to perceive the movement of Choi’s frequencies,
demonstrating yet again the most profound frequency relationships are best
achieved against a fixed frequency constant, that is, a drone frequency.
The Zazeela and Choi’s
site-specific light environment will continue to be presented. With the
American premiere of Marian Zazeela Abstract
#1 from Quadrilateral Phase Angle Traversals, Zazeela wrote, “Much of my
work in light and calligraphy has been grounded in concepts of structural
symmetry. Quadrilateral Phase Angle Traversals is based on the Word
Portraits series of drawings and neon sculptures in which I have presented
names, words or ideas drawn with their bilaterally symmetrical, retrograde and
mirror-inverted images, so that the abstract form of the written word may be
viewed independently from its meaning.
This allows the visual content of the work to be considered both apart
from, and along with, the significance of the word. In Abstract #1 from Quadrilateral Phase
Angle Traversals, I turned this concept inside-out and created a pattern
that is derived from and evocative of letter forms, but which does not generate
known words. The projection becomes a mandala-like visual focus interweaving
through time.”
Choi has presented series of environmental
compositions with video, evolving light-point patterns, drawings, incense,
performance and sound involving the concept of “Manifest Unmanifest.”
Her synthesis of expression in these series collectively creates an
intersubjective space as a unified continuum and emphasizes the totality of
sense perceptions as a single unit to create a state of immersion. The New York
Times wrote about Choi’s multimedia installation Ahata Anahata, Manifest Unmanifest
IX, ”If you give in to it while watching
Ms. Choi’s hallucinatory screen, you may find yourself in an altered state of
consciousness, on the verge of some ineffable, transcendental revelation.” (August
28, 2015)
The Village Voice listed the MELA
Church Street Dream House as the Best
Art Installation in New York 2014, “A charge for the mind as much as for the
eye and ear, the Dream House feels like a gift to our beleaguered city, where
headspace is the most precious real estate of all.”