Saturday, August 31, 2013

Framing the Viewshed: Groundswell - The Poster for the Event




at:

Olana State Historic Site
5720 Route 9G
Hudson, NY 12534
518-828-0135


Admission: $20 in advance ($30 day of); 12 & under: free
Tickets: groundswell.brownpapertickets.com

All proceeds benefit The Olana Partnership and WGXC Hands-on Radio.

The Olana Partnership and Wave Farm’s WGXC 90.7-FM are pleased to announce Framing the Viewshed: Groundswell, a groundbreaking event, which features site-specific works in sound, text, installation, and movement.  Over a dozen artists will reflect and react to Olana, Frederic Church's ambitious 250-acre early environmental work. 

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Framing the Viewshed: Groundswell • Sept. 22, 2013: 2– 6pm


Framing the Viewshed: Groundswell

Sept. 22, 2013: 2– 6pm






Olana State Historic Site
5720 Route 9G
Hudson, NY 12534
518-828-0135



Admission: $20 in advance ($30 day of); 12 & under: free
Tickets: groundswell.brownpapertickets.com


All proceeds benefit The Olana Partnership and WGXC Hands-on Radio.


The Olana Partnership and Wave Farm’s WGXC 90.7-FM are pleased to announce Framing the Viewshed: Groundswell, a groundbreaking event, which features site-specific works in sound, text, installation, and movement.  Over a dozen artists will reflect and react to Olana, Frederic Church's ambitious 250-acre early environmental work. 

Installation, performance, and participation from: DJ Spooky, Pauline Oliveros, Japanther, Eteam, robbinschilds, Bobby Previte, Maximilian Goldfarb, Greg Fox, Nadja Verena Marcin, David Kermani, Archie Rand, Nancy Shaver, Beth Schneck, and Cara Turett.

Olana's 250-acre landscape was originally designed in response to its integral views--the "Olana Viewshed"--by Hudson River School artist Frederic Church. Audiences will explore the property's undiscovered roads and naturalistic scenes as they encounter each project site. Picnic lunches can be purchased at a spectacular clearing overlooking the Hudson River, the Catskill Mountains, and beyond.

The main performance route will follow Olana's historic Ridge Road. When Church created this road, he famously wrote: "I can make more and better landscapes in this way than by tampering with canvas and paint in the studio."  While passing through native woodlands and open meadows, participants will interact with the artists and Olana's background elements, which include the distant mountains of Vermont and the nearby City of Hudson; the Mount Merino hillside which was protected by Scenic Hudson; the site of the regional St. Lawrence Cement battle; the original property of Thomas Cole, the founder of the Hudson River School and Church's teacher; and the site of the famed Catskill Mountain House, America's great wilderness hotel which disappeared in flames in 1963. The event will culminate on the East Lawn next to Church's Persian-inspired house. This vantage point includes a view of the proposed site of a massive nuclear power plant, which was defeated in the 1970s because of Olana's landscape and its iconic view of river and mountains--an unprecedented intersection of American art and environmentalism.

About Participating Artists
DJ Spooky
aka Paul Miller is composer, multimedia artist, editor and author. Known internationally for his work regarding the intersection of DJ culture and contemporary art, he was the first artist-in-residence at the Metropolitan Museum of Art 2012/2013. Pauline Oliveros is a pioneering composer, accordionist, sound artist, and founder of The Deep Listening Institute located in Kingston, New York. Japanther is Ian Vanek and Matt Reilly. The duo tour internationally as a punk band; and as an art project, their multi-disciplinary work often includes installation with live and performative elements. As eteam, Franziska Lamprecht and Hajoe Moderegger's work often engages technology to address issues relating to community and place with humor and ingenuity. Experimental movement duo robbinschilds' (Sonya Robbins and Layla Childs) wide-ranging work includes site-specific and installation-based performance, which explores the juncture between architecture or place, and human interaction. Drummer Bobby Previte is a seminal figure in the New York 'Downtown' scene. Maximilian Goldfarb is an interdisciplinary artist, producing site-derived works in various media. His projects reveal and interpret under-seen aspects of the constructed environment, operating within active systems integrated into everyday experience. Greg Fox is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, visual artist. Most often performing as a percussionist, Fox is known for his work with Guardian Alien, Teeth Mountain, Liturgy, and more. Performance artist Nadja Verena Marcin subverts strangely familiar cinematic sequences that are informed by social and political predefinition.

In conjunction with Groundswell's efforts to expand audiences' experiences of Olana-at-large, an intimate group of artists and scholars were gathered this summer to expand the frame of reference in which Olana might be understood and interpreted. Participants included David Kermani, Nancy Shaver, and Archie Rand. A recording of this conversation will be amplified during Groundswell, and inform a forthcoming publication.

Attendees will receive a map/guide to the Groundswell installations and performances designed by artist Cara Turett, and featuring documentation of the Olana Viewshed by photographer Beth Schneck.

About Olana and The Olana Partnership
The eminent Hudson River School painter Frederic Edwin Church (1826-1900) designed Olana, his family home, studio, and estate as an integrated environment embracing architecture, art, landscape, and conservation ideals.  Considered one of the most important artistic residences in the United States, Olana is a 250-acre artist-designed landscape with a Persian-inspired house at its summit, embracing unrivaled panoramic views of the vast Hudson Valley.

Olana State Historic Site, a historic site administered by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, Taconic Region, is a designated National Historic Landmark and one of the most visited sites in the state.  The Olana Partnership, a private not-for-profit education corporation, works cooperatively with New York State to support the restoration, development and improvement of Olana State Historic Site.  To learn more about Olana and The Olana Partnership please visit www.olana.org.

About Wave Farm and WGXC: Hands-on Radio
Wave Farm is a non-profit arts organization that celebrates creative and community use of media and the airwaves. Our programs provide access to transmission technologies and support artists and organizations who engage with media as an art form. WGXC Hands-on Radio is a creative community media project based in New York's Greene and Columbia Counties--where radio (90.7-FM) is a transformative public platform for information, experimentation, and engagement. To learn more about Wave Farm and WGXC Hands-on Radio, please visit www.wavefarm.org and www.wgxc.org.

Framing the Viewshed: Groundswell is co-organized by The Olana Partnership and Wave Farm's WGXC 90.7-FM, and is made possible, in part, with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts' Electronic Media and Film Presentation Funds grant program, administered by the ARTS Council of the Southern Finger Lakes; as well as individual contributors including David Kermani.