whaT that is SOLAR LICE, six seventeen, twenty fourteen & c.

a DRIP EVENT + jam, juxtaposing BRECHT (george) + PARSONS (ted).

dallas' evil light-shine, plop art, psychogeography...

tobias madison: in terms of music i think of the show as a kind of spatial musical composition, as one that is audible to a certain extend to human ears but then maybe also audible for other entities that are being evoked by the ritual of the exhibition and its opening performance. say music for demons that perceive invisible movement as sound, or vapourizing one's own water angel, like opening your mind or the characters hidden within yourself to a new kind of experience of music. 

FIRST QUESTION:

I recently saw some unearthed footage of the all but forgotten performance artist ralston farina, who insisted "my medium is time" like a mantra at each performance, + refused documentation. this credo cld arguably be applied to any sound based work, but wld seem specifically relevant to the DRIP EVENT. how do you see time, erosion, dereliction, + memory functioning in this work?

emanuel rossetti: maintenance was a central and public part of the exhibition, which is also why gallery manager greg ruppe's daily renovations had become a line in our score. through this, each day the power station opened their front door became a singular event. 

(rather a last answer to this first question)

tobias madison: I think whereas time becomes really a central topic in the erosion of the work, the stage structure and the building itself there were also these loops built into some of the works In drip event. like the globes and the tarp work that are both based on water based production processes (concrete, paper mache), so the dripping water dissolves the material and hardens it again as it evaporates, making the works undergo their production process over and over again while falling apart. 

the DRIP EVENT could theoretically be repeated ad infinitude, with the slight differences that occur making it a new work each time.

can you describe this stage structure?

stefan tcherepnin: what was once (remains?) a Chinese river, inverted, becomes an empty stage. transparent + opaque barriers delineating scenes + the transversal of space. the leak (drip) is the unavoidable, without intention, an actuality.

A redaction of space via the permeability of barriers + a testament to gravity's infallible memory; it is this space in-between, which may only be inhabited perceptually. An allocation; the contrasting agency that is SOLAR LICE...

would you discuss the ascendancy of fluxus vs the lowbrow lure of parapsychology in this work?

stefan tcherepnin: I do not recognize the distinction "fluxus" in real time. it is all about the pursuit + presence of the yeti. any and all hypnosis which may have resulted is an after thought.

what was the musical approach/ influences of SOLAR LICE?

emanuel rossetti: initially we thought about using the visitor movements as a way of editing audio recordings, kind of reverse engineering movements through the exhibition by doing recordings from different spots and then fading from one recording to the next, with reverb and volume diagonally chained. after spending a few days at issue project room we decided to use this idea only for the intros and endings of a couple of tracks and started over through improvisation.

tobias madison: a psychogeographic interpretation of survival research labs? definitely yes, a sort of remapping of machine parts & organs, not necessarily functioning afterwards anymore. 

stefan tcherepnin: early SWANS (obvious), slint's spiderland...

probably what I’ve listened to most, music or otherwise, has been these archived re-broadcasts of art bell's ghost to ghost, a radio program which has aired every halloween since 1994, where for 3 days (due to time zones) he has listeners call in to tell their true ghost stories. There’s every kind of person you can think of, from scholars to truckers (a lot of truckers) to ex-cops + ex-military, these people all calling in to tell of paranormal experiences that really happened to them. It's all archived online + you can listen to it year by year. I also have some true ghost stories that happened to me, some of my first memories, things that couldn't be explained by an adult. to the extent that I believe in anything, I believe in that.

how would you say that this has informed these works?

stefan tcherepnin: what happens I think if you rely on that kind of thing too much, and don't get me wrong - I rely on it all the time - but if you're consciously trying to tap in to that all the time, the more that you are aware of it and the more you formulate it, the further away from it you become. at the same time if you try to separate yourself from it the opposite can happen. I used to think that it's the universe that is always playing tricks on you, and there's really no right way, or if there is, then I will never know it. maybe the whole failure aesthetic fits in here as well...

recommends:

the last wave

dark water (us version, shot on roosevelt island)

steel pole bathtub unlistenable. 

AUBE, etc.