I also took my and Steve’s working dynamic from our collaboration and used it in my videos. You can see this in the call-and-responses. There is generally one person with unusual potential that’s closely connected to his raw emotions. I like to pair him with his counter point: the person who can provide consolation and guidance to help harness this potential. This relationship may be between friend and friend, father and son, or, in the case of the Astronomer, friend and blanketed friend. These situations are close enough that there became no reason to disconnect the voice from myself or other phases of myself.
KK: Where does the music fit in? Are your songs a script or a score?
RB: They’re scripts that are also scores. I write the music first. This largely determines the scene. I have a general idea or a particular feeling
before I begin writing the music. I’ll finish all of the sound and text before I begin filming. Afterwards, the audio is laid on top.
KK: Is it important for you to have the story end or to resolve?
RB: It’s important that it doesn’t. My stories are about working one’s way toward something. If that something is reached, there’s not much more to do.
KK: Is the figure under the blanket human or otherwise?
RB: I think he’s human or some phase of human. If anything, he’s nervous energy in human form. Actually, during filming, every time I was in discussion with the blanket, there was no body inside. It was stuffed with pillows.
KK: In poring over (and sometimes barely discerning) the conflicting texts, theories, and musings on “existence,” I am stuck on Heidegger’s definition of “Dasein” or “Being.” In [Kevin] Aho’s book Heidegger’s Neglect of the Body, he describes Heidegger’s assertion that obsessing on the present–being preoccupied with the mundane or everyday–is an inauthentic way of being, and that we are constantly pulled into “the movement of falling.” It is then that we experience anxiety, or a desire to be free from ourselves. Aho goes on to say, “Anxiety makes it possible for us to resolutely own up to the unsettledness of our existence.” Can you tell me a bit about the role of anxiety in your work?
RB: Anxiety seems to be the effect of any large endeavor that has never happened. My blanketed friend says that he’s afraid, but it is actually anxiety that plagues him because his concern only exists in his projection of a future. Their situation seems too foreboding to embrace anxiety even if it brings reflection to their problems. After all, they’re fleeing and it seems like everything is left behind.
KK: What led you to start performing your videos live? What is Gandalf ‘s role? Is this part of the continued story line?
RB: In a video that I made a few years ago, I perform with a backing band. When a curator asked me if my band and I could do a live music performance for a show, I had to improvise because my band doesn’t actually know how to play instruments; they were only acting like they were playing instruments in the video. I solved this by projecting a prerecorded video of the band synced up to my music while I stood in front of the projection and performed. That eventually led to me speaking back to the screen and to reenacting my narratives. For the past year I have been producing Gandalf Gavan’s German
pop music. As with Steve, Gandalf writes the lyrics and I compose the songs. I was working on this while putting together The Astronomer project. The crossover that I always saw between the two projects is that they contain a slightly blurry sense of optimism paired with a clear set of tasks and a symbiotic friendship. Gandalf opened for my first Astronomer performance. I thought of it as a good introduction because it set a tone for what was to follow.
I didn’t plan on Gandalf being part of the continued storyline, but it has incidentally changed the narrative that exists outside of the video work; the Astronomer’s non-blanketed friend is a strapping German pop singer.
This conversation was excerpted from a collection of interviews published on the occasion of Human Being, a series of exhibitions, installations, and happenings curated by Kristan Kennedy, for PICA’s 2010 Time-Based Art Festival. You can download a PDF of the full ON SIGHT catalogue here, or pick up a hard copy at the Washington High School galleries (through October 17), or at the PICA Resource Room.

Other thoughts and references accumulated and began to adhere to the central idea/feeling. It was only then that the idea of a ‘tornado warning’ entered the picture and seemed to be a useful and meaningful metaphor. It was then also that I connected it to my childhood memories.
The other starting point for the installation was a dialectic one of making two adjacent spaces that provided sharply contrasting experiences: conceptual, visual and, aural. So: straight lines vs. spirals, sound vs. silence, black and white vs. color, order vs. chaos, etc.
KK: In contrast to the upheaval in the multi-channel piece, Plato’s Alley is silent and ordered. Can you talk about how the proximity of the works affects the total experience?
CA: Because of the proximity of the two spaces, the sound inevitably bleeds from the noisy space into the “silent” one. Despite the contemplative nature of Plato’s Alley, it’s hard to shut out the sense of the adjacent chaos. I think that’s getting close to describing the total experience I want to offer.
KK: It seems that throughout your life as an artist you have existed at the intersections of genres; although you work predominately with moving images, they have become documentaries, sculptural installations, music videos, sets, dances, etc. Can you talk about your interest in working within the work of others, either as a collaborator or a floating eye, documenting, witnessing, or directing?
CA: Too complicated to answer.
KK: What does it mean to be human?
CA: “Human” is definitely a word I think of in the context of my creative work, particularly because so many of my pieces directly involve the human body as dancer or performer. I am drawn to engage a broad mix of people as subjects and to portray their range of experience from dealing with common everyday emotions and activities to contemplating issues of life and death. Interestingly, when I was making Plato’s Alley, I set out to make something as “inhuman” as possible. So that it would contrast with the rest of my work.
Atlas is represented by Vilma Gold in London.
This conversation was excerpted from a collection of interviews published on the occasion of Human Being, a series of exhibitions, installations, and happenings curated by Kristan Kennedy, for PICA’s 2010 Time-Based Art Festival. You can download a PDF of the full ON SIGHT catalogue here, or pick up a hard copy at the Washington High School galleries (through October 17), or at the PICA Resource Room.

A large-than-usual audience gathered to hear Storm Tharp and PICA’s Kristan Kennedy discuss Tharp’s “High House” installation at THE WORKS, prompting the ON SITE chat to happen in the hall outside of the room housing Tharp’s work. Tharp and Kennedy talk about the yearlong process of planning and installing the installation Tharp describes as creating “remarkable moments from unremarkable objects.” The artist has an intense appreciation for each element, each arrangement, in the room. The room is a meticulously curated collection of “the things that are intrinsically pleasing to me,” he explains. “The objects in my life bring me joy, even subconsciously.”
Tharp describes the artistic production and commercial pressure he is under as wearing; he and Kennedy, a longtime friend, wanted to create something different for this installation. On an early visit to the artist’s residence, Kennedy noticed a place at the end of Tharp’s table he uses as a continually evolving display of sculptural objects, flowers, and imagery. She suggested that the emotional satisfaction he found in this practice could be the basis for the installation. Tharp began to consider the emotionally satisfying elements that support him during the often-crushing day-to-day business of creating, and the idea for the show was born.
“I put everything on a stage,” says Tharp, describing his intrinsic drive to elevate plants and objects on pedestals around his home and studio. This idea of elevation, combined with Tharp’s habitual need for “light, space, and air” was woven into the installation as a feeling of ascension, especially the idea of “becoming what you want to become,” and gratitude (“what does being thankful mean?”), resulting in what Tharp considers an almost “alpine” sensibility; a “high house”.

Tharp wishes to free the work from the confinement of concept and instead create a sensual environment; color as harmony, and the visual reverberation of objects placed near one another. Tharp is playing with the energy between elements in order to create experiences, and sees this practice as a deep thread that touches his work in various mediums. He seeks an “emotional revolution” in the work, and the room delivers an intensity of presence in whispers, like a sacred space.

The room also whispers of a darker side. Intense artificial light acts as element of the work by contributing to the clarity of the space, but also to its unreality, lending an edge of discomfort. The perfectly placed, fetishistic, controlled aspects of the work are echoed against the pristine white space, just as the graphic nature of drawings is revealed on white paper. Tharp explains that the sheer flags blowing in the fan’s breeze offer the embroidered reminders “not the first time” and “not the last”.
In the end, a complex environment with both light and dark elements humanizes the work. “It’s like everyone’s mom when she was great,” says Tharp, recalling the way his assistant Ashby describes the show. It is so mom, but distilled; intense, but fleeting, like a sudden memory triggered by a smell or the slant of the sun, a perfect moment, enshrined.
High House is on view through October 17 as part of Human Being, curated by Kristan Kennedy.
September 23 – October 17
Thursday – Friday 12 – 6:30 pm
Saturday – Sunday 12 – 4 pm
Washington High School
531 SE 14th Ave. Portland OR 97214

Dan Gilsdorf’s “Diabolus in Musica” is literally, a one chord pony. A cast of forlorn souls sing this lonesome sound low and long. Real long. For a scheduled four hours. If this isn’t the devil’s music, then metal mavens Slayer must be right–God really does hate us all.
But really, no one is expected to make it through the full afternoon performance. Even Beati Chorum, the local organization providing vocal talent, rotated singers in and out on the fly as if it were in a hockey game. Suffice it to say It was disappointing to see the group dressed as the college kids they likely are. Robes or other religious style costuming would’ve really hit the spot, but of course that would’ve been way too obvious.
I didn’t make it through the full run either. Just long enough to stay focused. But not so long to feel like making shadow puppets. Or sing along. Or do anything that might cause the performers to break character. Stayed just long enough to go into a trance. A small trance, mind you, but a trance nonetheless. During my meditative state I pondered how “Diabolus in Musica” would’ve looked if it had been produced using the 360 video technology of the Wooster Group’s “There Is Still Time…Brother.” Thought that would be quite cool. During my trance I considered whether they would be a good choice to hire for my kid’s birthday party. Although the prospect is endlessly entertaining to me, probably too minimalist for grade schoolers.
Before leaving, a little boy seemingly came from nowhere, began running, sprinting circles around the perimeter of the stage . He made it through a few revolutions before his mom led him away. Not sure if it was part of the show, but much to my disappointment the singers did not burst into flame; nor any demons or angels conjured. Oh well. Perhaps next year.

The good news on Daisey’s “Notes Toward All The Hours in the Day” is…that it’s all good news. In the spirit of the festival, it was a very much time-based piece. Purported as part of a proposed epic day long monologue (!!!), the first thing you notice about this show is that its much funnier than the galvanizing Jobs work. “Notes” plays a lot like an episode from a sit-down comedy version of “24.” Except without terrorism. Or jingoism. But there’s plenty of violence and sex. Well, at least a story about the violence of sex.
Sputtering, “Why should there be art in the afternoon?” as if lost in a hangover haze from too many nights spent at the Works, Daisey’s matinee monologue had a distinctly Portland flavor. There were the requisite references to such local landmarks as Powell’s Books and the Mark Spencer Hotel. The observation that people here look less like they’re on drugs, but rather that they are drugs was hilarious and insightful. Further proof that it’s invaluable to get an outsider’s perspective on your hometown.
Daisey’s self deprecating style is charming and disarming. And he’s a superb actor, to boot. The personal anecdotes roll out effortlessly but methodically. Extemporaneous as his performance was, it seemed nonetheless very carefully crafted. It wasn’t accidental when he said, “without narrative…we are lost.”
Whether detailing the pitfalls of dating a prostitute or prattling on about the power of theater and the folly of making art, his narratives were superlative. The dude certainly lives up to his billing of “master storyteller.” Daisey’s harrowing recollection of a suicide attempt segueing into an apocryphal recounting of the sordid life and times of rocker/raconteur Warren Zevon was wrenching and mesmerizing, lingering long on after the performance ended.

Katchadourian’s work examines the act of collecting, the collector, and the collection itself simultaneously, but does so in a gently facetious way. The stacked titles are often humorous takes on the libraries’ subjects and on the owners of the libraries as well. The title sequences are both cultural commentary and personal portrait, but intended as as snapshots of each, meant to be absorbed only as facets or glimpses of the subjects.
Katchadourian’s process pre-dates the current explosion of information collecting, sorting, and curating (think Flickr sets and de.li.cious tags) which drive our information experiences online, but reflects this form of human cultural expression perfectly, and in an amusingly pre-digital way. That we are drawn to the “realness” of books is timeless, and that we hold on to certain books through the years speaks of a truly personal (and often private) expression. Katchadourian explores the value of books but also the transitory nature of information; once the books are unsorted, the meaning she imposes disappears. The work reminds us not only that we are what we read but that we continually curate the exhibition that is ourselves.