Non Plus Ultra
4310 Burns Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90029
VOLUME and Non Plus Ultra is pleased to present a showcase of Dragon’s Eye Recordings’ artists including Pinkcourtesyphone, Robert Crouch, wndfrm & Geneva Skeen. wndfrm will present an audiovisual collaboration with Mark Henrickson.
About the Artists
Robert Crouch is an artist and curator whose work encompasses sound, performance, and technology. As an artist, he locates his work with the intersection of post-phenomenological listening practices, conceptual sound art, and contemporary electronic music. At its core, his work can be understood as a conversation between tonality, context, history and subjectivities. Similarly, Crouch’s curatorial work focuses on the overlapping disciplines of sound, technology, movement, and performance.
In 2014 he organized the North American premiere of Sphæræ, a large-scale inflatable performance space and public artwork by Dutch artist Cocky Eek. He is currently co-curating Juan Downey: Radiant Nature, a survey of early interactive and performance work of the late Chilean artist as part of the Getty initiative, Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA.
Crouch is the former Associate Director/Curator at LACE, where he curated solo exhibitions with artists Karen Lofgren, Gina Osterloh, Steve Roden, Sean Sullivan, and Margo Victor, and performances with artists including William Basinski, Celer, Lawrence English, Dominick Fernow, and Yann Marussich. He is also the founding partner of VOLUME, a curatorial project that functions as a catalyst for interdisciplinary new media work through exhibitions, performances, events, lectures, and publications, and has worked with a wide range of artists including William Basinski, Nate Boyce, Frank Bretschneider, Richard Chartier, Heather Cassils, Celer, Loren Chasse, William Fowler Collins, Tim Hecker, Isis, France Jobin, Kadet Kuhne, Lucky Dragons, Mamiffer, Carsten Nicolai, Yann Novak, taisha paggett, Steve Roden, Terre Thaemlitz, Julie Tolentino, and Christopher Willits.
Mark Henrickson is an improvising visualist based in San Francisco. He works with live modular frameworks in MAX/jitter and tows the line between concrete footage and dissociative visual abstraction.
Pinkcourtesyphone is a continuing project by Los Angeles-based sound artist Richard Chartier.
He is considered one of the key figures in the current of reductionist sound art which has been termed both microsound and Neo-Modernist. Chartier’s minimalist digital work explores the inter-relationships between the spatial nature of sound, silence, focus, perception and the act of listening itself.
Pinkcourtesyphone is a more emotional, dare one say musical side of his work. Pinkcourtesyphone is dark but not arch, with a slight hint of humor. Pinkcourtesyphone is amorphous, changing, and slipping in and out of consciousness. Pinkcourtesyphone operates like a syrup-y dream and strives to be both elegant and detached.
Pinkcourtesyphone has collaborated with the likes of Cosey Fanni Tutti, Kid Congo Powers, harpist Gwyneth Wentink, AGF, William Basinski, and Evelina Domnitch. Pinkcourtesyphone’s work has been released internationally on labels including: LINE_Segments (US), Important Records (US), Dragon’s Eye Recordings (US), Farmacia901 (IT), Boomkat (UK), and IO Sound (Canada).
Chartier’s sound works/installations have been presented in galleries and museums internationally and he has performed his work live across Europe, Japan, Australia, and North America at digital art/electronic music festivals and exhibits. In 2000 he formed the recording label LINE and has since curated its continuing documentation of compositional and installation work by international sound artists/composers exploring the aesthetics of contemporary and digital minimalism.
Geneva Skeen is an interdisciplinary artist working in Los Angeles. Influenced heavily by écriture féminine, alchemical metaphors, and a mix of musical traditions ranging from holy mysticism to industrial, Skeen composes primarily with field recordings, digital presets, and mixed voice and instrumentation. Her current work is focused on the contrast between facing the finite resources of the physical landscape and its infinite digital representations. Her solo and collaborative works have been performed or presented at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Human Resources (L.A.), Les Figues Press, on the rooftop of The Standard Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, and on the façade of the Armory building in Long Beach, California, amongst others, and is releasing a forthcoming album on Dragon’s Eye Recordings in September 2016. She is an active member of VOLUME, a curatorial collective focused on sound-based practices.
wndfrm is Tim Westcott, a musician and sound artist currently based in Portland, Oregon. Tim’s atmospheric soundscapes are characterized by heavily processed field recordings, tones, drones, abstract percussive elements, a wide dynamic range and an inquisitive, patient ear. His recordings have been shared on a handful of boutique imprints over the last few years including Home Normal, Prologue and Truth Or Consequences.
