THE FLOODS
large-scale, algorithmically generative music/video installation and live performance
THE FLOODS is part of the It will happen here… project.
Installation
About
THE FLOODS is a massive video experience (96x20ft) in the Crane Icebox that immerses spectators in a kaleidoscopic journey in marshlands and industrial wastelands of the Anthropocene now being transformed by floods.
The work addresses questions of land-use, industrial contamination and sea-level rise through richly layered images, sound and generated language. Viewers travel along the marshlands and industrial wastelands of our local watershed and others worldwide that are shaped by industrialization. The sounds, images and text flow like waters, following a computer-code based system that gathers materials together in ever-changing experiences. Like ocean tides, the code-driven work is always changing.
Roderick Coover’s images, gathered over the past decade from journeys on and around our rivers, combined with field recordings, voices and electronic sounds composed by Adam Vidiksis, activate the unique reverberation of the massive Icebox space. Nick Montfort draws from Coover’s logs to create a continually evolving, poetic text. The remarkable spectacle reveals forces of flow, floods and chemical contamination. Visitors plunge into the imaginaries of times present and future in a work that attempts to put into words the unspeakable threats posed to existence, time and belonging.
Suitable for all ages, THE FLOODS stimulates the imagination to find ways to make sense of the environment and climate change. Average viewing time for the ever-changing experience is 25-50 minutes. Viewers can move about the space or make use of optional seating, and Crane Arts is a accessible building.
The installation runs Sept. 8-12 with extended hours on Sept. 9 during 2nd Thursday arts openings at the Crane. The exhibition is free. On Friday and Saturday evenings, there will also be two special, ticketed events with live orchestration to the cinematic experience.
Showtimes
Thursday, Sep 9, 2021 – 12:00pm – 6:00pm Gallery Hours
Friday, Sep 10, 2021 – 12:00pm – 6:00pm Gallery Hours
Saturday, Sep 11, 2021 – 12:00pm – 6:00pm Gallery Hours
Sunday, Sep 12, 2021 – 12:00pm – 6:00pm Gallery Hours
Credits
Artist/Filmmaker, Director: Roderick Coover
Composer: Adam Vidiksis
Computational Poetry: Nick Montfort
Technical Assistant: Jonah Pfluger
Intern: Alex Glass
Production House: Chouette Collective LLC
Presented at Philadelphia’s 2021 Fringe Festival
Made possible with support from the Temple University Presidential Humanities and Arts Award Program, The Temple University Center For Performing And Cinematic Arts Vice Provost In The Arts Award Program, Temple University Grant-In-Aid, and Chouette Collective LLC.
Live Performances
Crane Arts Icebox
Friday, September 10 and Saturday, September 11, 2021
8:00pm
Crane Arts Icebox, Philadelphia, PA
Musicians: Adam Vidiksis, Dan Blacksberg, Keith Kirchoff, Nick Millevoi, Sam Wells
Presented at Philadelphia’s 2021 Fringe Festival
In this special live concert spectacle, drummer Vidiksis leads an ensemble of internationally renowned musicians in an hour-long concert performance that responds in the moment to the ever-changing video images, electronic sound, and text generated by THE FLOODS. Vidiksis is joined by Archer Spade musicians Dan Blacksberg (trombone) and Nick Millevoi (electric guitar) and SPLICE Ensemble musicians Keith Kirchoff (keyboards, harmonium) and Sam Wells (trumpet). These virtuosic improvisers activate the unique acoustics of the massive Icebox space.
SPLICE Institute 2023
Adam Vidiksis: THE FLOODS Live Performance (2023)
Performed on Monday June 26, 2023
7:30pm EDT
Dalton Recital Hall, Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo, Michigan)
Livestream simulcast on SPLICE YouTube
Performers:
SPLICE Ensemble
Sam Wells, trumpet
Keith Kirchoff, piano
Adam Vidiksis, percussion
with:
Dana Jessen, bassoon
Popebama:
Erin Rogers, saxophone
Dennis Sullivan, percussion
Artists:
Adam Vidiksis: music, sound design, lead software developer
Roderick Coover: film
Nick Montfort: generative poetry
Teatro Académico de Gil Vicente
Performed on 12 July 2023, 9:30 p.m.
Teatro Académico de Gil Vicente, Coimbra, Portugal
Presented as part of ELO 2023
On the 12th and the 14th of July 2023, the Electronic Literature Conference Conference 2023 “Overcoming Divides: Electronic Literature and Social Change” will migrate for a few hours to a stage. This multimedia festival of performances, which will take place in the Convento São Francisco (room C2A – Mondego room) and in the Teatro Académico Gil Vicente, will gather several artists on stage, emphasizing the close link between electronic literature and performative arts.
Focusing on the same themes suggested by ELO Conference 2023, performers will address social and environmental issues, enveloping the audience in an stimulating and thought-provoking event.
About the Artists
Roderick Coover is film director/media artist and the creator of experimental and emergent cinematic arts work exhibited in art venues and public spaces such as the Venice Biennale Hyper-Pavilions, The Nobel Peace Prize Forum, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, and Documenta Madrid. He lives in Pennsylvania, USA, and Drôme, France.
Adam Vidiksis is a drummer and composer based in Philadelphia who explores social structures, science, and the intersection of humankind with the machines we build. He performs in SPLICE Ensemble and the Transonic Orchestra and his works are available through HoneyRock Publishing, EMPiRE, New Focus, PARMA, and SEAMUS Records.
Nick Montfort is the author of numerous computer-generated books of poetry including, among others #!, Autopia, The Truelist, and Hard West Turn and of the collaborative projects The Deletionist, Sea and Spar Between, and Renderings. Other books include Twisty Little Passages: An Approach to Interactive Fiction (MIT Press) and The New Media Reader (MIT Press).
