Jen Hall’s  brain waves (performance evidence) entitled "Epileptiforms: 5 Rem" can be viewed next week in a group show at EMPAC in Troy NY, a combo music, performance, and exhibit space.

Slow Wave: Seeing Sleep Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) Friday, September 25, 2009 at 5:00pm – Sunday, September 27, 2009 at 5:00pm 110 8th Street Troy, NY empacboxoffice@rpi.edu

Sleep is among the most mysterious of human behaviors, both difficult to portray and resistant to narration. "Slow Wave" presents works that employ both poetic and empirical channels in order to give form to the amorphousness of sleep and examines the particular techniques through which sleep is understood.

Over three days, visitors will have a chance to view works by Allan Hobson, Pierre Huyghe, Jennifer Hall, Rodney Graham, Fernando Orellana and Brendan Burns, Ana Rewakowicz, and Andy Warhol; attend a performance Alvin Lucier’s "Music for Solo Performer," and revisit milestones in sleep science. In this interdisciplinary commingling of art and science, recordings of brain waves function as drawings or poetic transcriptions and works of art double as experiments.

Events on Friday, September 25th 5 – 7 pm:  
Opening for the exhibition

Events on Saturday, September 26th:
Installations open: noon – midnight

6 pm – midnight: "Lullabies from all around all around you" Sit in the concert hall and listen to lullabies from all over the world played simultaneously from many directions.

6:30 pm: "Portraying the Body in Sleep" A workshop on reading polysomnograms, the primary means used by sleep labs to depict the changes that take place in the body during sleep.

8 + 9 pm: Alvin Lucier’s "Music for Solo Performer" Lucier’s piece is uses the brain waves of a seated, still performer to create spatial percussion music of resonances, rattles, and crashes. A rarely produced, radical composition from the 1960s with special guest performers from the Rensselaer community.

10 pm: "Waking Life" (Directed by Richard Linklater, 2001) Theater Taking its title from George Santayana’s statement that, “Sanity is a madness put to good uses; waking life is a dream controlled,” "Waking Life" follows a young man through a series of philosophical conversations that take place while he is caught in a lucid dream-like state.

10:30 pm: Sleepover under Warhol’s "Sleep" (1963) Bring a sleeping bag and pillow and sleepover in Studio 2 under a projection of Warhol’s marathon five-and-a-half hour film, "Sleep." Prior to the sleepover, a selection of teas for sleeping will be served. Space is limited; please reserve your ticket in advance.

Events on Sunday, September 27th:
 Installations open: 9 am – 2 pm

9 am: coffee and tour of the exhibition, followed by brunch and discussion (for participants of the sleepover)

List of works in the exhibition:

Jennifer Hall, "Epileptiforms: 5 Rem," 1999
Consciousness as a Property of Matter Series
    Sculpture 1: Rapid Prototyping Polymer Resin  Courtesy of the artist
    Sculpture 2: Sterling Silver Permanent Collection Decordova Museum and Sculpture Park

J. Allan Hobson, "Hidden Landscapes, The Time-Lapse Sleep Photography of Ted Spagna," 2009 DVD Courtesy of the artist

Pierre Huyghe, "Sleeptalking" 1998 Video projection, 16mm transferred on video (3 min.) sound recording (60 min.) Courtesy of Marianne Goodman Gallery

Rodney Graham, "Halcion Sleep," 1994 Single channel video with sound Collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver Art Gallery Acquisition Fund

Fernando Orellana and Brendan Burns, "Sleep Waking," 2008 Wood, aluminum, electronics, servo motors, Plexiglas 2’x2’x7′ Courtesy of the artist

Ana Rewakowicz, "A Modern-day Nomad Who Moves as She Pleases," 2005 Inflatable object (vinyl, nylon, mattress, blower) and video projection (speakers, video loop) 152 cm (diameter), 457 cm (length) 24 minutes 15 seconds Courtesy of the artist

Andy Warhol "Sleep," 1963 16mm film transferred to digital files (DVD) Black and white, silent, 5 hours 21 minutes at 16 frames per second
Collection of The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.

Tickets:
+ Regular Admission = $15.00 
+ Student (w/ ID) = $10.00  

For tickets or more information, please visit www.empac.rpi.edu or call 518.276.3921.