Inlight | GASP Light NYE 2016
Petri Saarikko (performance art)
Chris Abrahams (piano)
GASP (Glenorchy Art & Sculpture Park), lutruwita (Tasmania) 2016
Curated by Jonathan Kimberley & Brendan Walls
A midnight performance in phosphorescence by Petri Saarikko (Finland) with six emerging Tasmanian dancers; and two hours of experimental jazz on the grand piano by Chris Abrahams (The Necks, Australia).
Chris Abrahams
Chris Abrahams combines a probing approach to the sonic potentialities of the piano with a strong emotional and melodic sensibility. His music unfolds from simple starting points, in a mesmerising and, at times, psychedelic trajectory, to become something hallucinatory and epic. He uses a conventional pianistic approach to transcend the generally perceived sound world of the piano and his use of pianistic touch and dynamics explores the minutiae of the mechanism by which a piano hammer hits a piano string.
Petri Saarikko
Somatic human form has evolved little since the discovery of storable energy. Yet the invention of artificial light as a medium for transmitting configurable information has provoked biorhythmic social psyche to a hysterically awake state.
Optically stimulating cues on personal mobile screens substitute face-to-face communication as the most desirable form of interaction. The prevailing desire to remain always-on and relentlessly in-touch takes its shape through configured artificial light; loosely amputated cues of glowing characters and socially configured symbols. We have become captive to mutating forms of enlightenment.
Being ‘in lightened’ by the flows of mobile information has vanquished the corporeal contemplation at the crux of present state. Our bodies are being mutated by the programmed injections of artificial light, causing imbalances of melatonin levels, resulting carcinogenic mutations, and mental anxiety. The spectrum of artificial light impact on the biosphere misbalances the aural and mental state of flora and fauna beyond human imagination.
Life is created in the dark. Primordial sense of freedom lies in the natural darkness. To defend the very idea of privacy and the unknown is to cultivate darkness by defending it from artificial blindness. Humans are the origin of light pollution. We are the light speed expanding commodity, standing on the edge of artificially configured futility. We choose to acknowledge the possibility for change.
