A costumed figure with multiple outstretched arms, yellow gloves, and hanging neckties stands between wrought-iron gates in a checkered-floor room.

And Sometimes The Space is Full of a Previous Space

co-textual art

And Sometimes The Space is Full of a Previous Space (2022) was a series of four evening-long programs I developed during my artist residency at the Deering Estate Theater, supported by a Knight Foundation challenge grant awarded in December 2021.

The title comes from a poem by my late collaborator, poet Bob Gregory. It expressed something tangible about the project: equipment and resources gathered through Frozen Music, Audiotheque, and other earlier projects were brought into the theater to activate the space and discover what could happen there.

Audiotheque, also supported by the Knight Foundation, had been particularly influential. The results of Audiotheque 2.0 encouraged me to continue designing contexts in which new work could be closely tuned to the space and to the audience’s experience of it. Audience survey responses showed how those carefully prepared encounters could engage people unfamiliar with experimental music and sound art.

At Deering, I wanted to explore those possibilities through collaboration. Visiting artists Pat Oleszko, Ricardo Matamoros, and David Dunn joined Miami-based artists José Hernández-Sánchez, Ralph Provisero, Freddy Jouwayed, and Rodrigo Arcaya to develop four programs combining sound, image, and performance.

Artists gather around a seated, multi-armed costumed figure, with filming equipment and a reflector in the foreground.
Participating artists working together during filming for Paranormal at Deering Estate, 2022.

The collaborations also had the potential to continue beyond the grant-supported presentations. So far, Paranormal has traveled furthest in that direction. For several years, Pat, Ricardo, and I have continued developing a film from footage generated during our two residencies, working without a dedicated production budget. We plan to premiere it in the Deering Estate Theater and have it become an ongoing program through periodic screenings.

Indivisibles

A signed CD, printed inserts, and black and brown packaging arranged on a tabletop.
INDIVISIBLES, limited-edition art album by David Dunn and Gustavo Matamoros, with fourteen drawings by Ralph Provisero. Photograph by Gustavo Matamoros.

Four-channel presentations of sound works by David Dunn and me, accompanied by Freddy Jouwayed’s animations of drawings by Ralph Provisero. The evening marked the release of the limited-edition art album INDIVISIBLES.

Pin Pan Pun

An evening of experimental and conceptual intermedia works, with live performances by José Hernández-Sánchez and me.

A multi-armed costumed figure stands under red lighting before a black-and-white projection of a furnished room.
Pat Oleszko’s Army Man character in the Deering Estate Theater during Paranormal, 2022.

Paranormal

A collaborative exploration through performance and film by Pat Oleszko, Ricardo Matamoros, and me, drawing on accounts of paranormal activity at Deering Estate.

Audience silhouettes face abstract color imagery on a screen, while a grid of light is projected across the theater’s side wall.
There Is More at the Deering Estate Theater, with visual activations by Freddy Jouwayed and Rodrigo Arcaya, 2022.

There Is More

Intermedia adaptations I developed from material in the Subtropics Archive and Sound Art Collection, with visual activations by Freddy Jouwayed and Rodrigo Arcaya.

And Sometimes The Space is Full of a Previous Space was possible through an Arts Challenge award from the Knight Foundation