UR RITUALS
Ur Rituals was a site-specific collaborative sound performance and temporal land art installation staged at the ruins of an early 20th century homesteader house in Wonder Valley, near Twentynine Palms, CA.
The dilapidated homesteader cabins pepper the desert landscape in a crumbling Jeffersonian grid, symbolizing the remains of an early modernist vision of utopian futures. As ruins these small homes have come to signify untamable nature, an anomaly in otherwise logical landscapes. During the performance the artists projected organic topographical sounds and images upon the landscape to further bend the confines of Cartesian geometry.
Ur Rituals was a ninety minute performance featuring sound artists Ted Byrnes (drums & percussion), Kelly Coats (flute & whistles), Helga Fassonaki (pedal steel & effects), Steve Kim(bass, effects, & violin), Gregory Lenczycki (keyboards & electronics), Jorge Martin (turntable & trogotronics), Albert Ortega (resonant electronics), Ron Russell (bass & effects), Andrew Scott (guitar & stylophone), Jonathan Silberman (soprano saxophone) and Gabie Strong (bass & effects). Arrangement, installation and films created by Gabie Strong. Co-sponsored by UCIRA/UCR Sweeney Art Gallery's "Mapping the Desert/Deserting the Map: Dry Immersion 3."Photographs courtesy Chris Woodcock. Click on an image to expand and see details of each photograph.
Ur Rituals from gabiestrong on Vimeo.
