Duo Mezzo (Inversion) is a site-specific installation and virtual music performance constructed for Building 10a on Governors Island. Sullender created a digital replica of the space with the game software Unreal Engine. He presents this replica as a video projection within the space, mirroring the physical room. In addition, Sullender doubles the visitors’ presence into the virtual space using motion tracking, becoming both a real and virtual audience for a music performance on banjo by his own avatar.
DATES AND TIMES: June 30 – August 27, 2023
Open to the public Friday, Saturday and Sunday 11 – 5 pm
Artist Day: July 8, 2023
LOCATION: Harvestworks Art and Technology Program Building 10a, Nolan Park, Governors Island
Bio:
Woody Sullender is a media artist and musician based in Queens, NY. His pieces encompass a myriad of media including sculpture, video games, performance, theater, music, installation, architecture, origami, and sonic weaponry. His recent work utilizes video game space as an arena to undermine specific modernist ideologies and rituals of music reception. Previously, Sullender was recognized as a pre-eminent experimental banjo improviser.
Sullender has performed internationally at venues such as the Kitchen (with Sergei Tcherepnin + Okkyung Lee), Issue Project Room (Brooklyn, NY), the River to River Festival, the Schindler House (Los Angeles), Knockdown Center (NYC), SculptureCenter (NYC), Abrons Art Center (NYC), Les Instants Chavirés (Paris), Chicago Cultural Center, DNK-Amsterdam (with Seamus Cater), and many others. He recently completed the Art & Code cohort at NEW INC (partnered with Rhizome and the New Museum) and has been an artist in residence or visiting artist at Pioneer Works (Brooklyn), STEIM (Amsterdam), Harvestworks (NYC), Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins (Baltimore), Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts (NYC) and Brown University’s MEME program. His work has been reviewed internationally by such widely disparate publications as Wire Magazine, Art in America, Fast Company, and Maximumrocknroll.
Other projects include the music album “Four Movements” constructed in video game space, as well as a special music review issue of EAR WAVE EVENT written entirely by AI. Additionally over the past few years, Sullender has worked on re-interpreting the work of Maryanne Amacher at venues such as the Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam) and REDCAT (Los Angeles) as a member of Supreme Connections, as well as in collaboration with Daniel Neumann and members of Yarn/Wire.
Among other activities, he is founding co-editor (will Bill Dietz) of the sonic arts publication Ear Wave Event
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Websites / Links:
https://woodysullender.bandcamp.com/
https://instagram.com/woodysullender/
https://www.artnews.com/art-in-america/features/neural-network-criticism-ear-wave-event-1202684517/
A Harvestworks Artist In Residence Project.