District 33 – The Duel is an algorithmic music video installation by Joe Diebes that centers on the gentrification of the Greenpoint, Brooklyn waterfront and the role of art and artists in that process. The work’s ever-changing narrative follows Xenia (played by Christina Campanella), an artist-turned-detective with a forensic ear for sonic clues.
Location: The Art and Technology Program exhibition in Building 10a, Nolan Park, Governors Island
Open to the public from 11 am to 5 pm Weekends
Meet the Artists Day: Saturday June 11, 2022
District 33 is a vast multi-platform narrative that centers on the gentrification of the Greenpoint, Brooklyn waterfront and the role of art and artists in that process. Xenia is an artist-turned-detective, with a forensic ear for sonic clues. Red is her arch-nemesis, a real-estate tycoon who thinks of himself as a social sculptor, carving out the zoning laws that favor the one percent of the one percent. JM is the revenant of a Brooklyn painter who drowned himself in the East River in 1906, after being evicted from his apartment on Manhattan Avenue. London runs an upscale gallery with questionable financial ties.
The Duel is one episode from District 33, though an episode of infinite duration as the montage never repeats. It focuses on the dialectical contradictions at work in gentrification, particularly the aesthetics of finance and the anti-aesthetics of artmaking. Driven by a propulsive electronic score and rhythmic speech, the performers include Christina Campanella, John Rose, Michael Chinworth, and Saori Tsukada with cinematography by Damian Calvo.
BIO
Joe Diebes combines sound, visual media, and the human voice in many ways. His sound installations, video, performances and works on paper have been exhibited in numerous galleries, museums, and public spaces including Paul Rodgers/9W (New York), The Hammer Museum, the Torino Winter Olympics, David Winton Bell Gallery (Brown University), Yuanfen Gallery (Beijing), Prix Ars Electronica and the Liverpool Biennial. Some performance projects include his broken-word opera BOTCH (HERE Arts Center) and WOW (with Christian Hawkey and David Levine, BRIC Arts | Media). With Phil Soltanoff he created the sound-theatre work I/O, commissioned by Fusebox Festival and Theatre Garonne (Toulouse). His opera environment STRANGE BIRDS (2003) premiered at Tramway (Glasgow) in the New Territories International Festival of Live Art. He has been awarded grants from the NYSCA Individual Artists Program, The MAP Fund, LMCC, Franklin Furnace, and The Jerome Foundation. Residencies / fellowships include Yaddo, Djerassi, HERE, LMCC, BRIC Media Arts, STEIM (Amsterdam), and the Independent Study Program at the Whitney Museum of American Art.
WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS
www.joediebes.com
COLLABORATORS
performers: Christina Campanella, John Rose, Michael Chinworth, and Saori Tsukada
cinematography: Damian Calvo.
INTERVIEWS AND PRESS COVERAGE
https://hyperallergic.com/96210/botch-joe-diebes/
https://www.ephemeralobjects.org/2014/02/10/talking-to-the-team-behind-wow-a-milli-vanilli-opera/
https://brooklynrail.org/2020/07/music/BOTCH-ing-Online-Opera
A Sponsored Project of Harvestworks funded in part by the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature.
