Harvestworks

2016 Sponsored Projects

Awarded Artists:

AutomaticRelease

Shaun Irons and Lauren Petty (AutomaticRelease) are multiplatform artists who make interdisciplinary performances, installations, experimental films, documentaries and interactive video scores to accompany live performance. Recent projects include Why Why Always, a live cine-performance inspired by Jean-Luc Godard’s techno-noir film Alphaville (Abrons, 2017), Atmospheres & Accidental Ghosts, a self-generating video/sound installation (NYEAF, 2015), and Keep Your Electric Eye On Me, an interdisciplinary performance exploring dual realities and hysteria (HERE, 2014). Their current project All Over Everywhere, a requiem for an imperiled natural world, received production funds from both NYSCA and NYFA Made in NY Women’s Fund, was featured in The Kitchen’s online magazine All Over Everywhere premiered in May2021 as a live-broadcast on Twitch as part of Theater Mitu’s Artists-At-Home series.

Their work has been presented at venues including BAM, The Brooklyn Museum, The Chocolate Factory, Anthology Film Archives, The Kitchen, Tokyo Wonder Site, REDCAT, CURRENTS New Media Festival, Rencontres International Paris/Berlin, the Museo Nacional Havana and the Venice Biennale. They have received numerous awards including grants from the NEA, NYSCA, NYFA, Jerome Foundation, Greenwall Foundation, Bel Geddes Fund, Mertz Gilmore Foundation, LMCC, Harvestworks, Asian Cultural Council, as well as residencies from Yaddo, MacDowell, Signal Culture, HERE, Camargo Foundation, the Tokyo Wonder Site and the Bogliasco Foundation.

Associated project: Why Why Always

Why Why Always is a new multidisciplinary project by Shaun Irons & Lauren Petty that will take place in the Underground Theater at Abrons Arts Center, April 29th and 30th. The project embraces a potent interplay between live performance, video installation, sound art, and technology. The piece is a re-imagining of Jean-Luc Godard’s seminal film Alphaville, a philosophical treatise on politics, alienation and cinema set in a future overrun by technology, where feelings (and the words that describe them) are not only against the law but considered obsolete. Trapped in a world of deep suspicion and isolation, citizens exist in a society with no use for art, poetry, love, or autonomy, and no concept of the word Why.

William Hooker

William Hooker (drummer, composer and poet) has created works that range from jazz and “new” music to experimental genres. He has released over 70 CDs as a leader. Mr. Hooker has performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Edgefest Jazz Festival, The Vision Festival, The David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center, The Wadsworth Atheneum, Queen Elizabeth Hall, The Walker Art Center, the first on MTV, The Kitchen, Roulette, Real Art Ways. He has also presented his work at the JVC Jazz Festival, Montreal Jazz Festival, Vancouver Jazz Festival, CMJ Music Festival, Vilnius Jazz Festival, Experimenta Argentina, The Knitting Factory and the Victoriaville Music Festival. William Hooker has received commissions and support from the New York State Council on the Arts, Meet the Composer, Tokio Marine Insurance Company and colleges and universities such as Oberlin, Fordham, Columbia, New York University, Boston University, Princeton, Dartmouth and many more. Accompanying musicians have included Billy Bang, David Ware, William Parker, Thurston Moore, David Soldier, Roy Campbell, DJ Spooky, Steven Bernstein, Zeena Parkins, Lee Ranaldo, Jason Hwang, Sabir Mateen, Elliot Sharpe, David Murray, Ted Daniel, JD Parren and many more.

Associated project: Evidence (The Baldwin Suite)

With EVIDENCE; the baldwin suite, William Hooker pays homage to the multifaceted James Baldwin during his year. Conceived by drummer William Hooker, Evidence is a stirring multimedia tribute to the ferociously daring novelist and social critic, James Baldwin.

Margaret Schedel

With an interdisciplinary career blending classical training in cello and composition, sound/audio data research, and innovative computational arts education, Margaret Anne Schedel transcends the boundaries of disparate fields to produce integrated work at the nexus of computation and the arts. Her diverse creative output spans the interactive multimedia operas, virtual reality experiences, sound art, video game scores, and compositions for a wide variety of classical instruments or custom controllers with interactive audio and video processing. A Professor in the Department of Music, at Stony Brook University she currently serves as the Chair of the Art Department and teaches computer music at Peabody Conservatory.

Associated project: háček

háček presents a physical installation, VR experience, and printed data maps. It employs data to inform an immersive installation while positioning it’s larger impact towards metaphors of networked landscape, security and wayfinding. The data used is taken from real network traffic logs, tracking hackers in real time as they race to be the first in line at the Shmoo Group website, pummeling the site with DDOS, port scans, and sneaky malware as they compete to be the first to get their hands on the prize. The valiant defenders deflect bots, cheats, and attacks at every turn as they try to keep the site online.

Joe Diebes

Joe Diebes combines sound, visual media, and the human voice in multifarious 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.

Associated project: Oyster

Oyster is an algorithmically generated sound and video installation that poetically explores the field of ethnomusicology (study of world musics) while using it as a lens to examine broader issues of globalization and a Western, technologically mediated, understanding of other world cultures. Oyster was made with support from New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) via Harvestworks.

Lauren Petty

Lauren Petty is a digital media artist working in video, film, sound, installation, interactive design and performance, she is a longtime collaborator of multi-disciplinary artist Shaun Irons. Their work has been exhibited in diverse locations in New York and internationally and was recently seen at BAM’s Next Wave Festival, Abrons Arts Center, The Chocolate Factory, HERE, The Center for Contemporary Arts, Santa Fe, The Governors Island Art Fair, and was broadcast on PBS’s Reel NY.

Associated project: Why Why Always

Why Why Always is a new multidisciplinary project by Shaun Irons & Lauren Petty that will take place in the Underground Theater at Abrons Arts Center, April 29th and 30th. The project embraces a potent interplay between live performance, video installation, sound art, and technology. The piece is a re-imagining of Jean-Luc Godard’s seminal film Alphaville, a philosophical treatise on politics, alienation and cinema set in a future overrun by technology, where feelings (and the words that describe them) are not only against the law but considered obsolete. Trapped in a world of deep suspicion and isolation, citizens exist in a society with no use for art, poetry, love, or autonomy, and no concept of the word Why.
Shaun Irons

Shaun Irons

Throughout his career, Shaun Irons has engaged a provocative synthesis of video, film, audio and sculptural objects to create multidisciplinary performances, multimedia installations, experimental films, documentaries and interactive video scores to accompany live performance. Irons does not make distinctions between these forms but sees them as deeply interconnected and equally part of his ongoing artistic output.In addition to media work, Irons maintain a daily, ritualistic practice of drawing and photography.

Associated project: Why Why Always

Why Why Always is a new multidisciplinary project by Shaun Irons & Lauren Petty that will take place in the Underground Theater at Abrons Arts Center, April 29th and 30th. The project embraces a potent interplay between live performance, video installation, sound art, and technology. The piece is a re-imagining of Jean-Luc Godard’s seminal film Alphaville, a philosophical treatise on politics, alienation and cinema set in a future overrun by technology, where feelings (and the words that describe them) are not only against the law but considered obsolete. Trapped in a world of deep suspicion and isolation, citizens exist in a society with no use for art, poetry, love, or autonomy, and no concept of the word Why.

Shelley Hirsch

Shelley Hirsch is an award winning, critically acclaimed vocalist, composer, and storyteller whose solo compositions, staged multimedia works, improvisations, radio plays, surround sound pieces, installations and collaborations havebeen produced and presented in concert halls, clubs, festivals, theaters, museums, galleries and on radio, film and television on five continents. She has received awards. fellowships, grants and residencies from Creative Capital, NYFA, NYSCA, Mary Flagler Carey Trust, NEA and AIRS from the DAAD, Yaddo, Montalvo Arts Center and many more.

Associated project: B-O-O-K

B-O-O-K is an hour long choral work for fifteen singers musing on the subject – Book, and words/objects, connected to it ie.paper, bark, tree, body, spine, tablet, text, cuneiform, kunta which are all explored from sonic, etymological, multi-lingual personal and poetic perspectives. B-O-O-K was made with support from New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) via Harvestworks.

Melissa F. Clarke

Melissa F. Clarke is a Brooklyn based interdisciplinary creative whose work often employs generative and interactive custom-programmed environments. Melissa is an educator, designer, and an artist working at the intersections of research, science, architectural and user experience. She extrapolates research into multimedia installations, generative video and sound sculptures, performances, printed images and experiential design work. Clarke is a graduate of NYU’s ITP program with a Tisch Fellowship. Clarke has been a lecturing professor at SUNY Stony Brook University teaching Interactive Installation Art, Introduction to Computational Art, Animation and Web Art. And, she has been a practitioner of experiential and user experience design for several years.

Associated project: háček

háček presents a physical installation, VR experience, and printed data maps. It employs data to inform an immersive installation while positioning it’s larger impact towards metaphors of networked landscape, security and wayfinding. The data used is taken from real network traffic logs, tracking hackers in real time as they race to be the first in line at the Shmoo Group website, pummeling the site with DDOS, port scans, and sneaky malware as they compete to be the first to get their hands on the prize. The valiant defenders deflect bots, cheats, and attacks at every turn as they try to keep the site online.