2022 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: All That is Seen and Unseen

All That Is Seen and Unseen is an interdisciplinary installation opera which investigates the multifarious effects of technology on our collective human consciousness. The work confronts the dangerous erosion of truth and trust in our society, which is rapidly intensifying due to advancing A.I., computational propaganda, deepfakes, and other tools that manipulate and obscure reality. Through video, music, custom programming, and performance, the artists explore machine learning by creating a performative neural network in real time, imagining a quasi-supernatural invasion of malfunctioning and overreaching intelligent machines, where nothing is as it appears and no one is safe.

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: Silver Fleece

“Silver Fleece “ is the second part of an interdisciplinary presentation called “Black Lives Suite”, first presented in the Fall of 2021 with sponsorship of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. This project includes music, spoken word, dance and visuals. The evolution of this piece will continue in 2022 with the assistance of Harvestworks and the Fridman Gallery, where the actual performance will take place. The artist’s vision of this work is to show and document aspects of the arts from a “black” perspective.

Eva Davidova

Eva Davidova is an interdisciplinary artist with focus on new media(s) and their socio-political implications. Davidova has exhibited at the Bronx Museum, the Everson Museum, the Albright Knox Museum, MACBA Barcelona, CAAC Sevilla, Instituto Cervantes and La Regenta among others. Davidova’s work addresses ecological disaster, interdependency, and the political implications of technology through performative works rooted in the absurd.

Associated project: Garden for Drowning Descendant

Garden for Drowning Descendant is an experimental participatory mixed reality installation on ecological disaster, interdependency, and manipulation of information. It explores the emergence of collective action from the mixture of individual ones, resulting in a “dance of agencies” between the audience, flocks of virtual animals, and performers from the past. Upon entering the installation space each audience member is linked to an animal avatar, joining “herds” and “flocks” inhabiting the scenes. By moving, the viewers exponentially influence the movement of the entire flock/herd, and eventually, that of the rest of participants.