PROJECTION
TETHER
sound+movement+visual live performance
Kari Watson on sound, with three modular synthesizers.
Kristen Bernier on movement, tethered to Kari
Lua Borges on visuals, with overhead projector and dynamic digital projection.
Lasting between 45 and 55 minutes in duration, TETHER is performed in complete darkness. The only light source comes from two projectors: a handheld digital projector and an overhead analog projector, both casting visuals onto a large mesh fabric loop within which Kristen and Kari are connected. The sheer fabric loop acts as a continually shifting screen for the projection, where limbs and torsos emerge, legible, but simultaneously masking and morphing the experience of a hybridized organism. The digital projection consists of archival endoscopic footage, while the analog projector displays an interactive light/shadow show of organic materials and acetate-sheet printed images and words. The projection narrative fuels Kristen’s movement to propel the evolution of the tethered organism. The musical score is composed of 8 outputs from 3 euro rack modular synthesizers and is bedded by an underlying tape part containing custom convolution reverbs that were created by capturing heartbeats from the three artists with a stethoscope microphone, resulting in three unique “chest cavity” convolution reverbs. This emphasis on the interior body plays off the TETHER as a corollary to our first tether, the umbilical cord. Each output from the synthesizers acts as an autonomous sound source, bending and blurring with one another via cross synthesis. Over the course of the piece, patches are constructed and altered, moving the audience through a dynamically layered and evolving sensory environment.
Performances:
December 2023, at Constellation in Chicago, IL.
October 2024, at the Ephiphany Center for the Arts in Chicago, IL.
March 2026, at the Performing Media Festival in Notre Dame, IN.
Adelaide’s album release show “Holding”
Shadow show on overhead projector.
January 2026
photo credit: Sophie Minello & Ese Ametri Gagoh
FOR JEN TORRENCE
Projection commissioned by Kari Watson
Digital edit of 16mm pinhole film
trailer