Re-velations in the Illuminated Forest

Featuring Extraordinary Forest, Takahiro Kawaguchi (Japan) & [ruidobello] and Géraud Bec (France)

In the final performance event inside the Illuminated Forest, a multimedia interactive exhibit and reactive performance space, the environment will thunder in biblical proportions for one last time. Revelations unveils all the mysteries and myths of our world. French composer Géraud Bec conjures a hallucinated audio-visual world with “Totem” from the deepest depths of hell to the earth and to the sky and land of gods. The shamanic totem creates a channel to communicate with the different worlds, seeing the invisible, hearing the inaudible, from microcosmic to macrocosmic, hearing plants growing and stars moving.

Extraordinary Forest performs “Shelter,” exploring the phenomenology of sound, of dwellings, and beyond. Extraordinary Forest explores the myths and theories behind structures and architecture relating to the ideas of utopia, dystopia, and heterotopia using themes of green building, Utopian villages, installation art, experimental architecture, and the ever constant search for a comforting home with sound, music, visuals and sculpture.

Japanese artist Takahiro Kawaguchi collaborates with San Francisco artist [ruidobello] for the premiere of “Underwater Mechanics” revealing the mysteries of a fantastic post-industrial underwater world, featuring Takahiro on his invented mechanical instruments including small motors, altered timer clocks, fans, tuning forks and [ruidobello] on laptop with altered recordings from the underwater depths of California rivers.

Artist talks and Q&A session will occur after the performance.

Jeff Ray created the multimedia performance project, Extraordinary Forest,  in 2004 while an A.I.R. at the Headlands Center for the Arts. His performance piece, “Elves in the Tunnel,”  was part experimental folk music, and part documentary film perspective in investigating contemporary Scandinavian belief and mythology of Elves, Fairies, and little people.  Six years later, Extraordinary Forest brings another performance/sound installation piece, Shelters,  which explores the spirits, memories, hope, as well as the sounds related to architecture. This project is influenced by and dedicated to the seminal experimental composers/ artists Maryanne Amacher, and Innais Xenakis. Their incredible visionary spirit helped define the relation between architecture and sound.

Tokyo-based sound artist Takahiro Kawaguchi started creating works with sound and light in 2000. He conceptualizes remarkable realms in “space” and realizes performances of new realities using sound and light. He has created more than a hundred works, primarily using his handmade objects such as reconstructed counters, scrapped electric household appliances and lasers. He has performed in nearly one hundred concerts at museums, clubs and various places — whenever he can play in Japan and abroad. He has released twelve CDs, including solo works and collaborations. Kawaguchi is a graduate from Tokyo Zokei (creating art and design) University.
http://takahirokawaguchi.com/

Since the early 1980’s, [ruidobello] aka Jorge Bachmann has collected field recordings exploring the strange, unique and microcosmic sounds of everyday life. He creates sound atmospheres meant for deep listening and often composed in symbiosis with the sculptural installations exploring social and sensual constructs and experiences. [ruidobello] has exhibited and performed in North America, Europe, Japan and South America for the San Francisco Electronic Music Festival, MoBu Dance Group, and Soundwave Festival, amongst others. He has been Soundwave’s Technical Director and Resident Artist since 2005.
http://ruidobello.ch/

Sound artist Géraud Bec was born in Aurillac, France in 1981 and currently lives in Paris. His work is influenced by those musical genres in which sound reflection is of the greatest importance (acoustic music, psychedelia, and electric jazz). He is also influenced by the cinema, which he composes for on occasion. His compositions have been played in numerous festivals of sound art and contemporary music, including: the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, the San Francisco Tape Music Festival, Festival d’Art Sonore Tsonami du Chili (Valparaiso, Chile), Festival d’art sonore Tsonami de Buenos Aires, Festival Les Foliesphonies (Marseille), Festival des Musiques démesurées (Clermont-Ferrand, France).