bruce tovsky + zach layton

Fri 18 Apr, 2008, 8pm
Old American Can Factory

Bruce Tovsky is a visual/sound artist, who began painting at the age of 7 and started playing with tape recorders at the age of 10. Ever since then he has been figuring out ways of putting sound and pictures together. For the past several years he has been creating live video and sound improvisations, often in collaboration with artists such as John Hudak, David Linton, Kim Cascone and Michael Schumacher in a variety of spaces around New York City, such as Diapason, Experimental Intermedia, ISSUE Project Room, Tonic, and his own installation space 106BLDG30 at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. His audio/video duo with video artist Shimpei Takeda has been appearing in planetariums, rural arts festivals and galleries around New York.

Interference | Theremin + jitter
Interference is an exploration of sound visualization and visual patterning, driven by a solo Theremin score that gradually accumulates density over the length of the piece. Simple motifs combine, both audially and visually, creating harmonic intermodulations and interference patterns that take on a life of their own.

Zach Layton is a composer, curator, improviser and new media artist based in Brooklyn with an interest in biofeedback, generative algorithms, experimental culture and architecture. His work
investigates complex relationships and topologies created through the interaction of simple core elements like sine waves, minimal surfaces and kinetic visual patterns.

Zach’s work has been performed by the Cleveland chamber symphony and he has performed and exhibited at the Kitchen, Roulette, Art Forum Berlin, New York Electronic Art Festival, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Eyebeam, Sculpture Center, Diapason, ISSUE Project Room, Bushwick Arts Project, St. Mark’s Ontological Theater, Dumbo Arts Festival, New York Digital Salon, Miguel Abreu Gallery, Participant Inc, Monkeytown and many other venues in New York, South America and europe. He has collaborated with Luke Dubois, Vito Acconci, Jonas Mekas, Bradley Eros, Andy Graydon, Nick Hallett, Matthew Ostrowski, Christine Bard, Alex Waterman, Patrick Hambrect, Marissa Olsen, Angie Eng, Adam Kendall, Chika Ijima, Tristan Perich and Ray Sweeten among many other artists, filmmakers, curators and musicians.

Zach is also the curator of Brooklyn’s monthly experimental music series, “Darmstadt: Classics of the Avant Garde” which features leading local and international composers and improvisers, was co-curator of the 2007 PS1 summer Warm Up music series and is one of the directors of ISSUE Project Room. Zach has received grants from the Netherlands America Foundation, Turbulence and the Jerome Foundation and is a graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory and the Interactive Telecommunications Program.