Audio Visual Arts and Various Small Fires are pleased to present E. Jane & chukwumaa, the third and final round in AVA’s sound program in VSF’s corridor.
My purpose is to create new language, new meaning, new imagery from the vast lexicon around me —“Black”, “White”, or “Other”-wise. Is sound the solution to angst? The 15-year-old in me says yes. Is sound political? The 20-year-old in me says of course. Does sound rub up against commerce? Try to put a barely edited Billie Holiday track on SoundCloud and you’ll find out. Sometimes sound is just pleasing to touch. Open a DJ app, make a loop and start turning knobs until you crack a smile. Lately, I’ve been thinking more about my sound works as design. I stare at images of soundwaves all day, cutting one piece and bending the other, like I’m warping and adding to an image in photoshop.
– E. Jane (@E_SCRAAATCH)
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ikuru ume:
– kwadrillll_collage
– Flawless Weightless 21
– Flawless Waterfall 21
– Famous Last Words
– Nimbus With You
– quadrille_club_bing
These were generated from Beyonce and Nicki Minaj to the screeches, groans and blips of a no-input mixer, the sounds of Baltimore coping and hurting and my own beloved’s breath on a calm morning. They are moments stretched to a long now, condensed to an infinitely small point. The umbrella for this set is Igbo for “breathing”.
ife efe:
– He Trox (Demo)
– Nova Pilots Bootleg (DJ Denycox, Nidia Minaj, Goldfrapp)
– Ravemond’s Lipgloss Problems (Lil’ Mama, Dimlite)
An original beat and two mushups. All of them about moving. Some about navigating surveillance/the gaze from near or afar. The umbrella for this set is Igbo for “flying”.
– chukwumaa
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chukwumaa is spelled in all lower case letters, with two a’s. it has nine characters. In application forms and other bureaucratic situations that require a surname, an em dash (—), or where unavailable, two hyphens (–) comes after. The ASCII code for chukwumaa is 099 104 117 107 119 117 109 097 097. The origin of the name is south eastern Nigeria, from the Igbo language, and translates as “God knows”, or pre-colonially, “the universal spirit knows” or “all knowledge belongs to the universal spirit”. chukwumaa has three syllables: CHOO-KWOO-mah.
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e-jane.net
chukwumaa.com
E. Jane & chukwumaa will run May 26-30 & June 2-6, 2015
AVA Sound Program 1: $3.33 (Celia Hollander) / May 2-16, 2015
AVA Sound Program 2: Adrian Rew / May 19-23, 2015
Audio Visual Arts (AVA) is a gallery for sound art based in New York City’s East Village. It is founded and curated by Justin Luke.