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Films
by Christine Gorbach
and Gary Lee Nelson
2000-2006
pioneer in the use of mathematical models for creating musical structure.
His recent work has centered on techniques for interactive composition and
improvisation with computers, sound synthesizers and video. In 2004,
Nelson received a commission from the Boston Museum of Science to
develop an interactive exhibit that illustrates the principles of genetics
through musical sound and graphical image.
Biographies
Christine Gorbach was featured in a 1996 exhibition entitled "Two Painters"
at The Contemporary Arts Project in Summit County. She also participated in
group shows throughout Northeast Ohio. In 1998, she exhibited abstract
conceptual paintings and installations at a one-woman show at the Wolf
School of Music in Stow, Ohio. In 1999, portions of the painting "Hierarchy"
were featured at the Agora Gallery in New York City and at the Akron Art
Museum. In September 2001, her works were exhibited in a major show at the
Kent State Stark Campus. The University of Akron's Art Department invited
her to display her paintings during the spring of 2002 as part of the American
New Arts Festival. Gorbach received a Master of Art degree from Kent State
University in 1997. She is Art Department Chair at Cuyahoga Falls High
School. A 2003 solo show titled “Progeny” was presented at Stark State
Technical College and featured new works informed by past works. In the
summer of 2004, Gorbach participated in the Teacher Institute in
Contemporary Art (TICA) at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Gary Lee Nelson teaches Technology in Music and Related Arts (TIMARA)
at Oberlin College. He has appeared as composer, performer and teacher
throughout North America, Europe, Asia and Australia. His compositions
are recorded on Opus One and Wergo. He has received grants from the Shansi
Foundation, the Sloane Foundation, Ohio Arts Council and the National
Science Foundation for his research in algorithmic composition. He is a
Gorbach's and Nelson's collaborations were first performed in concert at
Oberlin College in March 2000. The program featured world premieres of
three films: Hierarchy, Charitoo, and Death and Transfiguration.
Hierarchy, a film based on a series of Gorbach's paintings, was completed in
November 2000 and appeared at festivals in the United States and abroad.
Hierarchy represented the United States in Toronto at the Subtle
Technologies film festival and was featured in the on-line video magazine,
wigged.net, in the April-May 2001 issue. Independent Exposure, a Seattle
and San Francisco arts organization, distributes Hierarchy to film festivals
in Europe and South America.
Hierarchy, along with Gorbach's paintings were on view at the Cleveland
Institute of Art in March 2001. In addition, they presented a lecture on their
creative processes as part of the CIA's Sight and Sound series. Hierarchy
was also shown at the Florida Electroacoustic Music Festival in March
2001. All three films were shown at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore
in April 2001. In May 2001, Gorbach and Nelson gave a lecture about their
work at the Beck Center for the Arts in Lakewood, Ohio.
Gorbach and Nelson were featured presenters at the annual meeting of the
Ohio Art Education Association in Cleveland on November 16, 2001. Their
films were also seen in the New York International Independent Film and
Video Festival in February 2002.
Notes on the Films
All of these works are digital videos written, directed and produced
collaboratively by Christine Gorbach (painter/photographer) and Gary
Lee Nelson (composer). Visual components of the work are derived from
paintings and photographs by Gorbach, Nelson and, in a few cases, public
domain images from other sources. Editing and sequencing of most of
the moving images was done by Gorbach. Musical scores were
composed, processed and edited by Nelson
Gorbach and Nelson began collaborating on art/music projects in 1999.
These films are the most recent manifestations of what will be a longterm collaborative relationship.
Hierarchy (12:00) [2000]
Gorbach frequently starts a series of paintings with a long 25-50 foot
painting. She employs dripping, splattering and other painting approaches
that remove the artist’s hand from direct contact with the canvas.
Following a path cut by Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, Morris Louis and
John Cage, she sees this aesthetic process as an illusion of democracy.
Signs of the individual are lost or transformed. However, with careful
analysis, editing, codifying and deconstruction, she takes back the artist’s
role of making order. Hierarchy is based on 16 small paintings selected
from such a larger canvas.
Gorbach wrote a poem describing the paintings and the methods she used
to make them. The sound track is derived by digitally recording and
manipulating her nearly 50 readings of her poem. The subtext of the
work is "deconstruction." Both Nelson and Gorbach have been
concerned with the making of new art by recomposing older work both musical and visual. Before they began their collaboration, they
independently developed techniques by which small fragments of
older works were extracted and magnified to become the seeds of
new paintings or compositions.
Charitoo (8:30) [2001]
Charitoo is a verb of Greek origin meaning "to endue with divine
favor or grace." The "theme" of this work is the idealization of
women by male artists and the recognition that such ideals are quite
at odds with the realities of women's existence. The central image
here is the Virgin Mary. There are brief appearances by other
idealized women such as the Gibson girl, Barbie, and Rosie the
Riveter. The work also includes digital processing of several of
Gorbach's paintings and manipulation of original live action footage
filmed by Nelson.
The sound track is based primarily on two Gregorian chants. "Salve
Regina" is sung in female voice and conveys the sense of asking for
grace from below. "Timete Domine" is sung in male voice and
conveys the sense that grace can be achieved by following
instructions. The first represents supplication while the second
implies dominance and fear. There are several brief quotations from
popular songs to support the appearance of the more contemporary
female icons.
Death and Transfiguration (10:30) [2001]
Death and Transfiguration is based loosely on the orchestral tone poem of the
same name by Richard Strauss. Gorbach made the images by animating
Nelson’s black and white photographs of things dead in nature - uprooted and
fallen trees, rocks, leaves.
The soundtrack is synthetic but intentionally orchestral in character. The
pitch structure and texture are derived with a technique that does not quote
but rather casts an aura of Strauss' work on the soundtrack. Like Strauss,
Gorbach and Nelson hold the hope of transfiguration from winter to spring,
from turmoil to calm and from death to rebirth. The final moment of the film
symbolizes this hope.
The Red Line (3:00) [2004]
"The Red Line" is the title given to a collection of art works including color
field paintings, images "selected' from the color fields, images manipulated
digitally and a film in which the images are animated. One set of images
shows the color field paintings connected in a continuous line. Key words
from the poem inspire the titles of eight other paintings where the red line is
shaped in curves. Finally, the curved images are joined in a single line. The
film combines the images, overlaps them, intertwines them, and moves them.
As you view the animated images you hear music created by translating the
digital color data of the eight poetic images into sound masses whose
movement complements the movement of the red lines. When the film is
screened in public, subtle stage lights illuminate the artist who walks on stage
carrying a large calligraphic brush. As she recites the poem in counterpoint
with the soundtrack, she transforms the image on the screen in real time with
digital processing software and a wireless controller. The music is
manipulated in a similar manner.
My Regards (11:30) [2004]
In 2003, Gorbach was sorting through her deceased mother’s belongings.
She found an eight-inch wax record of the sort they used to make in booths
at county fairs. She placed it on a turntable and heard a beautiful voice
singing a familiar song, “Kiss me sweet, kiss me simple.” She recognized
the voice of her mother, Agnes.
Agnes made this recording in the 1940’s but kept it a secret. No one in the
family knew of its existence. Why did she kept the recording if she never
intended for anyone to hear it? What were the dynamics in her life that led
her to hold this secret so long. Why did she feel compelled to end her
endearing rendition with the disclaimer, “pretty awful, huh?”
For many years, there was no audience for this music. This thought led
Gorbach to ask herself some basic questions about the nature of art. When
the music finds an audience, does it become art? Is it the artist alone who
makes the art or is it the audience who completes the work? Is there art
without the connection between artist and viewer/listener?
This film explores the relationship between art and audience. In “My
Regards,” the artist becomes the art and confronts the audience about its role
in the artistic process.
The raw materials for this work are digital films of Gorbach’s image along
with still photographs of some of her recent paintings. She used various
computer programs to mutate and transform these materials into a montage.
She also wrote a reflective poem about the process.
Nelson recorded Gorbach’s reading of her poem and created music that
further challenges conventional ideas of art and audience. He cast the
music in surround sound where copies of her voice speak and sing in
varying tones and timbres from all directions. Sometimes her voice is up
close and personal. Sometimes it is distant and disguised. Often it is
rendered beyond recognition in a manner that reflects the visual
techniques used in the film. The film ends with the scratchy recording of
Agnes’ voice singing across the barrier of death to a daughter who is still
very much occupied with the poignant struggle of life as a woman and as
an artist.
home positions of the globes fall in a 3x3 matrix that is only seen
briefly at the end. The globes can “center” or “home” in the matrix
or they can “wander,” “hide” or “gravitate” singly or in groups.
Each globe has a musical companion that creates sound from the
same data that cause the behaviors. By design, the connection
between a globe and its music is veiled.
Progeny is a scene from a forthcoming larger work called
“Emergence” that is structured with genetic algorithms and
mathematical models of the bottom-up organization of ant colonies
and the flocking of birds, fish and beasts.
Progeny (9:45) [2006]
Progeny is the investigation of techniques by which small fragments of
existing works are extracted and magnified to become the seeds of new
paintings or compositions. The images seen at the end of the film are, in
part, extracted from a twenty five foot painting by Gorbach. The making
of new art by recomposing older work allows the artist to explore the
human experience of ordering, prioritizing, and discovery. Technology
provides a way to develop a scheme that further explores the concept of
organizing systems as an individual intellectual activity.
Nelson’s animation is a ballet of spheres. Nine small globes dance with
in a larger globe. Nelson textures the surface of each globe by wrapping
one of Gorbach’s paintings around it. The larger globe functions as
background. It is seen from the inside with Gorbach’s paintings projected
on its inner surface. The plane of the video screen cuts through the
equator of the larger globe such that its opposite side is conceptually
behind and enclosing the viewer. Each globe has its own rotation angle
and speed. The movement of the small globes is controlled by a set of
“behaviors” that determine where they will travel in a 3D space. The
Gary Lee Nelson
2511 Valleyview Drive
Cuyahoga Falls, OH 44223 USA
330-922-5958
gary.nelson@oberlin.edu