Chris Musgrave

Last Name: 
Musgrave
First Name: 
Chris

Christopher Musgrave is an electronic media artist from San Francisco. Exploring new modes for aural and optic representation his compositions and installations push the limits of what is comfortably within our understanding of the perceivable. His creation and use of audio and image generation/processing systems allows for development of immersive, temporal sensory environments. "I have worked with digital media technology since '94 as an interactive muti-media author, QA engineer, animator and graphic designer with projects ranging from educational CD roms and broadband prototypes, to being the director of streaming media for a large internet film website. Recent work is concerned with the investigation, research and development of creating human-computer interfaces into video synthesis, looping through the physical here and the virtual, tele-present there. The images that I now create are abstract, sensual, imply infinity and relate to the ecstatic, elastic nature of the universe; electrons flowing through wires, molecules through vessels, light particles, tsunami's and sound frequencies alike." Selected Exhibitions and Performances: Untitled (Breach) [group exhibition - Air Portugal 2] The Pond - San Francisco, Ca 11/01 A sculpture bringing together elements of the past and the present, which presents juxtaposed text of news stories less told, read at a rapid rate and viewed through the oculi of an antique stereo microscope and headphones. http://www.mucketymuck.org/ [Documentation pending] interstice [solo] 3 Walls - San Antonio, Texas 10/01 a modular audio visual instrument, which utilizes the viewers body image and gestures as an "input device" http://www.auraloptic.com/install/interstice/ Audio/Visual Chaos [collaboration] King Street Garage - San Francisco, Ca 09/01 Live visuals accompanying the Australian group `Black Lung` Synth [collaboration/resident] Blind Tiger - San Francisco, Ca 01/01 Live visuals for a nightclub which specializes in bringing the audio and visual together. Horizons [group exhibition and collaboration with Callida Borgnino] Blue Star 13- San Antonio, Texas 07/98 http://www.bluestarartspace.org Is it reasonable to suggest, that humanity may not yet be able to integrate images, undergoing an evolutionary restlessness universal in experience, perceived through shared joys and discomforts, finding a psychologically neutral way of repeatedly triggering the ecstatic state of mind, in which contact with a unique nature and time, determines the depth of a vision, virtually the same over thousands of years, untroubled by the migrations and epidemics that occasionally disrupt the private mental experience? A recycled, audio/visual collage, Horizons utilized images scanned in from the '70's era journal of history and belief by the same name. This served as a starting point for acquiring images from television and radio broadcasts, newspaper advertisements and a street preacher pamphlet warning of the coming of apocalypse and rapture. The installation involved the use of a technique called Pepper's Ghost which uses a slate of glass to suspend the image in a floating, ghost like 3d space with the viewer. Tower [solo] The Project Room (9a) - San Antonio, Texas 09/98 16mm film shot out the window of Tower of America's elevator, overlooking the city of San Antonio. This palindrome was looped in the exhibition space, streaming up and over the rafters. The image bounced from top to bottom with an eyelid aperture opening and closing as the camera entered the top and ground floors of the tower. The image was projected on to an old, dusty window that was salvaged from the shed in back of my home. The light emitted from the projector was surrogate to the original sun that was setting in the west when the film was shot. Was it shot on the Eiffel Tower, or was this possibly footage from the worlds' fair, for which the tower was built? Listen1 [collaboration] The Project Room - San Antonio, Texas 06/98 An ambient, noise, improvisational, analog, digital, quadraphonic quartet. Hip Hop [collaboration] The Project Room - San Antonio, Texas 10/97 A cross cultural art jam with Nate Cassie and others. Bicycles with parts from Amsterdam, including a rear rack, and video shot from the rear this rack of the southern Riverwalk area in San Antonio. Passing over bridges over water, similar to those in Amsterdam. Additional data: Attended the DEAF (Dutch Electronic Arts Festival) Machine Times and subsequent NATO Summit Portfolio: Materials may be accessed at www.auraloptic.com which is continually updated. please check back occasionally.