This site is currently on hold, and has not been updated for a number of years. I have plans to update it in the near future. Stay Tuned.

-R

I’ve agreed to serve as movement consultant for, and perfomer in, an upcoming project in the Experimental Media Peformance Laboratory (xMPL) at UC Irvine. Entitled Far-Flung follows function, it’s the brainchild of New York artist Ursula Endlicher. It will premiere in October.

It took several months after we finished the Galileo in America performances, but we’ve finally completed the photo book for the project. You can download a pdf version of it here: Galileo in America (pdf)

I was invited to present a new work, Hangmen Also Die, in OSCENE 10 at the Laguna Art Museum in Laguna, CA (Feb. 12-May 16, 2010). OSCENE 10 is a high-visibility annual survey of contemporary art and culture in Orange County. Recently I have been extending my practice as a director and theater maker into the different context of gallery installations as a way of exploring possibilities that are difficult to realize in traditional theater venues.

In the installation, video from various sources–including most crucially the filming of a live performance by an actor on opening night–is programmed into an evolving collage that is projected on a wall at large scale. The video collage was programed to cannibalize itself and decay over the course of the exhibition until almost nothing was left. The text of the monologue addresses the tendency for certain types of political action to undermine their own objectives by corrupting the individuals involved. In this way, the programmed degradation of the installation rehearses the theme of corruption.

Highlights from the text include extracts from my project of several years ago, Galileo in America, Hiener Müller’s performance text Mauser, and Bertolt Brecht’s The Measures Taken.

The full monologue can be viewed here.

Some  additional information with  videos and images from the event.

I have been collaborating on a project entitled WISP (World-Integrated Social Proxy) to produce a viable counterfeit of the well-known digital media artist Antoinette LaFarge. This involves working with both the artist and an actress who will be replacing Antoinette in various social and professional situations. The latest installment of this project was at a the College Art Associatoin conference, a major biannual gathering of art professionals in Chicago where Antoinette (or her proxy) gave a paper on the project.

My performance project from spring 2008, Playing the Rapture, has found a second life in two recent video installations, one at the California Museum of Photography and one at the CalIT2 Gallery at UC San Diego. Below are  links to some images from these installations.

1. “Scalable Relations: CalIT2 Gallery, UC San Diego, Jan. 23-March 20, 2009

1. “Mediated: California Museum of Photography, Jan. 31- April 4, 2009

My ongoing project Earthbound: A Dream Play was the subject of an article I wrote and was published in Scandinavian Studies, Fall 2012.