Installation at Marianne Boesky Gallery

Drowning consists of a seventeen-minute 12-track audio piece for a dimly lit space. The audio is a broken narrative about a woman in an athletic club who becomes trapped by her perceptions. The woman’s experience (the journey from locker room through underground corridors to the unheated pool where she is surprised by two men in the dark) is expressed in the texture of the voices, sound effects, and atmosphere.  Quotations from Maurice Merleau-Ponty's, The Primacy of Perception, serve as the woman's subconscious voice or a third party reflection.  The character’s unraveling state of consciousness is reflected in the progression of the sound.

Marianne Boesky Press Release

An Evening of Sound at ACME Gallery

Connie Walsh’s Drowning is a sound piece experienced in an ambient manner, while Kathleen Johnson’s Brainchild is a live performance.  Both text-based works include descriptions of architectural space that is hinted at yet not clearly defined, relying on listeners’ imaginations.  The artists experiment with having both works share a common prop or set—the simple floor installation—to question the idea of authorship and hopefully generate new meanings for both works.

Kathleen Johnson’s Brainchild

Computer, digital audio mixer, amplifiers, speakers, ceramic tiles, 2011