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part three, water pulses: christina mamakos
water's wet

24 THURSDAY JUNE 2010, 20.30 - 22.30

This is the third and final part of Water Pulses. Water's Wet is a spectacular and vibrant video and sound installation, a symphony of image (Christina Mamakos) and sound (Huang Ruo).

Using video to capture images as tableaus of matter, artist Christina Mamakos approaches the surface of the sea from below. With a simple hand-held digital camera in waterproof casing, Mamakos collects and links a series of unmanipulated images of water as a membrane viewed from beneath, to form what can be considered a painterly use of the moving image.

From this view, an organic integration emergences, a visual response to celebrated Chinese composer Huang Ruo's technique of "dimensionalism." Using an inventive musical voice which draws equal inspiration from Chinese folk, Western avant-garde, rock, and jazz, Ruo creates a seamless series of musical works that do not necessarily exist in the sound world of our daily life.

Huang Ruo describes how his collaboration with Christina Mamakos came about: "Christina videotaped the ocean, with a simple hand-held waterproof digital camera, suggesting the surface of the sea from below… When one walks into the space, the experience of what it means to be in the water will become a different concept. The view of the ocean from bottom to top, the change of perspective and sound that will come from the loudspeakers in the corner of the room, will create an effect beyond reality, an abstract sense of being in the ocean - not in front or opposite the artwork - but within."

The projection of Water's Wet will simultaneously open at the Chelsea Art Museum in New York.