Last night, Saturday, April 17, I went to the Transmodern Festival at the H&H building. It was pretty crazy and I felt like I was in kind of daze of amazement a lot of the time..but here is what I managed to capture.
When we bought tickets we were told that a performance was starting so we should head to the 5th floor…but when we got up to the 5th floor they closed the doors and said it was too late..
So we went to what I think was Gallery Four where they had some cool animated projections and everyone was wearing white..and it was glow in the dark.
Next we went to Whole Gallery where we saw some performance art..
Then we went to Nudashank to see Horror Vacui, which was cool. Here is a video projection by Benjamin Phelan.
other works:
Micro-i lines by Dan Gluibizzi
"Ancient Night" Dan Gluibizzi
Digital Prints by Laura Brothers
Then we went upstairs to Floristree to watch some performance art. It seemed like they were having technical difficulties because people went on much later than they were supposed to, but I think that worked out because the crowds didn’t come until after 9:30ish.
We watched Carly Ptak. She was behind a curtain that you could see through certain angles, while a video projection and pre-recorded audio played. Ptak used lights and other objects to create effects through the curtain and overtop the screen. I thought it was an interesting performance, but in the beginning there seemed to be some problems and it had to be started over which I think affected the performance….plus there were drunk people behind me making weird noises.
The last performance we watched was New York based artist Joseph Keckler. He told stories, did impressions, had a video performance, played songs…it was amazing. It was pretty insane how Keckler transformed himself for each impression.. I loved his monologue about answering phones at a boring job… I don’t want to misquote him so I’ll just say it was hilarious.
At one point this cat got on stage, I’m guessing it’s used to this kind of a thing because it didn’t seem phased.
All in all I had a good time at the 2010 Transmodern Festival, but I’m sure I missed a lot. It was a pretty unique atmosphere at the H&H building, the stairway was tight and crowded at times and each floor really had it’s own vibe. It felt like I was in another world.
I kept thinking about how so many people drive past the building and have no idea what’s inside, or what people in Baltimore are capable of creating.
Of course you’d post the horror one. Thank you so much for not haunting me by sending it to me directly!
I really liked the eye paintings and the pink foam scrapers. I wonder how long they had to stay in there and if they got breaks.
I love the sound of the video projection…I don’t think its scary though.
If they got out and took a break it would COMPLETELY ruin what they were doing. Not to compare them with the magician David Blaine 🙂 but when he does performances do you ever see him leave to go to the bathroom! I think not.
HAHAHA it would!
Could you imagine being in there for that long? It was probably pretty stuffy and hot. Plus, it didn’t even look like they were talking…not that you could tell…what with the mask and all.
At first when I read that I didn’t realize you were joking and I was like…why would they talk???? But I see now..it was that sense of humor trying to shine on through.