Nov 18, 2009, 7:00 PM
Gallery 400

The Hydroacoustic Show
Film and video works curated by Ben Russell

At 20,000 leagues below the sea everyone can hear you scream – that’s the nature of sound and water after all, and (maybe) that’s why we call all those vibrations dazzling our skulls by the oceanic descriptor WAVEFORMS. Just ask Alex Halstead – she was born into water, under water, knows wet and sound better than all of us combined. For the last month in Gallery 400 she’s been humoring our earth-ears with her rhythmic pulses, and now it’s time to return the favor. And so, submitted for her approval: an aqua-opera in 8 stanzas, a capital-SEA-composition in as many verses. From that silent surface (Hutton) to the scratch and curl of the fevered deep (Gatten); betwixt a siren-spongebob-song (Best) and a flicker score for the Red Sea (Holthuis); with whale chorus (Clark), octo-electronica (Painleve), and gurgling pop tune (Rist) – this is a kino-song* for the best Nigerian Elephant-nosed Fish we’ll ever know. Here’s To You, Alex.

FEATURING: Study of A River by Peter Hutton (16:00, 16mm, 1996-97), What the Water Said Nos 4-7 by David Gatten (17:00, 16mm, 2007), Crank Dat Soulja Boy Spongebob by Masta Best (3:46, video, 2007), Amours de la pieuvre (Love Life of the Octopus) by Jean Painleve (14:00, 16mm on video, 1965), I'm a Victim of This Song by Pipilotti Rist (5:06, video, 1995), Marsa Abu Galawa by Gerard Holthuis (15:00, 35mm on video, 2004), Sound Over Water by Mary Helena Clark (6:00, 16mm, 2009)