Gravity Spells: Bay Area New Music and Expanded Cinema Art - 2x LP & 4x DVD Compilation
The edition consisted of 100 hand-silkscreened gatefolds housing four DVD’s and two LP’s of original film and music, and a 50-page booklet of writing and images bound in a hand letterpress cover.
The project was conceived to publicly showcase emerging and established strains of expanded cinema and music collaboration in the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as to create a physical document that captured that energy.
Although commissioned as pairs (Craig Baldwin with Maggi Payne; Paul Clipson with Tashi Wada; Lawrence Jordan with John Davis; Kerry Laitala with Ashley Bellouin & Ben Bracken), the edition was designed so the works could be experienced interchangeably. This encouraged a matrix of possibilities, but also emphasized the element of chance tied directly to live cinema and music performance (dropping the needle on the record and hitting “Play” on the DVD player will always result in a different event).
Contributing writers featured in the publication booklet: Courtney Fellion: "The Phantom Limb", Steve Polta: "For Gravity Spells", Federico Windhausen: "Commitments".
Alongside the publication release, a performance series showcased one pair of publication artists headlining each night of the four events held Saturdays in July 2014 at the Kala Art Institute in Berkeley. The series included sixteen performances over four weeks, with over 100 guests in attendance each night. The Kala Art Institute, Meyer Sound and the San Francisco Cinematheque provided generous in-kind support for the events, and were instrumental in helping promote the publication and live series.
Bimodal Press, BMP 001, 2014
LP and DVD credits:
Craig Baldwin: "Time Bomb"
Ashley Bellouin & Ben Bracken: "After Image"
Paul Clipson: "Trajections"
John Davis: "Strategy of Belief"
Lawrence Jordan: "Driving Demons"
Kerry Laitala: "Solar Furnace"
Maggi Payne: "Black Ice/Static"
Tashi Wada: "Duet Takes: 1. Duet (Take 2), 2. Duet (Take 4)"
Music mastered by James Plotkin.
