Proximal: Interwoven Spaces and Shared Frequencies
KUNSTRAUM: January 12 - 26th, 2025
Art Cake: January 31st to February 14th
Anna Schimkat’s performance of Water (2025) will take place on January 31, 2025 at 6:00pm.
Curated by Curator in Residence Katelynn Dunn
Artists: Ellie Fotopoulou, Anna Schimkat, Chuqiao (Chloe) Li, Carlos Franco Maldonado
Occurring continually at KUNSTRAUM and Art Cake, Proximal: Interwoven Spaces and Shared Frequencies presents intermedia artworks by Carlos Franco Maldonado, Chuqiao (Chloe) Li, Anna Schimkat, and Ellie Fotopoulou. In a radical attempt to contextualize the fragments of noise as overlooked spatial environments and thriving cultural milieu, the exhibition presents sound, sculpture and installation pieces that speak to this channel of subtle sensory perception, which is a threshold where meaning emerges. While the aspects of the works will include noise in its more traditional sonic forms – white noise, clashes – works will also present noise in such a way that raises awareness of its space-making qualities and ability to either eclipse or reveal. In doing so, the exhibition elevates the material texture of these ambiances.
The conception of noise is often consigned to the emptiness of forgotten time, space and histories, to what is unusable or disruptive, or to the humdrum of routine. To the perfectly curated playlist, murmuring sounds of voices always seem to reach the level of music and overtake it. Or to the silent indoor oasis, the screeching and loud shouting on the street become another soundtrack constantly playing from the open window – such as with John Cage’s opening of doors to his performances to capitulate his curiosity for background noise that blurred boundaries between exterior and interior.
From its inception, noise was thought to be confusing and disharmonic. Jacques Attali consistently probes the notion that music is the authorization of noise; and Max Weber thought of western music as a stretch of the emergence of rationalization then leaving noise within the space of the senseless. Through Michel Serres literary work The Parasite noise is the intruder to the host. The negating potential of noise is more traditionally its key portent. Yet the desire for its imperceptibility leaves it many times invisible as it recurrently buzzes along, faintly intervening in transience. Bridging worlds, background noise is a beckoning amidst margins and proximity.
Carlos Franco Maldonado’s site-specific installation 00:0_ (2020 – 2025) evocates a reversal of perception in presenting how noise may affect our conceptions of space and connection. The installation consists of a 6-foot by 6-foot area within which the viewer experiences the work. This space is created with a projection of digital videos to the front of the viewer as well as sound heard from stereo speakers transmitting sonic noise behind. Each video and sound combination were assembled by cutting and interweaving material derived from online ads, social media posts, and viral content. With percussion-heavy sound sampling while also presenting a mnemonic of digital noise, the installation suggests a restructuring of perception in and of digital space with scraps of the previous videos’ forms. Produced on the artist’s mobile device, each video furthers the idea of an expanded understanding of what noise may include.
Ellie Fotopoulou’s sound sculpture Cytoskeleton Bridge (2024) presents a transmission between sculptural elements of two different sound emitting sculptures alluding to an interconnectedness through physics and the science of matter. The rigid iron Newton’s cradle, fabricated in the form of a found fossilized dolphin’s vertebrae, symbolizes compressed cosmic energy over time. While the Newton’s cradle demonstrates that with every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, momentum of the piece continues its transmittance until the energy between each clack is depleted and the piece stops. Both an Earthly anatomical skeletal articulation and an instrument of the third law of gravity, this work produces fragmentary sonic resonances transmitted through digital apparatuses into an iron crater speaker. Raised above the ground, the orifice transmits a clamorous discordance. From one place to another is not only a transmission; the physicality of noise is perhaps dispersed and intermittent.
Chloe Li’s multimedia installation In the Spring Breeze (2024) introduces the audience to her reflection on the Chinese square. Her work is a modern-day symbol of the former prevalence of Tiananmen Square protests and an invitation to contemplate the happenings occurring, and which could occur, on the public stage, a common space and a municipal square. The work’s parameter is formed with two sets of five fans positioned on opposite edges of an equally sided raised platform. They are connected through fishing wires with photo transfers on vellum attached to the wires that when propelled by the fans create an understated sonance of white noise suggestive of a distant reverberation reaching the listener, such as leaves rustling in the wind or an indescribable extraneous echo. The underside of the piece is luminated by flashlights. Static noise along with the blurry crowd on translucent velum present calmness yet allude to the censorship created by technology and which is controlled by the state.
Anna Schimkat’s site-specific installation Water (2025) presents the artist’s investigation into the underwater sonic environments of Europe’s rivers such as the Danube and Rhine River as well as Venice’s canals. Presented as a listening station, the sound piece is an accumulation of recordings chronicled with a hydrophone, a microphone that picks up noises from all directions while submerged in aqueous conditions, and mixed to create a binaural composition experienced through headphones. In this work, the feedback registered with the mic is telling of the human impact on ecosystems existing beneath the surface. The inclination to trace underwater sounds began with the figure of the Undine, or siren, such as the mermaid Isa or the Danube woman as the war in Ukraine degenerated gender roles to women as wives and men as defenders. The piece expands upon recordings of the noises heard underwater, which encompass a cacophony of bubbling and dripping, clattering ships in the background, and the sound of cars and trams above ground seeping into the underwater soundscape. These are accompanied by voices conveying relationships between family members.
The space that noise ensconces may be void of composition, a non-place. However, through the different forms of noise, the exhibition aims to raise consciousness of these worlds. By seeing its atmospheric qualities and by way of its seeming disconnection, we understand noise as another realm of the present.
PUBLIC PROGRAMS
KUNSTRAUM, 20 Grand Avenue, Loft 509, Brooklyn, NY 11205
Opening Reception: Sunday, January 12th, 4:00-6:00 pm
Curator-led tour: Sunday, January 26th, 12:00 pm
Art Cake, 214 40th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11232
Performance, Anna Schimkat, Water (2025), Friday, January 31st, 6:00 pm
Opening Reception: Friday, January 31st, 6:00-8:00 pm
Curator-led tour: Saturday, February 8th, 12:00 pm
KUNSTRAUM LLC is a gallery, artist hub, and studio space located near the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Engaging artists, architects, curators, designers, filmmakers and writers, we are an interdisciplinary community that seeks to redefine the way creatives and curators collaborate.
Address: KUNSTRAUM LLC, 20 Grand Avenue, Space #509, Brooklyn, NY 11205
Hrs: Thurs-Sat, 12-6 PM, and by appointment
Contact: Katelynn Dunn, katelynn@kunstraumllc.com / dunnkatelynn@gmail.com / +1-202-651-0993