Elena Katsulis + Rin Peisert; Photo credit Myra Rodriguez
Mao
Nikki Telegan; photo by Ricardo Adame
Allen Moore
Noah Ortega
Series: Relative Intensity Noise
Performance: 01
Title: The Illusion of Depth
The Illusion of Depth is the first event in the brand new performance series titled, Relative Intensity Noise curated by Rin Peisert. This exhibition features the works of five artists working in the realm of live action: Elena Katsulis, Mao, Allen Moore, Nikki Telegan, Noah Ortega, and Rin Peisert.
These artists work in dialogue with time, sound, material, physical space, and other people. Here, they test limits and explore new realities; creating bold and striking scenarios that speak to individual fortitude as well as our shared physicality, especially where technology and attention are concerned.
These works can stand alone or be experienced as pieces of a whole; existing alongside each other in a world where the surreal sits next to the absurd. They respond to each other in dialogue through their proximity as well as through their respective processes and in context to the place at large. There is a distinct opportunity for the observer/participant to have an interaction with each artist that is both relational and sensorial. As a whole, physical and sonic juxtapositions serve as ruminations on a seemingly “inescapable consequence of the absolute inability…to remain silent.”
“The futility of everything that comes to us from the media is the inescapable consequence of the absolute inability of that particular stage to remain silent. Music, commercial breaks, news flashes, adverts, news broadcasts, movies, presenters—there is no alternative but to fill the screen; otherwise there would be an irremediable void. We are back in the Byzantine situation, where idolatry calls on a plethora of images to conceal from itself the fact that God no longer exists. That's why the slightest technical hitch, the slightest slip on the part of a presenter becomes so exciting, for it reveals the depth of the emptiness squinting out at us through this little window.”
― Jean Baudrillard, Cool Memories
Artist Bios
Mao (b. 1995, China) is a movement and time-based artist. Mao’s interests in the body concern time, restless ennui, the deceptive, and the unfinished everything. She works with movements, texts, and functional/dysfunctional/found/ready-made objects, ripening herself through absurdity and humor. Her experiences include working with Sankai Juku, Dimitri Chamblas, Julie Bour, Rubberlegz, Oguri, Sam Wentz and many more in a wide range of performances across Japan, France, China and the United States. Currently an MFA pursuer at School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
elena katsulis + Rin Peisert are an action art duo. Together, they use their bodies and the framework of performance to examine the social constructions of interdependent relationships and to measure the passing of time. Through acts of endurance and repetition they work in tandem; building a machine-like reliance on the other. These actions are reflections on duality, death, transformation, resilience, and the absurdity of living. Elena is a rock climber and yoga teacher. She is a founding member of the collective yoga co-op. Rin is an interdisciplinary artist. She has shown work all over China and the US. She earned an MFA from the School of Visual Arts, NYC. She is also the Performing Arts Curatorial Resident at Elastic Arts and is the curator of this series, Relative Intensity Noise.
Nikki Telegan is an embodied performance artist who examines the perversity of the wet and messy as both form and fetish. Through the lens of childlike-sensibilities, their work investigates allure of the abject, the call of the void, and the extent to which the body-image can and does exist across space and across time. This strategy is often executed through the use of multi-channel simulation, material play and exploration, layered with notions of death, degradation, pleasure and release. They are currently an MFA candidate at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Allen Moore is a Black Interdisciplinary Painter, Experimental Sound Artist, Educator, Youth Mentor and Curator born and raised in the Historic Village of Robbins IL. Moore holds a Bachelors of Arts from Chicago State University, a Masters in Arts from Governors State University and a Masters of Fine Arts from Northern Illinois University in 2016. His work examines both visual and experimental music, emphasizing the importance of nurturing the Black Imagination with social representation. Allen has been a Makerspace/DIY educator for 6 plus years. His practice converses with the signifiers of Blackness bringing to view the underlying themes of racial, emotional and socio-economic conditions. Moore has exhibited and performed across Chicago and the greater midwest, including exhibitions at Heaven Gallery, Compound Yellow, Experimental Sound Studio, Elastic Arts, Threewalls, The Museum of Contemporary Art, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Roots & Culture Gallery, Lula Cafe, The Star Media Group, Union Street Gallery, The Museum of Science and Industry Chicago, etc. He is a volunteer staff member for the A.C.R.E. Artist Residency and Comfort Station in Logan Square.
www.allenmooreart.net
Noah Ortega (they/them) is an interdisciplinary performance artist based in Brooklyn, NY. Utilizing their background in performance, speculative philosophy, and queer politics, they have come to develop an artist/scholar practice that is deeply personal, constantly chaotic, and furiously DIY. Their practice is a gasping, flailing process of Mad worlding; phenomenology oriented and somatically realized. Manifesting through the constantly shifting mediums of performance, sound, imaging-making, and text, their work functions as an experimental machine intended to manifest post-capitalist futurity through embodied investigations of queerness, neurodivergence, alienation, and alterity.
$15 - Tickets Available at the Door