JENNY GRÄF PROJECTS in Music, Video, Performance, Creative Aging, and Social Space
J.Gräf |
Hilgos Project: Creative Aging | Metalux | The Guitars Project | Proud Flesh | Harrius | Cabeca Gorda Restaurant | Experimental Archeology + The Stone-Carving Oraclestra |
Threshold for Action and Sound |
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| Present | 95-present | 96-Present | 2003-2004 | 2008 | 2005-Present | 2007 - Present | 2008 | 2008 |
| Bio | A 4-year collaboration with Hilgos, artist with Alzheimer's Disease. Designed creative projects that could access the self despite dementia and physical limitations. Held yearly exhibits of work by Hilgos and myself about our interactions. With Berna Huebner, started the Hilgos Foundation to fund similar collaborations. Recently worked to help produce I Remember Better When I Paint, an international documentary on the subject of Creative Aging (French Connection Films), from the perspective of neurologists, families and caregivers. |
J.Graf and M.V. Carbon have been collaborating with electronically manipulated, tape processed sounds, creating what has been termed "noise", "darkwave" and "turbulence". Central to their music is the subversion of structural and melodic expectation. They have performed throughout the U.S. and Europe with artists such as John Wiese and Evan Parker and have a dozen releases on labels such as Load, Hanson and Veglia. Metalux webpage |
A 6-month Creative Aging project in which a group of women with Alzheimer's were introduced to the electric guitar. Each found her own way to create pleasing sounds. This project includes a vinyl LP Picture disc record, video, color portraits and was presented at Northwestern's Alzheimer's Conference in 2004. |
Film and film soundtrack produced in collaboration with Chiara Giovando. The film, an experimental Western, was shot in the Badlands and Baltimore. It features an aging female gunslinger seeking revenge, who through the un-hinging of the narrative finds something else instead. The original soundtrack also titled Proud Flesh was release by Ehse Records. |
Harrius is J. Graf and Chiara Giovando. Their collaborations include two records on Ehse Records as well as live performances using live video and sound processing. Upcoming release in late 2009. |
Cabeca Gorda is a monthly series curated by Jorge Martins and J. Graf. Located in the basement of their home in Baltimore, the Cabeca Gorda provides guests with a curated blend of gastronomical specialities and sonic manipulations by artists from near and afar. Food and sound artists such as Peter Blasser, Lucas Crane, Snacks, Shelley Blake Plock, Jackie Milad, M.V. Carbon and Brooke Gillespie + many more have been a part of this social experiment. | Performed at D'Amelio Terras Gallery, NYC as well as the High Zero Festival in 2008, the Stone Carving Oraclestra performes "Experimental Archeology" improvising spoken and sung phonemes. The group gives members of the audience "readings" using the carved stone as a medium. The channeled reading is sung by the members in intuitive choral pieces generated by their contact with the stone. Performers are Serena Williams, Miranda Bushey, Katherine Porter, Shana Palmer and J.Graf. High Zero Musicians in the piece were Chris Corsano, Susan Alcorn, Bill Nace, M.V. Carbon and Liz Albee |
Threshold is self-perpetuating system for sound and action in a social space. Performed at the High Zero Festival in 2008, this piece involves musicians, servers and diners. The ordering of specific foods triggers specific sounds which, in turn impacts the way in which food is served. Also involved is a "manager" who directs the servers to behave in various ways based on hand gestures. The result is a dining event in which not everyone ends up getting what he or she ordered. The social convention of dining out is shaped by the composition of elements in this work. |