2011

The audience is invited to participate in Threshold to Supper Table, which will consist of a meal that will serve as a score for action, sound and more. Social engagement is the composition, and the work unfolds its napkin. Actions by servers, musicians and audience generate a live score.

Performed at the Fridge in D.C. as a part of the Fresh Produce Festival.

1998 — Present

Cabeca Gorda is a monthly series curated by Jorge Martins and J.Gräf. 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.

Hilgos Foundation and the I Remember Better When I Paint Film
1995 — PresentFor four years Hilgos, an artist with Alzheimer’s, and Jenny Gräf Sheppard worked together to investigate ways in which the self could be tapped through creative activity. Gräf’s MFA thesis drew from this interaction and resulted in numerous shows with Hilgos in Chicago and New York. Together with Hilgos’ daughter they founded The Hilgos Foundation which awards scholarships to young artists for intergenerational creative collaborations.

I Remember Better When I Paint is a documentary film, with contributions in research and film by Gräf on the subject of Alzheimer’s and creativity. Gräf also contributed a chapter to the book, I Remember Better When I Paint, that was published by Bethesda Communications Group. See trailer.

1998

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.

Experimental Archeology
2008 — Present

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.Gräf.

High Zero Musicians in the piece were Chris Corsano, Susan Alcorn, Bill Nace, M.V. Carbon and Liz Albee

2006 — Present

Harrius is J.Gräf and Chiara Giovando. Their collaborations include two records on Ehse Records as well as live performances using live video and sound processing.

2010

Video and 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.

2009

Commissioned by Experimental Sound Studio, Osmosymbiotic Echo was composed for the Florasonic sound installation series (in conjunction with the Outer Ear Festival of Chicago) in the Fern Room of the Lincoln Park Conservatory.

Based on native bird song and wing beat pattern, this sound piece uses sounds typically inaudible to humans – sounds in the ultrasonic range that affect plants, insects and other birds in a variety of ways. In addition to actual bird recordings, synthesized sounds based on birdcalls and wing beat patterns were also used. Although we recognize a symbiosis among birds, plants, and insects in an environment, humans cannot always perceive the causes of this “give and take.

1996 — Present

J.Gräf and M.V. Carbon produce electronically manipulated, tape processed sounds and vocals. 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.