JOHN STURGEON & AYSHA QUINN
NO EARTH/NO EARTH STATION
©1982-83
collaborative video/performance
originally performed at the 2nd Intermedia Arts Festival
Corraboree Theater, University of Iowa, 1982 and subsequently commissioned and elaborated for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art - Bing Theater, 1983
NO EARTH / NO EARTH STATION was a video-performance in collaboration with Aysha Quinn, incorporating live video and 3 channels of pre-recorded video, 3 cameras interactive with chroma key set, 4 monitors, 3 video projectors, set and props. NE/NES was created as a metaphor for a state of suspension, global & individual, during extraordinary and trying times. Survival is the concern. Investigation, growth, healing, relationship & consciousness are the keys.
We are in a holding pattern - there will be Earth again.
NOTE: as is often the case in performance work, the creator/performer often does not have complete control of the documentation elements of the work, for obvious reasons – your focus is primarily on performing the event. Additionally, as in any live event – things beyond one’s control occur. Such was the case with NE/NES. The video documentation failed due to operator error and the photographic documentation was lost in a quagmire of copyright issues that remain unresolved.
JOHN STURGEON & AYSHA QUINN
NO EARTH / NO EARTH STATION
©1982-83
collaborative video/performance
originally performed at the 2nd Intermedia Arts Festival Corraboree Theater,
University of Iowa, 1982 and subsequently commissioned and elaborated for
the Los Angeles County Museum of Art - Bing Theater, 1983
We are in a holding pattern - there will be Earth again.
In the mid -70's Sturgeon’s work expanded to include installation and
performance, primarily including video as a major component. A great deal of
the performance work of the 80's was collaborative and highly involved with
intermedia experiences. 1983's NO EARTH/NO EARTH STATION (Los Angeles
County Museum of Art) utilized live video and real-time chroma keys as part
of a performance whose...
…fine arts sensibility synthesizes video art, video/installation and
theater in an improvisational structure that attempts the tricky business of
saving the moment of creation for the audience... improvising unity when
reality is divisively subjective, adapting to a kinetic present tense.
(critic, Michael Nash)
Components:
2 performers (Sturgeon & Quinn), color video (3 channels of pre-recorded and 3 live
cameras interactive with live chroma key), 4 channels of audio, 4 monitors, 3 video
projectors, chroma key wall set with doors, dry ice in fish tanks, chairs, hanging traction
devices, lab coat costumes, sunglasses, tesla coil, vegetables and scalpel.
“The performance is the quintessence of what performance is about. The hall of mirrors expansiveness creates a sense of quantum realization, Sturgeon and Quinn have risked the hour's totality for each moment, pulling off a brilliantly provocative present tense."
Michael Nash, review
ART-COM, 1983
NE/NES - 2nd Intermedia Arts Festival
Corraboree Theater, University of Iowa, 1982