SlaughterhouseSpace

SlaughterhouseSpace is honored to present:

CATCH & RELEASE
an installation by
HUGH LIVINGSTON

June 25, 2011 ~ September 10, 2011
Opening reception for the artist Saturday June 25 4PM ~ 7PM

Catch & Release is not just good stewardship; it's the law.

There is no manner in which I can convey in one short glimpse the vast soundscape that I have experienced along the River, the colors I have seen, the frogs that have chorused. These soundscapes unfold over time, murmuring and accelerating and attenuating. The River colors refract and pixelate and moirize. The collection herein distills a few experiences to their essence, removed from the River and recontextualized. A scientistic approach is employed, a musicological approach is suggested. Neither the science nor the music is real; the only reality is the River. These slices break it down into elements, invented elements, counterintuitive elements. The experience is not in the gallery. But it will return the visitor to the River with eyes more open and ears more attuned.
Hugh Livingston

Russian Riverkeeper Artist-in-Residence Hugh Livingston presents Catch & Release, a series of audio and video installations that capture and distill essences of the River experience, employing a radical approach with scientistic and musicological vocabularies. Made possible in part by The Creative Work Fund, a program of the Walter and Elise Haas Fund supported by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and The James Irvine Foundation. This work was created in part under the auspices of the Chalk Hill Residency at Warnecke Ranch & Vineyards.

Hugh Livingston creates public sound environments and performs exploratory cello music. Hugh graduated cum laude in music from Yale, the 1990 recipient of the Bach Society Prize for excellence in musicianship and contribution to musical life at Yale. He has an MFA in contemporary music from the California Institute of the Arts and a doctorate from UC San Diego. Hugh composes situational music: responses to spaces, artists, architecture and design, history and people. His special areas of interest are spatialization, transit-related music, improvisation, collaboration with visual artists, electroacoustic music, and Asian music.

Hugh is the founder of The ARTSHIP Recordings, a catalog of 54 improvised solos recorded on a 491-foot Art Deco cruiseliner. He has catalogued 120 different pizzicato techniques for the cello and conducted extensive research in China on contemporary and historical music. His first sound installation, LISTEN EDGEMAR, was created for a Frank Gehry-designed building in Santa Monica. Hugh fabricates unique sculptural speakers for gardens, and develops sonic solutions to combat traffic noise. His music is built around the theme of Audio in the Public Interest. His work is supported internationally by the Telluride Institute, the Creative Work Fund, the Asian Cultural Council, the Trust for Mutual Understanding, and the American Composers Forum.Hugh is working in collaboration with Russian Riverkeeper to produce three projects along the River in 2010-11, beginning with the gallery exhibition of sound and video installations, Catch & Release, opening June 25 at Slaughterhouse Space in Healdsburg.

A permanent sound garden, Sound & Place opens June 26th at the Sonoma County Museum in Santa Rosa.
A river opera, High Mountains and Long Water, premieres April 2012 at the Chalk Hill Artists Residency, Warnecke Ranch & Vineyards, Healdsburg.