SNKR was a collaborative project with movement and video artist Kelly Rauer, resulting in videos, sounds, performances and hybrid combinations thereof.
SNKR began with a two-minute performance using tap shoes and acoustic feedback through a large resonating metal sheet.
That experiment led to the capturing of improvisational performances for camera in various Portland locations – sounding out spaces with tap shoes, framing found geometries. The resulting footage was edited for sound as much as image, creating repetitions, stutters, rhythms and glitches. An accompanying score was created entirely from processed samples of two degraded vinyl LPs.
Further improvisations for camera included a three-camera shoot in Portland’s oldest building using no-input mixer, acoustic feedback, effects pedals and amplified small objects, and movements inside an unused, Soviet-era grain mill in Estonia, with its multiple levels of turquoise machinery.
These videos were incorporated into a 20-minute performance at the Risk/Reward Festival in 2016. Against a large video projection, Rauer created on-stage shapes, moving sound-making objects and speakers, and arranging items in task-based sequences. At the back of the stage, I created, mixed and processed sounds, including samples, contact microphones, acoustic feedback and a record player. Near the end, a large-screen television was rolled onstage, displaying a live video feed of my hands.
Seth Nehil 