Educational Media Reviews Online

Hailing from Australia, turntablist Martin Ng and guitarist Oren Ambarchi have teamed up with visual artists Tina Frank and Robin Fox to create two other-worldly video soundscapes on one DVD.

The first piece is Vigilance (40:28) featuring video generated in real-time by Frank. What begins with almost imperceptible flickers of audio and video gradually coalesces into constantly twisting and intersecting abstract multi-dimensional and multi-colored geometric grids. Floating over a black background, fluctuating in size, speed and intensity synchronous to the music, the grids steadily evolve into more concrete shapes that build to a peak of color and activity at roughly the midway point of the work, until ebbing to flickers and flashes near the end.

The second piece is 8 Seconds of Weightlessness (43:51) featuring video by Fox. Here we begin with faintly glowing phosphorous green shapes, starting with a pulsating square against a black background, and like the first work, varying and building in intensity, always changing and shifting to more complex shapes and patterns, yet always coincident to the music. Gradually the visuals return to the square seen at the beginning of the work.

Musically, both works share similar features. Throughout, the hypnotic, arrhythmic music envelops the listener in an ethereal ambience of chirps, gongs, ringing overtones, and high and low pitched drones. Forgive the use of such an overworked phrase, but this is mind-bending stuff!

Produced by Asphodel Studios in San Francisco, the packaging for the DVD is minimal—no booklet, liner notes nor DVD extras. Audio options are for Stereo or 5.1. Further background on the artists’ work can be found at Asphodel’s website.

Recommended for public and academic libraries, as well as visual arts and media arts programs.