artworks

Fracture Patterns – Eartheater and Semiconductor

Fracture Patterns, excerpt

2019
Live multi-media
A Semiconductor work by Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt.

Fracture Patterns is a live collaboration between Semiconductor and New York musician and producer Eartheater. Combining Semiconductor’s large-scale multi-channel video works with an original live soundtrack and performance by Eartheater, Fracture Patterns culminates in a compelling theatrical production.

Exploring resonances between their respective practices Fracture Patterns brings together Eartheater’s approach to working with the materiality of sound, with Semiconductor’s work with scientific data to examine very fabric of the physical world. Fracture Patterns harnesses Semiconductor and Eartheater’s capacity to create works which blur the boundaries between digital and analogue to convey both a feeling of bespoke intimacy and of awe-inspiring humbling power.

Eartheater’s soundtrack conveys the noisy messy chaos of nature and becomes an extension of the elements in Semiconductor’s films, her voice like a disrupted signal struggling with the overwhelming power of nature. Fracture Patterns investigates the spectrum between empirical research and human emotion, between dissonance and harmony, the human and the machine.

Fracture Patterns in an original commission by Outlands Network, supported by Arts Council England and Esmée Fairbairn Foundation.

For more information about the tour go to www.outlands.network/fracture-patterns-eartheater-semiconductor

 

 

Worlds in Flux DVD

2006
various lengths
DVD
A Semiconductor work by Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt.
Released by Fat Cat Records

13 Semiconductor works on DVD in Europe/USA/Japan PAL + NTSC
Buy at: LUX.

Supported by Arts Council England. Released by Fat Cat Records.

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1 Brilliant Noise
2 The Sound of Microclimates
3 Múm-Green Grass of Tunnel
4 Inaudible Cities
5 Strata
6 QT – qqq
7 Mini Epochs
8 Sonic Inc (extracts)
9 Digital Anthrax
10 Earthquake Films
11 Do You Think Science…
12 All the Time in the World
13 Double Adaptor – 200 Nanowebbers

Including 11 specially commissioned alternate Brilliant Noise soundtracks by:

Antenna Farm
Disinformation
Thomas Dimuzio
Ensemble
Gæoudjiparl
Robert Hampson
Iris Garrelfs
Our Brother The Native
Max Richter
The Twilight Sad
Cristian Vogel

10 page booklet with essay by Ken Hollings.

“Essential viewing if you have any interest in the converging worlds of audio and visual digital art. (Kultureflash)

“A jam packed DVD from one of the audio-visual world’s most intriguing acts – a must see. ” (Boomkat)

“Versatile but always coherent in style and visual options Semiconductor are definitively placed in our personal hall of fame of digital cinematic artists . ” (Neural.it)

Double Adaptor – 200 Nanowebbers

2005
02:49
SD single channel
A Semiconductor work by Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt.

For ‘200 Nanowebbers’, Semiconductor have created a molecular web that is generated by Double Adaptor’s live soundtrack. Using custom-made scripting, the melodies and rhythms spawn a nano scale environment that shifts and contorts to the audio resonance. Layers of energetic hand drawn animations, play over the simplest of vector shapes that form atomic scale associations. As the landscape flickers into existence by the light of trapped electron particles, substructures begin to take shape and resemble crystalline substances.

Aco – Machi

2003
04:03
SD single channel
A Semiconductor work by Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt.

music promo for Aco / Sony Japan

Hi-Fi Rise DVD

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2001
various lengths
Self released DVD 14 short films + DVD-Rom
A Semiconductor work by Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt.

Last few copies available online from LUX

Text from 2001:

This DVD debut by Semiconductor is one of the first independently produced DVD compilations of short films to be released. Set within a unique environment the films can either be searched for individually or all played on loop infinitely.

Featuring 14 moving image works, 8 by Semiconductor themselves and 6 from guests artists.

Semiconductor literally make films out of sound, transforming it into a visual material to compose landscapes and sound worlds. Their music can be described as a contradiction where ‘musique concrete’ becomes simultaneously hypnotic and violent, minimal and maximal. While many of their films are processed based explorations of sound and the moving image others explore animated fictional cities. ‘Retropolis’ takes you through an imaginary London where all you see and hear is the electricity passing through millions of flickering light bulbs or ‘Linear’ that links the sub-atomic world of ‘String theory’ to our own urban landscapes through the vibrations of sound.

Each of the guest musicians has either produced a film of their own or collaborated with a film maker:
Dat Politics work with Qubo Gas to produce an insane pixel cut up, while People Like Us brings her ‘plunderphonic’ music techniques to video. Others, such as Ian Helliwell, touch on the infamous early abstract films or in the case of Amon Tobin’s ‘Slowly’ (NinjaTune), Ben Rivers and Jeremy Butler create a delicate world out of familiar products. Cities are further explored by Process / Yvette Klein who take a trip through fragmented places and moments while Top Hat Productions test out their specially prepared pattern recognition glasses in public.

Also on the disk is a DVD-Rom section ‘Earthquake Films’ for PC and Mac where you can search further for the moving image within a sonic landscape.

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Supported by Arts Council England

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