by Lisa Perry

“Bocanegra’s art is human, historical, filled with the material of life, highly organized and highly messy all at the same time.”

— BOMB magazine

Still image from darker — Still image from *darker*

The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra's Liquid Music Series and the Walker Art Center will present David Lang’s darker at the Ordway Concert Hall in Saint Paul on December 3, 2016 at 8:00 pm. The performance will feature musicians of The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and a live video liquid light show created by Brooklyn based artist Suzanne Bocanegra.

The synthesis of visual art and live music is becoming more prevalent as the symbiotic relationship created by the two mediums can provide a unique and immersive experience for viewers. In darker, these two art forms come together and enrich each other, creating a slow-burning, yet all-consuming hypnotic atmosphere.

In the composition of darker, Lang considered a visual lighting component from the very beginning. In an interview with the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Lang states:

“So the original idea for the piece and one of the reasons why it’s called "darker" is because I imagined that this piece would have a lighting design. That this piece would be sort of like a proposal to a lighting designer – Here is this piece that gets a little darker in it’s emotional tone – maybe you could figure out a lighting plot that goes through this whole piece, which also gets darker as it goes along.”

“The lighting for this particular performance is going to be a film by the artist Suzanne Bocanegra, who happens to be my wife. She does these incredible liquid light shows where she adds very strange things – light projections of moving water, oil, and colored pigment. She made a beautiful movie to go along with this and it's going to be projected as the music goes along.”

Performance image from darker — Performance image from *darker*

Suzanne Bocanegra sheds light on her approach to creating visuals for darker:

"I developed a liquid light show for darker that becomes both a moving set and a quasi-narrative. Liquid light shows were originally developed for rock concerts in the 60s to engage the eyes in the mind-altering experience of the music, and I've always been interested in how this form of visual show making is a sort of live abstract expressionist painting. And, just as you see the musicians make the music in front of you, my hands are included in the frame as well, as a echo of the musicians' active hands."

“In the program notes to David's score to darker he invites people to interpret the music with some kind of lighting design. He doesn't say what the lights should do, just that they could be an important part of a performance. David asked me to listen to the music and think about how I might add a lighting element to it.”

“My first thought was to remember Jeanette Yanikian - darker is dedicated to her memory. She was the wife of the composer Louis Andriessen and was a composer and performance artist in her own right. One piece she did that I never saw but I heard about was a piece where she put microphones all over her body and then broadcast the flow of all the fluids flowing through her. I thought a liquid light show would honor her, and would also be great fun to do.”

In addition to her work in darker, Bocanegra has several works that have recently toured across the country. One of these projects, entitled When a Priest Marries a Witch, is an artist lecture and performance starring Paul Lazar and was presented at the Museum of Modern Art. A lecture entitled Bodycast, featuring Frances MacDormand has toured as well and was presented at the Hammer Museum and the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

Bocanegra is currently working on a new project entitled Farmhouse / Whorehouse, an Artist Lecture by Suzanne Bocanegra starring Lili Taylor. It will premiere in April 2017 at the Mitchell Center for the Arts in Houston, TX.

More information on the artist can be found at www.suzannebocanegra.com