Nassa,
Nadav Assor / Surabhi Saraf, USA
Tunneling
Live-Media
Nadav Assor and Surabhi Saraf formed NASSA in Chicago, 2008. Their individual practices are combined in NASSA to create a rich, disturbing, organic dichotomy between vocal and visual overload, centered around a single narrative thrust: that of peeling back the layers of the mundane, plunging through the subcutaneous depths beyond and within, to wherever the tunnel may lead.
Nadav Assor is an inter-media artist, working with a wide range of temporal mediums- from sculptural installation to live video performance, all of which are utilized in his explorations of personal-technological mediation of urban, architectural, emotional and ideological structures. Nadav's pieces often involve physical embodiment as a metaphorical or concrete live process that ranges from the absurd to the violent. Nadav has shown in a wide range of venues: festivals, museums, galleries, clubs and concert halls in Israel, Berlin and Chicago, where he is currently pursuing his MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Surabhi Saraf is a new media artist, singer and noise maker whose work brings together elements from experimental sound art, classical music, choreography and video art. She takes a compositional approach, punctuating her works by events and moments choreographed in time. Surabhi has a background in Indian classical singing and has used her voice in concert with familiar daily sounds in her recent video installations and live performances. Her works attempt to accentuate the audience experience, ranging from the subtle and pleasant, to the powerful and overwhelming. Surabhi’s works have been shown in various galleries and festivals in New York, Berlin, Chicago and India. She graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2009 with an MFA in Art and Technology. Surabhi currently lives and works in San Francisco.
The visual narrative of Tunneling, the project presented at Netmage, is defined through the process of cutting through the wall of the performance space from inside to outside, the different layers within the building wall slowly exposed until the outer, nighttime street is reached. This image is constructed in real-time by cutting miniature boards made of the different materials in the wall, combined through use of a specially constructed green-screen lightbox and custom software which 'memorizes' the appearance of each layer of material as it’s being cut. The audio narrative consists of a multitude of voices singing verses, which are at first multiplied by many thousands, and slowly decimate while the wall is exposed until only one, the real voice of the audio performer, is left when the street outside is finally reached. An additional layer of domestic cooking sounds is intertwined with the voices, juxtaposed with the sounds generated by the cutting of the wall-layers.
I percorsi artistici di Nadav Assor e Surabhi Saraf si incrociano in NASSA, progetto nato a Chicago nel 2008, per creare una ricca dicotomia, disturbante e organica, tra sovraccarico visivo e sonoro, con una precisa spinta narrativa: grattare via gli strati della materia mondana, inoltrandosi nelle profondità sottocutanee, ovunque lo scavo possa portare.
Nadav Assor è un artista inter-mediale che lavora nella vasta area dei temporal mediums, realizzando installazioni e performance audiovisuali che esplorano le architetture urbane, emozionali e idelogiche. I lavori di Nadav comprendono spesso l'utilizzo di incarnazioni fisiche intese come metafora o utilizzate concretamente nel processo esecutivo, oscillando tra assurdo e violenza. Attualmente sta facendo un MFA presso l' Art Institute of Chicago.
Surabhi Saraf, artista attiva tra San Francisco e Chicago, opera con i nuovi media e sperimenta l'uso della voce e la produzione noise, legando insieme componenti della sound art più sperimentale, con la musica classica, la coreografia e la videoarte. Formatasi con le tecniche della musica classica indiana, utilizza la voce mixata a suoni e rumori quotidiani, in lavori video e installazioni presentati in festival e gallerie statunitensi, europee e indiane.
Lo sviluppo visivo di Tunneling, il progetto multi-disciplinare presentato a Netmage, si definisce attraverso un maniacale processo di taglio dei muri e scomposizione dello spazio che acoglie la performance, procedendo dall'interno all'esterno. I diversi strati parietali dell'edificio vengono lentamente rimessi alla luce, uno alla volta, fino a raggiungere la strada, lì fuori, nel tempo della notte. L'immagine viene costruita dal vivo perforando una piattaforma campione costituita dagli stessi materiali che compongono i muri dell'edificio ospitante; un software memorizza l'aspetto del singolo strato perforato, il green-screen ne ritaglia la figura elettronica. La narrazione sonora è costituita da una moltitudine di voci, prima sovrapposte migliaia di volte, poi lentamente sfoltita fino ad arrivare alla solitaria voce, reale, della performer Surabhi Saraf.
