TELEGRAPH VALLEY
Created by LA Samuelson with collaborating sound artist Adam Stone and dramaturg Elle Hong
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Telegraph Valley is a performance and installation work devoted to friction—specifically, the friction of “having a body” while “being a body.”
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Telegraph Valley echoes the syntax of the telegraph, assembled from roofing material, multiplayer cassette tape loops, rotating light sources, plywood, house frames, rudimentary electricity experiments, and a dancer.
Friction is conductive. Telegraph Valley uses it to:
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Reverse engineer the feeling of having sent out and/or received a message through the medium of one’s body.
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Vibrate memory through matter.
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Recirculate human intimacy, effort and interiority through connection with analog and digital technologies.
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Communicate with the dead.
October 2023 Iteration of Telegraph Valley presented by Black Cube Nomadic Museum titled "Holding Pattern."
Video by Laura Conway and Uli Miller. Courtesy of artist/Black Cube.
Telegraph Valley is an emergent event set in a sculptural/sonic installation that evolves with each performance. Battery powered projectors strapped to electric pottery wheels sit atop ladders at the center of the room.
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As they rotate, their light beams slide across the space. A dancer runs to keep up; the light rhythmically dictates the progression of the work.
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Multiplayer cassette tape loops circulate sound through a maze of magnetic tape underneath a floating floor. Visitors dip their heads into holes in the floor to listen for a traveling sonic score that reorganizes relations between maps/territory, past/future/present, death/rebirth, above/below.
Video by Third Dune Productions
Telegraph Valley is a National Performance Network (NPN) Creation & Development Fund Project co-commissioned by RedLine Contemporary Art Center in partnership with Diaspora Vibe Cultural Arts Incubator (DVCAI), square product theatre and NPN. The Creation & Development Fund is supported by the Doris Duke Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency). For more information, visit www.npnweb.org.
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It is also made possible through collaborations with Museum of Longmont, MCA Denver, Union Hall Gallery, Understudy Denver, and Black Cube Nomadic Museum.
Image by Wes Magyar