TELEGRAPH VALLEY
Created by LA Samuelson with collaborating sound artist Adam Stone and dramaturg Elle Hong
Telegraph Valley is a performance and installation work devoted to friction—specifically, the friction of “having a body” while “being a body.”
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.
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.
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.
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