As part of the opening celebration for Data Deluge, Ballroom Marfa presented the conceptual new media artist, programmer and performer R. Luke DuBois and multi-instrumentalist, composer and performer Bora Yoon. These New York-based artists performed ( (( PHONATION )) ), an experimental work rooted in the live shaping of digital information at the Capri after the community dinner celebrating Data Deluge.

( (( PHONATION )) ) is a multimedia solo performance by Bora Yoon with live video manipulations by Luke DuBois — exploring where sound connects to the subliminal using found sounds, new and antiquated instruments, electronic devices, and voice. Using a sound designer’s approach to performance composition that is steered by a penchant for a song, ( (( PHONATION )) ) is an immersive audiovisual environment, engaging with music as music, and not as part of a genre, taking the means to one end, and using it for another to form new utterances of sound and the beginnings of a new sonic language, within its spatial and architectural context.

New custom technology is being developed with programmer Luke DuBois, and Harvestworks Digital Media & Art, entitled The Body Electric – to enhance greater performance interactivity between the physical, gestural, musical, and visual realm using ground-breaking gaming infrared technology. In every case, a particular sonic geography is evoked that might be inspired by a simple, found-sound in the world, or an expression of a sonic paradox bouncing around only in the mind.