Stephen Vitiello with Molly Berg: Flutter
8PM, At the World Financial Center: Winter Garden (http://www.worldfinancialcenter.com/)
Flutter is a performance during which 100 small, sound-producing objects, each with their own parachute, will be dropped from 150 feet in the air. The objects each have resonant or mechanically audible properties that will be heard as they fall, creating something resembling a free-falling Aeolian harp. For a brief time, the air and gravity activate the instruments, filling the space with sound. The piece is of both very short and very long duration: the actual event takes only ten minutes, creating a short but memorable spectacle, yet the instruments endure and continue past the moment of articulation.
Stephen Vitiello is a sound and media artist. In his work, he is interested in the physical aspect of sound and its potential to define the form and atmosphere of a spatial environment. Many of his recent works engage the outdoor and public presence of sound through field recordings. Recent solo exhibitions include Museum 52 (London,) The Project NY and Galerie Almine Rech (Paris.) Group exhibitions include the 2002 Whitney Biennial, Ce qui arrive at the Cartier Foundation (Paris) and Greater New York at PS1. In 1999, Vitiello’s LMCC-sponsored WorldViews residency on the 91st floor of the World Trade Center resulted in a site-specific sound installation, which has been broadcast and exhibited internationally. New media productions include work for the Internet, Sound Archive 7.01-7.31.01 for the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Tetrasomia, for the Dia Center for the Arts. Past performances venues include The Tate Modern, the San Francisco Electronic Music Festival, The Kitchen, the Whitney and participation in per/Son, Cologne. As a Media Curator, he curated the Sound Art component to the Whitney’s exhibition The American Century: Art and Culture 1950-2000, Young and Restless a video program for the MOMA and New York, New Sounds, New Spaces at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Lyon.
Flutter is co-presented by arts>World Financial Center and the River to River Festival
arts>World Financial Center is sponsored by American Express, Merrill Lynch, Brookfield Properties, and Battery Park City Authority, with generous support from the Exchange Hotel and Lounge.