LA-based artists Byron Westbrook and Alex Pelly present a live Audio/Visual collaboration using electronics and modular video synth. The project expands from their online performance created earlier this year for the cathartic and damaged compositions on Distortion Hue, Westbrook’s recent LP with Hands in the Dark. This live iteration features Pelly’s colorful and dynamic audio-reactive images activated by Westbrook’s sonics made with analog and digital synthesizer, computer and processed cassette tape.

Volvo240DL is collaborative project between multidisciplinary artist and maker, Grace Cofrancesco and composer and artist Albert Peacock. The duo was born out of a shared desire for cathartic expression that culminated in an impromptu performance between the artists at a local gallery show in Santa Cruz, CA. Since, they have come together to explore what years of anxious energy has inspired in their individual artistic ventures, as a pair. Their performances examine, deconstruct, and recreate narratives of decay, destruction, piety, and pain through absurdism, humor, and often a litany of repeating images and sounds.

This is a standing-room show with limited seating available.

Byron Westbrook

Byron Westbrook is an artist and composer based in Los Angeles, CA. He works with both music performance and installation formats, with a focus on architectural qualities of sound and the potential for audio to generate visual and social spaces. Westbrook’s work has been shown internationally at institutions such as the Walker Art Center, ICA London, MoMA PS1, Rewire Festival, MaerzMusik Festival, Akousma Festival among others. He has recorded for labels including Root Strata, Hands in the Dark, Ash International, Important Records and Umor Rex. Westbrook holds an MFA from Bard College where he studied with Marina Rosenfeld, Marcus Schmickler and David Behrman. He has been in residence at Civitella Ranieri Foundation, Banff Centre for the Arts, ISSUE Project Room, Clocktower Gallery, Diapason Gallery, Wassaic Project and EMS Stockholm and has recently been visiting faculty with Pratt Institute’s Graduate Fine Arts Dept, Columbia University Sound Arts MFA, and International Center of Photography’s New Media Narratives program.

Alex Pelly

Alex Pelly is a Canadian filmmaker and video artist based in Los Angeles. Her work incorporates multiple generations of video technology, both analog and digital. Frequently collaborative with musical accompaniment, her work serves as a reflection of and muse to the music simultaneously. In recent years she has focused primarily on modular video synthesis. Pelly found her beginnings within broadcast collective Dublab circa 2008, and continues to provide live visuals for their events as well as host a monthly live-streamed audiovisual show called PELLYVISION. She is deeply rooted in Los Angeles’ underground electronic music scene and is resident visualist for music series Perpetual Dawn. She has performed or shown work at LACMA, MoMA PS1, The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, Hauser and Wirth Los Angeles, Gagosian Gallery Beverly Hills, Coaxial Arts, Los Angeles Central Library, Digital Debris Gallery and LA Weekly’s Artopia. Among countless other artists, Pelly has performed with Terry Riley, Suzanne Ciani, Kid606, Telecaves, Dntel, and ESP.

Volvo 240DL

Volvo240DL is collaborative project between multidisciplinary artist and maker, Grace Cofrancesco and composer and artist Albert Peacock. The duo was born out of a shared desire for cathartic expression that culminated in an impromptu performance between the artists at a local gallery show in Santa Cruz, CA. Since, they have come together to explore what years of anxious energy has inspired in their individual artistic ventures, as a pair. Their performances examine, deconstruct, and recreate narratives of decay, destruction, piety, and pain through absurdism, humor, and often a litany of repeating images and sounds.

Grace Cofrancesco grew up in the town of Bethany, CT. Her path to art started small, teaching herself how to draw and paint while working as a barista and taking grainy pictures of good dogs she met in passing. Jump ahead and Grace is, at her core, an artist of spontaneity, dancing between mediums such as painting, papier maché, textile and yarn work, stop-motion videography, and photography - to name just a few. Her work is that of raw experimentation, tapping into the uneasy, uncomfortable frenzy of humanity and her own experience, equal parts grim and humorous. Cofrancesco is based in Santa Cruz, still brewing, and creating work in her garage studio.

Los Angeles native and UCSC student Albert Peacock grew up performing with local hardcore bands as a teenager, but has spent much of his adolescence and early adulthood working with field recording, tape manipulation, and “found sound” composition. Taking inspiration from acoustic ecology, as well as the 1980’s and 90’s power electronic/noise scene, Peacock applies Schaefferian compositional techniques to create frantic, yet immersive sonic landscapes that are equal parts brutality and beauty. Peacock is currently based in Santa Cruz, CA where he works and goes to school full-time.