EKO © Kurt Hentschläger
The series started with the 2017 installation SOL, and the 2019 installation SUB.
EKO is performed live in the splendid void of total darkness. Erasing the audience's perceptual boundaries, the absolute absence of light is interrupted for only fractions of seconds with bursts of micro-animated geometric forms emanating from a hidden in the dark LED wall display. Returning again to darkness, abundant retinal afterimage impressions unravel within each viewer's eyes, slowly fading and fusing with the surrounding darkness until the eventual next eruption of light.
EKO starts in ~15minutes of complete darkness, with no light events, amidst an abstract surround sound-scape, best imagined as a form of vortex / maelstrom, enveloping the audience. After this initial blackout period the work's sound-scape attunes to the fragile nature of the ghostly retinal afterimages. The piece's ambient electronic soundscape delicately diffuses through the space with occasional infra bass density.
EKO is about ~34 minutes long.
Premiere: 14 November 2019, EMPAC, Troy (US)
EKO Audiovisual composition and production by Kurt Hentschläger, 2019-22
Original production residency 2019 courtesy of EMPAC/ Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the Jaffe Fund for Experimental Media and Performing Arts
Technical Supervisor Touring: Ing. Alexander Boehmler
Management: Richard Castelli / Epidemic
Thanks to: Johannes Goebel, Richard Castelli, Chara Skiadelli, Florence Berthaud, Pierre Laly, Claudia Hart, and everybody at Empac.
