Rindon Johnson with Jacqueline Kiyomi Gork, The Bells Pursuing One Another, 2022. Video game, controllers, monitors, gaming chairs. Dimensions variable
Rindon Johnson, with Jacqueline Kiyomi Gork, The Bells Pursuing One Another, 2022. Video game, controllers, monitors, gaming chairs. Dimensions variable
from press release
In their new (and first) video game, Johnson and artist Jacqueline Kiyomi Gork draw on fragmentary data to speculate a firsthand visual and acoustic account of the beaked whale’s hunting habits. Not unlike modern first-person shooters, gameplay is situated from the whale’s point of view; players use the joysticks of an Xbox controller to harmonize their sonic movements in attempts to catch their squid prey gliding between egresses of the deep submarine Great Bahama Canyon. Like other cetaceans, Cuviers use highly developed aural sensory organs to navigate their underwater environment. The whale’s sight, though poorly understood by scientists, is thought to be nearly vestigial. They see as an afterthought. The resulting visual design is stark and monochromatic, forcing players to rely overwhelmingly on the game’s immersive soundscape.
Rindon Johnson (b. 1990, unceded Ohlone and Coast Miwok territories, San Francisco, California) currently lives and works in Berlin where he is an Associate Fellow at the Universität der Künste Berlin. Johnson is the author of four books of essays and poetry, The Law of Large Numbers: Black Sonic Abyss (SculptureCenter/Chisenhale Gallery, 2021), Shade the King (Capricious Press, 2017), No One Sleeps Better Than White People (Inpatient Press, 2016), and the virtual reality book Meet in the Corner (Publishing- House.Me, 2017). Recent solo exhibitions include The Law of Large Numbers at SculptureCenter, New York and Chisenhale Gallery, London; and The Valley of the Moon at François Ghebaly, Los Angeles. His work has been featured at the New Museum, New York; the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; and the 2022 Whitney Biennial, New York.
Jacqueline Kiyomi Gork has been working with the intersection of sound, sculpture and performance since 2002. She studied sound art, photography and new genres at the San Francisco Art Institute and researched the history of communication technologies, acoustics and computer music at Stanford University where she received an MFA. Kiyomi Gork has exhibited at Empty Gallery in Hong Kong, GES-VAC in Moscow, SFMOMA, The Lab and Queens Nails Projects in San Francisco, 356 Mission Rd, Machine Project and the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. She has participated residencies at Skowhegan, EMPAC, Mills Collage and Schloss Solitude in addition to receiving multiple grants from the San Francisco Arts Commission, Center for Cultural Innovation and Joan Mitchell Foundation.
LINK: Rindon Johnson
LINK: Jacqueline Kiyomi Gork
