In a collaboration that has spanned over a decade, Brian Black and Ryan Bulis have developed the team-like persona known as Brian and Ryan. This artistic duo appropriates iconic activities and forms that challenge preconceptions of communication, masculinity, and identity.
Their installation-based work is site specific and focuses on engaging the audience with familiar forms while making alterations in an inquisitive and playful manner. These alterations transforms spaces and lead viewers to new discoveries about how to communicate within those spaces.
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PARTICIPATION
Tube Time Talking
For the past several years this collaboration has been about giving up their individual authorship to nurture a persona known as Brian and Ryan. And much of Brian and Ryan’s work has been about how their conversations evolve with each other and how they communicate with their audience. As their work continues to move in the direction of audience interaction and participation, they find ourselves attracted to objects of familiarity that they can alter in unexpected ways.
For Tub Time Talking, two bathtubs will be placed across the room from each other connected with piping. Visitors will be able to enter the tubs and communicate with each other through the pipe system. The compressed sound waves will travel though one end of the pipe to the other using the tubs as a dish to amplify and distort the sound.
Sound Collection Helmets
The installation, performance and intervention-based works of Brian Black and Ryan Bulis have helped the duo develop the persona known as Brian and Ryan. Their Sound Collection Helmets are a literal means to collect the sounds of a city. For Soundpedro, the helmets will collect ambient sound and conversations from the show. These recordings will be available to the other artists to customize. And it is their intention to continue this project across several cities to create a large database of conversations mixed with the sound of the city that can distinctively represent each of these places.