Squash & Biscuit bring together language, micro sounds, and synthesized textures together to bring focus to the world’s understated sonic world. Often working with animation, video, and movement, the duo use structure to guide improvisations that feel like conversations with a focus on the balance between silence and sound.
Shuwen Zhao and Brian Griffith create musical atmospheres for moving images. Their experience with traditional musical structures informs their approach and experimentation with sounds. Zhao, a pianist, has an ear for detail creating lush soundscapes and intricate melodic lines. Griffith, a bassist, builds deep currents of sound and delicate tonal whispers. Together, they compliment each other’s styles able to build a piece that is expertly crafted and surprising.
Artist Location: Los Angeles, CA
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PARTICIPATION
Squash & Biscuit with GOOM
Seeds Above, Seeds Below
Unseen and unheard, the embryonic soil that wraps around a seed provides nourishment. Influenced by the heat and light from above the verdant veins sprout through the soil offering us a silent totem that shows an entity exists below our feet. As above, so below—a reflection dark and absent of light beckons the seed deeper and deeper down towards the dimension we refuse to acknowledge. Now, we have found a way to sonify this previously silent reality using the power of touch and the reciprocity of the plants’ green flesh.
This installation brings you to the world of dirt listening to the whispers and resonances that come from the Earth and beings that remain hidden from sight. The intermediary between us are plants. Not a way to turn the internal energy that exists in these plants into a string of data, but rather using the plants as a communication vessel so we can hear what the underground says. By touching select parts of the plant, you can encourage a message to emanate.
Whispering Smoke
Tea and Whispers Ceremony will use the small guard post as an intimate venue for 1 or 2 people max. Using mic’d objects, voice, and acoustic instruments, each participant will have the option to whisper a feeling, phrase, thought, or babble into an audio buffer. They will also have the option to write down what they said, or write another intention and burn it. Using a smoke sensor, the burning paper, or incense if they choose, will playback their whispering at various speeds. We will respond to the activated sound with our own improvisation.
Performance October 29, 2023
With Taylor Donofrio
at Torrance Art Museum’s Nomad II