Fred Frith: Drawing Sound

In their ongoing collaboration Drawing Sound, Fred Frith generates soundscapes while visual artist Heike Liss draws her images directly on windows. Liss works in a variety of media, including video, photography, drawing, sculpture, site-specific installation, and public intervention. She has collaborated with choreographers, musicians, multi-media artists, painters, and poets, and her award-winning work has been exhibited internationally in museums, galleries, and at film festivals. Frith (electric guitar) and Liss (visuals), along with Jason Hoopes (electric bass), Jordan Glenn (drums), and a special guest trumpeter, confront the difficulties specific to improvising in both visual and audio fields in a world where the visual is generally perceived as primary. How to avoid the music being taken as a soundtrack? Should the listeners/viewers be able to understand it from the same point of view as the creators? What is the equivalent of silence in images? How does a visual “gesture” correspond to a sonic one, or indeed should it? In the end, what kinds of interaction are possible or desirable?