Reviewing

Telepresents Online Release Event

Jess Rowland

Featuring Aimee Norwich

Join us for an online celebration of Jess Rowland’s new release, Telepresents, featuring designer Aimee Norwich, coming to a computer screen near you. This short but sweet virtual event includes excerpts from Telepresents and a Q&A with Harvestworks director Carol Parkinson, Jess, and Aimee. Telepresents is a one-of-a-kind digital VHS tape you can plug into your computer. How does it work, you may ask? Tune in and Aimee Norwich will show you and guide you through her process!

December 5 2020, Saturday 7pm

LOCATION: Harvestworks YOUTUBE channel

This streaming event will introduce viewers to Jess Rowland’s new release Telepresents, a digital VHS tape which is both physical art object and a form of media. Telepresents explores the computer screen as a musical instrument. Ittweaks telepresence as an anarchic act: Cloud computing, video conferencing, and text-to-speech are all misappropriated in the creation of an alternative to our ever-consuming screen-world vortex. The work is comprised of three video and sound works by Jess Rowland crafted and compiled together for the first time from works originally performed live over the past few years in art venues and music spaces. 

This release is also a unique one-of-a-kind VHS tape which acts like a USB drive you can plug into your computer, the world’s first VHS-USB. As such, in addition to the video files of Jess’ sound pieces, Telepresents is also an old-school physical art object designed by Aimee Norwich. During the online release celebration, you will get to see not only excerpts from Jess Rowland’s Telepresents, but also a special introduction from Aimee Norwich about her most fantabulous invention. 

Aimee and Jess teamed up for this project out of a mutual passion for bringing music back into a physical, living breathing form, while at the same time, being true to the times we are in and leaning into a critique of our ever-more-digital future.

Expect the proceedings to be short and sweet and lively!

Bios

Jess Rowland Sound Artist, Musician, Composer, Author. Jess’ work explores the relationship between technologies, popular culture and other absurdities, investigating ā€œthe weirdness of reality and how we all deal with itā€

Aimee Norwich is a musician, inventor, filmmaker, instrument builder, and visual artist. Aimee’s formal music education is in jazz and classical electric bass, audio production, and room acoustics. Much of the technology she uses in the recording studio, is gear that she builds, such as tube microphones, preamps, and various gadgets.

PRESS QUOTES

“Rowland frames from a punk-like attitude, very basic, anarchic and experimental miniatures of unpolished beauty.” – Vital Weekly

ā€œThink of a hyper maniacal Captain Beefheart for the Internet information age, spiced with reverberating themes and an undulating soundstage that is wacky, crazily entertaining and shrewdly enacted from start to finish.ā€

Glenn Astarita, All About Jazz in a review for Rowland’s last release, Spambots

“Rowland has some highly creative ideas about the use of the piano, both in terms of actual musical content and in the unusual shape of sound, and a fresh ability to see the use of one of music’s oldest and most traditional instruments in a new and startling way.ā€ – RKF, The One True Dead Angel

https://www.jessrowlandstudio.com/

www.jessrowland.com

  • COLLABORATOR: Aimee Norwich – VHS-USB design and concept

INTERVIEWS AND PRESS COVERAGE

ā€œReveal Party — Sound Installation by Jess Rowlandā€, Lewis Center for the Arts (2019). [link: https://vimeo.com/378895987].

Jess Rowland

Jess Rowland is a multimediaĀ artist and composer working at the intersection of sound, technology, and culture. Her practice engages with critical questions about how media and technology shape human experience, often through playful, absurd, and provocative works that challenge conventions. Whether designing wearable sound sculptures, creating interactive installations, or composing experimental music, Jess’s work blurs the boundaries between art, technology, and the everyday, inviting audiences to rethink their relationship with media.

Jess received her MFA in Art Practice from UC Berkeley and continues to have extensive experience as an educator at institutions such as Princeton University, UC Berkeley, and the School of Visual Arts in NYC. She was the 2018 – 2020 Peter B. Lewis Fellow in Art at the Lewis Center for the Arts, and continues work in her ongoing visual, sound, and multimedia practice.

Her work also bridges science and sound. She is published in leading peer-reviewed journals in Auditory Neuroscience, Music Psychology, and Perception, and she has worked at The NYU Center for Neural Science on speech and music research.

Jess brings a unique blend of technical expertise, creative vision, and cultural critique to her work. Her art has been exhibited internationally in galleries, festivals, and academic settings, reflecting her commitment to expanding the possibilities of sound and media art.

Jess’s ongoing projects explore the relationship between sound and physical space, interactive systems, and the use of new technologies in art, often focusing on American culture’s most deeply ingrained beliefs and assumptions. Her work has been supported and featured by organizations such as Harvestworks Digital Media Arts Center, where she has held residencies and solo exhibitions.

Jess Rowland’s art challenges our expectations, pushing the boundaries of how we think about and engage with the sonic world around us.

Aimee Norwich

Aimee Norwich is a musician, inventor, filmmaker, instrument builder,
and visual artist. Her education is in jazz and classical electric bass, audio
production, room acoustics, and electronics. She plays a Hybrid Bass, Bass Kit (both
her inventions), Fretless Bass, Piccolo Bass, Baritone Ukulele, and Electric Bass,
along with various FX pedals. She also builds and plays odd folk instruments, such
as her Tabletop One-string Bass. Aimee’s music consists of original compositions and
arrangements of songs like John Coltrane’s Giant Steps. Much of the technology she
uses in the recording studio and for live performances is gear that she builds, such
as tube microphones, preamps, and various gadgets.