For his Project Space residency, Matt Wellins will be spending time with the primary resources collections, helping to preserve and digitize selected cassettes and 1/4” tape of artist talks and lectures. He has been creating multi-channel collage pieces by altering tape and tape playing machines and would like to translate this work into a visual language with the hope of also collaborating with Eastman School of Music players to perform an evening of acoustic transcriptions. Wellins is also interested in the urgency of cheap imitation. Much of his work with 8-track cartridges and reel tape is based on bootlegging and piracy and he wishes to have a greater awareness of how similar tactics have been applied to small press publishing and artists’ books. The end goal, in part, will be to create a small run publication at VSW, ultimately housed in discarded 8-track cartridges.

Matt Wellins’ concentration is on the concealed personalities of physical materials and inconspicuous histories of sound. Circuit design, algorithmic video production, and private performance are long-standing practices. He has performed at Anthology Film Archives, The Kitchen, EMPAC, and the Millvale Industrial Theater.

Open Studio: Thursday, April 25, 6 – 7 pm

Performances:

Thursday, April 25, 7 pm: “Dead Room,” performed by Wooden Cities
Scharmann Theater at Jamestown Community College

Friday, April 26, 7:30 pm: “Preaspirated Stop Ii”
St. Joseph’s, 43 Gebhardt Rd, Penfield, NY
Matt will be performing a piece for computer-fettered pipe organ.

Saturday, April 27, 8 pm: “Lemniscate”
VSW Auditorium
Performance featuring volunteers from Eastman School of Music, SUNY Buffalo, and places in between.

Support for this exhibition came from Max and Marian Farash Foundation, Joy of Giving Something, and the New York State Council on the Arts Visual Arts program.