Of Sight and Sound
Ford Crull and Brandon Ross

Live Painting Performance: Tuesday, October 17, 4-7pm

By temporarily muting his sense of physical sight with a blindfold while producing a large scale painting, Ford Crull asks the viewer to reconsider the process and means of creation and manifestation. What emerges if we create from what we are able to perceive rather than solely from what we can see?
He does this while immersed in an unfolding “amniotic” field of musical sound, created live, in the moment, by the ensemble of guitarist/composer/improviser, Brandon Ross. Of Sight and Sound is an invitation to reflect upon and investigate vulnerability, possibility, process, awareness, sound and sight. It invites audiences to re-engage what may be the most advanced tech available to us: the Human consciousness.

Of Sight and Sound raises radically subtle and timely questions about our point of departure as creators: Can it serve us to shift into an alternate point of reference; beginning from a morphogenic field that invites us to reset our awareness regarding (in this case) sight and musical sound? And, if we are served by that shift, what might the benefit be?

We inhabit a period in which our society seems besotted by technological innovation – where the term “tech” commonly refers to objects (and processes) outside of ourselves. The swiftly developing movements of trans-humanism, Artificial Intelligence, and virtual reality appear to be vying for our endorsement… but, what of the technologies of Being? Inner technology. Have we underestimated the inherent “hi-tech” of our human consciousness as incapable of being a progressive and powerful application?

About the Artists
Ford Crull was raised in Seattle, where he graduated from the University of Washington. His work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery, Dayton Art Institute, and the Brooklyn Museum. His paintings were included in the important 1989 Moscow exhibition, “Painting After the Death of Painting,” curated by Donald Kuspit. Recent exhibitions have included shows in Shanghai, London, Milan, and Seattle.

Brandon Ross is a New York City-based guitarist/composer/singer/songwriter. As a performing and recording artist, Ross has collaborated with many innovative voices in modern music, such as Wadada Leo Smith, Cassandra Wilson, Henry Threadgill, Tony Williams, Arto Lindsay, Leroy Jenkins, Lawrence D. “Butch” Morris, Bill Frisell, Me’Shell N’degeocello, Oliver Lake, Muhal Richard Abrams and many others, crafting a personal approach to guitar and improvisation which has taken him all over the world. Ross also leads, For Living Lovers, his Chamber Music for Improvisers acoustic duo with acoustic bass guitarist, Stomu Takeishi. The duo’s debut release, “Revealing Essence” (2014) on Sunnyside Records was called “… another masterpiece … ” – John Garrat, of Pop Matters; honored by superlative reviews and year-end “best of …” lists. A co-leader the avant power trio, Harriet Tubman, (with bassist Melvin Gibbs, and drummer JT Lewis), in Harriet Tubman, Ross uses electronics, and pan-tonality to sculpt a multidimensional, interactive, sonic language. The band’s latest studio album, “Araminta”, was released to outstanding acclaim in February 2017. Ross is a 2014 Chamber Music America New Jazz Works grantee, an ASCAP Foundation commissioned composer; Rockefeller Foundation MAP Grant recipient; NYSCA Composition grant recipient, and ASCAP writer and publisher member