UPEND Presents

SAM ROWELL:
CALL OF THE CHROMOPHORE
A series of performances in light and sound

December 9-16

Final Performances: Friday December 16, 8PM & 10PM

FREE

Limited Capacity / Prompt arrival recommended

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“An abstract investigation into the quantum nature of color and the relationship between perception, metaphysics, and language”

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With a site-specific installation of lights, and an array of audio electronics, Sam Rowell navigates trips through undulating fields of color, flurries of flash, and patches of pitch darkness. Simultaneously improvising sequences of deep hues and alien soundscapes, hers is an expansive practice of perceptual play – literally spectacular and sensational.

For Call of the Chromophore, Rowell has created within Human Resources an ad hoc theatre of light and sound to stage a series of 8 performances over the course of 8 days, at 8pm each evening. Each show comes with a tasty title – and a heady introduction – providing a set and setting for the journey. Exploring themes around electromagnetic radiation and the cosmos, Rowell is also literally playing with the material of such, bouncing photons off the wall to explore specific frequencies of visible light, and – of course – vibrations within the human range of hearing.

Rowell’s preference for group reception and live performance are key to her inquiry into the subjective. Rather than just color itself, her palette includes the varied perceptions of audience members’ sensations of color. How do we talk about what we see? Do we see the same thing, or are words a compromise to forge a consensus reality?

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Sam Rowell lives and plays in Los Angeles. Recent solo light and sound performances include: Dissolving the Sky, Hunter Shaw Fine Arts (2021); Dark Energy & Spectral Redshift: A History of the Universe, as told by Cosmic Radiation, Dem Passwords & And/Or Gallery, Los Angeles (2021); Looking Through the Gravity Lens: An Evocation of Sound as Radiant Energy, Work Related, Austin, TX (2019); Trichromatic Phenomena in the Service of Induced Color, Eternal 30 Festival, Houston, TX (2019). Rowell is the bassist for celebrated radical improv duo Eloe Omoe, produces the live sound collage broadcast Special Collections, and is part of the creative and engineering team of Lookout FM.

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Friday December 9
The Electromagnetic Enigma

Saturday December 10
Wells of Poison, Columns of Smoke

Sunday December 11
Newton Invented Indigo

Monday December 12
Lovecraftian Perceptual Color Theory

Tuesday December 13
Earth People: Controlled by Gamma Light

Wednesday December 14
Color Confusion

Thursday December 15
Roses are Red, Violets are Blue: Blackbody Radiation as it Relates to Hue

Friday December 16, 8PM
White Light Unimagined by Dark Matter

Friday December 16, 10PM
The Bringer of Night Borne Intelligence