Sila installation by Melissa Clarke.

Melissa F. Clarke

Melissa F. Clarke is an educator, curator, and an interdisciplinary artists working at the intersections of research, data, science, and design. She extrapolates research and observation into multimedia, participatory installations, generative video and sound sculptures, performances, and printed images. Her installation projects reconnect scientific data to an organic source using sound and images collected in the field. She creates immersive neolandscapes giving physical form to the information pulled from giant landmasses and the terrain beneath the seas surrounding us. Clarke was formerly an artist-in-residence at the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics at Stony Brook University. She has performed and exhibited her work at Eastern Bloc, Montreal, Interactive Art Fair, FL, 319 Scholes, NY, Eyebeam, NY, Issue Project Room, NY, Reverse Art Space, NY, the Queens Museum, NY, the Electronic Music Foundation, Suny Stony Brook, NY, and the International Biennial of Contemporary Art ULA-2010, Venezuela. She successfully launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund her arctic travels and research. Her work has been featured by the Creators Project and with publications such as the Village Voice, Kickstarter, Art 21, Blouin Art Info, Impose Magazine, and Columbia University’s State of the Planet.

Cities Are Natural (Composition One)

Clocktower artist-in-residence Melissa F. Clarke performs with Leila Bordreuil and Byron Westbrook. Positioned in front of a transforming video installation made of glass, paper and metal, Clarke, Bordreuil and Westbrook create sounds that integrate the building’s infrastructure and ideas of the city as natural. The sound begins at 5PM with Melissa playing glass, paper, and metal, along with field recordings and data taken from Red Hook and Pioneer Works. Soon there after, Leila Bordreuil plays cello and overlaps the existing sounds with her own collage of texture variations, phantom overtones and sometimes pitched utterances, through a unique approach to amplification. Bordreuil’s work becomes prominent in the piece as Clarke's sound drifts out. Then Byron Westbrook performs synthesized sounds influenced by the gestures of urban location recordings, responding to the performance space with dynamic layers of perceived space and time. The entirety of three performances become a single audio-visual composition recorded by Clocktower radio and captured within Clarke’s installation as visuals.

Cities Are Natural (Composition Two)

As part of Pioneer Works' Second Sundays open house event, Clocktower artist-in-residence Melissa F. Clarke presents field recordings from the Red Hook area and two experimental, techno-house performances, curated by She was Freaks (Mike Sheffield), featuring Plebeian (Andrew Nerviano) and CienFuegos (Alex Suárez). Staged inside Clarke's Cities Are Natural residency studio space at Pioneer Works, Plebeian and CienFuegos's sound performances interact with Clarke's video installation made of glass, paper, and metal. Each set is introduced by a short vignette of field recordings and visualized data taken from the local environment. Plebeian Brooklyn-based Andrew Nerviano combines electronics, pedals, and fuzz, to create complex house music. His electronic music project revolves around live hardware performance of sample-based sequencers, analog synthesizer, and external effects processors. Stylistically, the project aims to combine cut-up technique, dense rhythmic layering, and noisy psychedelia into a singular brand of techno. CienFuegos

Cities Are Natural (Composition Three)

In collaboration with Christine Tran (Witches of Bushwick and Discwoman) and Mike Sheffield (She was Freaks), Melissa F. Clarke and Clocktower present an evening of performances and visuals inspired by the city as our natural habitat.