Sight, sound showcased in festival art

By Hope Smith

This weekend’s Boomslang festival wasn’t just about music acts and sideshows. Lexington was given the opportunity to experience thought-provoking and controversial art as part of the three-day community festival.
To kick off the first day of Boomslang, a makeshift art gallery was organized at Limestone’s Hop Hop office area by local artists and UK alumnae Allison Crowe and Laura Holt.
The team’s second show in Lexington brought in over a dozen local artists who displayed paintings, etchings, sculpture, prints and photos on exposed-brick walls and weathered wood floors to around a hundred Boomslang-goers and local art supporters.
“We put this show together to bring community and art closer,” Crowe said.  “I believe this is a showcase of the best of Lexington talent.”
Across town, about 50 people filed into J. Allen studio for “Self-Told Lies and the Cosmic Truth.”
A college student at the door welcomed the crowd by scribbling on a fake guest list and commenting on guests’ humorous t-shirts and intriguing tattoos.
The gallery-like hair salon was completely dark with the exception of hazy green lasers spanning the room.  Spectators gathered in the back around a brown-papered canvas surrounded by standard rock band instruments.
When the show started, four cloaked figures approached the instruments, while a fifth dark figure circled decrepitly around the canvas with a smoking skull in his clutches.
Drone music shook the floor as a projection screen displayed mystery images on the screen and the shapes on the canvas began to change from skull to human and back to skull.
Musical instruments collaborated to form synthesized sounds, which  bassist Michael Lunsford said was “all in the movements.”
“I got the idea for this show by being by myself a lot,” said Nick Larkey, performer and organizer of “Self-Told Lies.”  “And we wanted to do the whole guest list thing to let people know that everyone participates, even people in line are a part of it.”
On Sunday at Natasha’s Bistro & Bar, Jason Corder, a former Lexington resident visiting from Denver, performed his original “off the sky” presentation, which he told the audience would “get your brain all mushy.”
Corder and guest percussionist Darren King used wind chimes, small drums, a xylophone and a guitar to produce soothing melodies correlating with obscure shapes on dual-projection screens in the intimate side room.
Following Corder’s performance, Mark Hosler from California multimedia group Negativland, began his presentation by asking audience members if they had ever illegally downloaded music. The uproarious laughter told him “Yes.” Hosler discussed his group’s struggles with copyright infringement, namely with the band U2, and how art and the media can affect individuals globally.
Negativland has taken snippets from thousands of film footage and audio clips over their many years together to create what Hosler calls “collages that your brain has to piece together.”
“We are inspired by things we find and things people give to us, not our own music,” Hosler said.
From leaking a phony press release that stated the group inspired a Minnesota boy to murder his family to allegedly using a U2 song illegally on one of its albums and videos, Negativland has angered many individuals.  But causing discussion and provoking thought are part of Hosler’s mission.
Jonathan Caldwell, a 26-year-old Cincinnati resident, has been listening to Negativland since he heard about its legal battle with U2.
“We get almost all of our information from news and the media, so it’s nice to hear an alternative outlook,” Caldwell said.

For more about Boomslang, check out the other Kernel article’s on the event. No boundaries at Boomslang and Revealing Lexington’s hidden gems and Q&A with WRFL’s Past and Current leaders .

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5. Q&A with WRFL’s past and current leaders