The Watermill Center presents an installation viewing on Friday, June 1 from 6:00 – 8:00 p.m. of the work of Icelandic artists Davíð Brynjar Franzson, Halldór Úlfarsson, and Davyde Wachell. Guests are free to come at any time during that time period to view the work. From 8:00 – 9:00 p.m. there will be a reception with the artists.
About The Installation
The description of the piece should read “In 1808 during the height of the Napoleonic Wars, the royal Danish watchmaker gave his son Jørgen Jørgensen a ship to fight the English. At the first opportunity, the son—a devoted anglophile—surrendered his ship to the English. In 1809, under house arrest in London, Jørgensen convinced an English merchant to break the Danish trade monopoly on Iceland, its colony at the time. On arrival in Reykjavik, he captured the Danish governor and declared himself protector of the island. Jørgensen’s reign lasted 40 days.
To capture the essence of this failed revolution the artists are developing a site-specific, modular opera. The work at the Watermill residency culminates in a cinematic, robotic installation featuring material shot in Iceland, Germany and Watermill.
About the Artists
Halldór Úlfarsson (Icelandic, b.1977) is an artist working in installation, video, performance and other medium. Halldór’s work falls roughly into two categories esthetic studies and artworks that observe their own underlying motives and intents. His specialization in dolly effects and live video mixing will inform the visual language of the opera in various ways, particularly through the use of such effects to capture video using pre-programed camera movements which can be recreated in a live setting allowing the splicing of images captured on Jan Mayen and images captured live during a performance.
Davyde Wachell (Canadian, b.1981) is a New York based director and producer. His series of shorts Good Kids examines the problem of violence and identity in young people. Good Boy was set in the Favelas of Rio de Janeiro and premiered at Tribeca. His latest film Invasion, peers inside the disturbed world of an internet addicted outsider. He recently produced a short film, Pool Party, by director Sara Zandieh in Tehran, in Iran which opened at Tribeca in 2010. Davyde’s experience in working in somewhat dangerous environments make him an invaluable asset to this project.
Davíð Brynjar Franzson (Icelandic, b.1978) is a New York based composer. His work explores how we hear a sound differently based on the context that we hear the sound in and how sounds can operate as modular building blocks when placed in various contexts. His site-specific piece “a Guide for the Dead through the Underworld” was staged in the off-stage spaces of the Volksbuhne theater in Berlin as a part of the Ultraschall Festival.
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