Other Minds Programming ➔ Laetitia Sonami, Pamela Z, and Donald Swearingen, full length portrait, standing, rehearsing “Mona Lisa,” San Francisco CA, (1997)
Still image
Identifier
IM.OM.FP.0004.011Dates
1997-11-01/1997-11-30 | createdWork Type
Photographic printImage Class
Musical EnsemblesImage Series
OM04: Fago B&W PrintsDescription
Laetitia Sonami, Pamela Z, Donald Swearingen, are seen on the stage of the Cowell Theater of the Fort Mason Center in San Francisco, rehearsing their work “Mona Lisa,” prior to its U. S. premiere as part of the 4th Other Minds Music Festival in November of 1997. Laetitia Sonami, Donald Swearingen, and Pamela Z, collaborated with Japanese video artists Visual Brains to create “Mona-Lisa’,” a full-length performance work employing live music and video. “Mona-Lisa” is set in three large sections each introduced by a spoken narrative from a text by Melody Sumner Carnahan. In each section the narrative is followed by a musical section which evolves with increasing levels of complexity, finally disintegrating into its constituent elements, a sort of sonic dust. Sonami's computer-generated rhythms form the backdrop against which the disintegration is measured. Pamela Z's vocalization represents a lyrical element whose repeated appearances serve to reconnect us to the elemental Mona. Swearingen's percussive and metallic samples provide layers of punctuation and accentuation to the thematic elements. Visual Brains video displays provide the visual architecture for the cityscape in which we imagine the events are unfolding.Genres & Subjects
Group portraits--1990-2000Women
Men
Composers
Musicians
Music ensembles
Performance art
Multimedia (Art)
Mixed media (Music)
Inter-media art
Image Ownership
Other MindsPhoto Credits
John FagoRelated Event
Other Minds Festival 4Related place
San Francisco (Calif.) (was created at)Related Entities
Fago, JohnSonami, Laetitia de Compiègne
Z, Pamela, 1956-
Swearingen, Donald
Other Minds Festival