First Fridays, just like in many cities with a thriving art scene, is a long standing tradition in Knoxville, Tennessee wherein many galleries and public places like parks, breweries, salons, etc. host artists of all different mediums. Though it’s not part of my typical monthly plans, the times that I have attended First Fridays events, I’ve always had a lot of fun.
One of the first of these events I attended was at the Tennessee Theatre way back in 2011. My friend told me that the historical Tennessee Theatre would be open to wander around in and that they’d hired the organ player to come for a few hours one rare Friday night when the theatre didn’t have some sort of ticketed event going on.
I really enjoyed that evening. Usually the Tennessee Theatre is so packed or the ushers are intent on getting everyone seated that it’s hard to really see the whole place, but that evening we were able to peak into the orchestra pit and look behind the curtain on the stage and find the secret bathrooms and view the whole auditorium from the balcony, all while the organist played Christmas songs on The Mighty Wurlitzer.
Since then, I’ve gone out to a handful of First Friday events over the years, a few photography galleries at restaurants, a free entry, free-jazz night at The Bijou or two, a sculpture garden at the nature center. All have been wonderful.
The first day of November happened to be First Friday this time around and I was graciously invited by Andrew Swafford to come out to one of my favorite historical sites in Knoxville for an evening of visual and aural art, The Candoro Marble Building.
While any description of the event pales in comparison of being there to experience the collaboration between these two artists and the space they were given, I would like to attempt to describe the showcase to the best of my abilities through the audio recording of Swafford’s nearly hour-long performance, a few photos, and even fewer words.
The main focus of the collaboration was a stack of six various sized CRT televisions hooked up to oscilloscopes, which are graphical meters for displaying changes in voltages. As Swafford played, each tone created manifested on the different screens in it’s own way. Swafford’s music was ambient but not in a dissonant way, and had a lot of structure vs. the typical ambient soundscape. Drums and delay-heavy guitar parts dotted the performance that was mostly calm but swelled to incredible highs during many of the movements.
Roden’s installation of televisions was flanked by two of his huge murals made from hardware store materials depicting familiar, nostalgic references to the universal activities of the near past and a stark corner featuring one widescreen CRT with an N64 running Mario Kart practically begging the folks roaming around to lock in for a round or two. Oh and a lamp.
In the recording, you’ll hear Swafford list video game music as one of his many inspirations (and even a cover from a video game soundtrack), and I found that to ring true. The 90s ambient Playstation VGM era is a place Swaffords music could live very comfortably in, though his music is very uniquely his own.
No movement makes that more apparent than the final track, starting at 51:00. A very pretty piece written just for the Historical Candoro Marble Building. A blend of sounds made specifically to echo off the marble walls of a century old building just right. And it sounded nothing short of amazing.
As for my part, during Swafford’s performance I, of course, wanted to represent this collaboration the best way I could, so after taking in the experience I decided I would create some double exposures featuring the performance photos of Swafford overlayed with the visual representation of their music created by Roden’s live sculpture. I used the ambient light and the glow from the televisions to create some shutter drag photos as well.
I want to say thank you again to Andrew Swafford for inviting me out to this special night. Please check out their Bandcamp if you liked the recording in this post! Their album, Harvest Moons, will be out in just a few weeks and will contain the studio version of “Yond Marble Heaven” along with many other folk-inspired tracks!
Well, that’s it for this week! I hope you enjoyed the sounds and photos and words! If you’re looking for some old tapes, please check out my page on Archive.org for the full list of digitized media. If you have any questions, feel free to send me a message right here or drop a comment below. If you haven’t already, please check out the one of my previous posts below, or all of my other previous posts here. Thanks so much for checking out this week’s edition of Diptych!
See you soon!
—Forrest
