Threads of an Unwritten Future
Online performance in Second Life
By Kelly Ruth
December 9, 2023 at 7pm
Click Here for Access in Second Life
FREE
Online performance in Second Life
By Kelly Ruth
December 9, 2023 at 7pm
Click Here for Access in Second Life
FREE
New Adventures in Sound Art (NAISA) presents Edmonton artist Kely Ruth in the virtual world of Second Life for her performance of "Threads of an Unwritten Future." A YouTube playback of this performance will be included on December 12 at 2 pm in You And I Are Water Earth Fire Air Of Life And Death - a 12 hour broadcast event.
In her performance "Threads of an Unwritten Future" Kelly Ruth composes and performs using a weaving loom manipulated by electronics effects pedals and she integrates those sounds into a customized installation environment in Second Life. The installation is accessible until January 8 at the NAISA North Medida Arts Centre in South River and in Second Life.
Having explored virtual worlds intermittently over the past 20 years or so, Kelly Ruth returned to Second Life during the COVID pandemic after nearly a decade of absence. With a renewed fascination she has found hope in a future that integrates virtual worlds into the fabric of life. This interest has reinvigorated her practice with a playful curiosity and an excitement for the emerging reinvention of many things that are currently taken for granted.
Kelly Ruth describes the installation environment in Second Life as follows:
"Working with both a weaving loom and a spinning wheel in my sound practice has led me to explore the personification of destiny in the form of the archetypical Three Fates. The three women—Clothos who spins the thread, Lachesis who measures the allotted length, and Atropos who cuts the thread with shears—seem to exist in another dimension responsible for the human experience of linear time. This exhibit reflects on the word “allotment” and its relationship to the fragilities and transitory nature of life, economy, society, and imagined futures.
In her performance "Threads of an Unwritten Future" Kelly Ruth composes and performs using a weaving loom manipulated by electronics effects pedals and she integrates those sounds into a customized installation environment in Second Life. The installation is accessible until January 8 at the NAISA North Medida Arts Centre in South River and in Second Life.
Having explored virtual worlds intermittently over the past 20 years or so, Kelly Ruth returned to Second Life during the COVID pandemic after nearly a decade of absence. With a renewed fascination she has found hope in a future that integrates virtual worlds into the fabric of life. This interest has reinvigorated her practice with a playful curiosity and an excitement for the emerging reinvention of many things that are currently taken for granted.
Kelly Ruth describes the installation environment in Second Life as follows:
"Working with both a weaving loom and a spinning wheel in my sound practice has led me to explore the personification of destiny in the form of the archetypical Three Fates. The three women—Clothos who spins the thread, Lachesis who measures the allotted length, and Atropos who cuts the thread with shears—seem to exist in another dimension responsible for the human experience of linear time. This exhibit reflects on the word “allotment” and its relationship to the fragilities and transitory nature of life, economy, society, and imagined futures.
Kelly Ruth has been activating her textiles and tools through using electronics and sound, and has been integrating microcontrollers into the foundations of her woven cloth. In performance she uses contact microphones and effects pedals on her weaving loom and other fibre-related tools in addition to light activated drone machines that she has built herself. She has created several bodies of work using weaving, felting and dyeing with plants, recognizing these as early technologies, and a relationship that humans have had with the land. Most recently she has been researching, creating, and performing in virtual worlds with her continued interest in humanities relationship to technology.
Issue 130 of Musicworks Magazine profiled Kelly Ruth.