I did an interview with the website Arte Realizzata which you can read here:
https://www.arterealizzata.com/interviews/a-broadening-conversation-with-brett-sroka

I made a playlist to accompany the exhibition Eleanore Mikus – Voiceless Poetry, opening at Lévy Gorvy Gallery in NYC today.

Mikus used rigorously built textures, monochrome and irregular pattern to achieve subtle, meditative works. To draw a musical parallel to those qualities, I compiled works using drone, repetition, spacious and abstract forms from composers such as Pauline Oliveros, Meredith Monk, Ikue Mori, Zeena Parkins, Morton Feldman and Alvin Lucier among others.

Launching February 18, 2021— in honor of the birthdays of literary giants Toni Morrison and Audre Lorde– We Hold These Truths is a new meditative film created and curated by conceptual artist Shani Jamila and produced in collaboration with Park Avenue Armory. The film introduces the artists featured in Season Two of Jamila’s Lineage Podcast + Portrait Project, which features intimate, in-depth interviews with contemporary socially engaged Black artists. We Hold These Truths includes inspiring reflections by artists across multiple disciplines, on some of the truths learned from their elders that have rooted them in these challenging times. Watch now for a first glimpse at the new season of Lineage, and stay tuned for bi-weekly audio interviews with each of the featured artists, beginning on Tuesday March 2nd. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify to receive new episodes every other Tuesday.

Hello friends,
I want to let you know about two events happening this week-

10/17 Anthony Vine commission: For Pierre Soulages at Lévy Gorvy

10/19-20 Doppelgänger Projects: Eurydice – upstate in Hillsdale, NY

This Thursday, October 17, through my role as cultural program curator at Lévy Gorvy Gallery we have commissioned a new work by composer Anthony Vine for the Rhythm Method string quartet in response to our exhibition Pierre Soulages: A Century, a prelude to the artist’s solo exhibition at the Musée du Louvre, Paris, opening in December 2019. Anthony Vine is a composer who crafts a meticulous, beautiful and fragile sound world that focuses the listener on the act of aural perception. Vine has drawn inspiration from visual artists who comparably play with the perception of light and color, saying:

“What immediately strikes me about Soulages’ work is the ephemeral identity of his highly reflective canvases. Forms continuously emerge and dissolve due to the room, lighting, and spatial orientation of the viewer. I am quite interested in a similar phenomena in sound—resultant tones, interference patterns, and sympathetic resonances that emerge from and react with the architecture they inhabit. In For Pierre Soulages, I use sustained tones, precisely tuned frequencies, and sinusoidal sounds to foreground and maximize this type of acoustical phenomena. The quartet presents a monolithic plane of tones—a sonic monochrome of sorts—that subtly flickers and reflects off the surfaces and bodies in the space.”

Next Sunday, October 20 at 1pm, I will perform a site-responsive environmental sound work as part of Doppelgänger Projects – Eurydice, a weekend of programmed art installation, viewings, and performance upstate in Hillsdale, NY, including artists Eryka Dellenbach, Katherine Finkelstein, Alison Kudlow, and Alex Wolkowicz. You can find the full schedule here.

“Eurydice, traversing lightly between the stones of a cloistered forest cemetery in Hillsdale, NY, acts as a gentle birdsong, quavering through the din of seclusion, calling to those who came and left before us. Placing objects, projecting light and sound, reading words in eulogy, and using figures and forms to honor and recognize those both present and passed, venerating the layers of deep time and memory we sink into, reaching out beyond the veil to a profound articulation of peace.”

I hope to see you there or somewhere soon.

newer everyday,
Brett

www.brettsroka.com

I’ve contributed an article entitled, ‘Pine Music and Polyphony; the trees, the water, you’ to the book ‘from dream to dream’ released by Interface Inagh in collaboration with Artisan House. Many, many thanks to the indefatigable artist, activist, singer and producer/editor of the book Alannah Robins
Book Launch – Three new titles to be launched by Dr Eimear O Connor: ‘from dream to dream’, ‘Hatchery’ and ‘Sehnsucht’

Thursday 26th September, 3pm at Omey Suite, Clifden Station House Hotel

in collaboration with Artisan House and thanks to LEADER – the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development: Europe Investing in Rural Areas and Galway County Council

I’m thrilled to have my music included in Sujin Lee‘s solo exhibiton ‘Language is Treacherous’ at the Wumin Art Center in Cheongju, South Korea.

I don’t know the ending—Я не знаю, чем это закончится (2017)
HD video, B&W, Color, Sound
06:56
2017

The English part of the title “I don’t know the ending” comes from Marguerite Duras’s essay Writing (translated from French to English by Mark Polizzotti). In Writing, Duras talks about the mystery of writing, and she refers to writing as “the unknown.”

I don’t know the ending—? ?? ????, ??? ??? ?????????? features “That never came” by composer and sound artist Brett Sroka from the album As subtle as tomorrow by Ergo. It took me over a year to find the images for the music. There was a lot of waiting, pausing, and erasing involved in the process. It was a nice surprise when I realized the footage I was shooting in Vladivostok actually “belonged” to the music. Working on the piece made me imagine a piece of writing, which is done over an extended period of time (even a lifetime)—in fragments, continuously rewritten and overwritten, consciously and subconsciously. The video is part of that writing and is also my homage to the art-making process.