Something to Say? What is The Airlock? What's in the Jar?

The Airlock rose from the wharves in 1820. In an area teeming with shipbuilders, sailors and soldiers, it began its life as an oyster saloon. Since that time, it has served as a brothel, a barbershop and a dance hall. It has housed blacksmiths, coopers, grocers and veterans of vaudeville. It has stood vacant for decades — its bricks warming in summer, cooling in winter as in any other year. Its residents have come. They've gone. Today, most of the drunkenness and mischief have left The Airlock and it serves as a launching pad for a rotating crew of artists. Grey Branches is their first completed project and was made by Paul Foster, Jeremy LeClair, Alex Mead, Ethan Sager, and Ben Tillinghast. As you read this, they and others are tinkering away inside The Airlock. Soon, new projects will be posted here. Monday February 16, 2009 Untitled Piano Pieces Jeremy LeClair The piano sat on the loading dock; no longer playable after so much rain, wind and blowing dust. I walked past it so many times — then one day, it was gone. Somehow, with the object missing, I was made all the more aware of the myriad remaining sounds of the surroundings. It was as if everything I conceived of simply by looking at a piano had blotted out the air conditioners, the traffic, the crickets and the power lines. Without good reason, I wanted to bring the piano back. I found it in a campus dumpster, whole and upside-down. I took it completely apart to fit it in my car and brought the pieces back to the loading dock. I carefully reassembled the body of the instrument and placed the strings and soundboard atop a wheeled utility cart. For several evenings, I walked the cart around campus, back and forth to the loading dock, playing music for the silent, discarded object. I made recordings. I made an indoor installation symbolizing this solitary activity. I made a video to document a time and sound space that no longer exists. Untitled Piano Pieces  (MOV) Monday February 16, 2009 The Importance of Maintaining a Working Waterfront Jeremy LeClair This 10-minute audio/video piece highlights the passing of time and poses questions about the change and loss that result. There is an hourglass, some salt, a record player and some of what might be labeled 'easy listening' music. The salt, while a symbol of the old cultural values in my port-town home, is inverted here and plays the agent of influence over the palatable, diluted tourist/consumer culture. The Importance of Maintaining a Working Waterfront  (MOV) Monday February 16, 2009 Music Box Jeremy LeClair and Paul Foster After one particularly efficient day in the production of Grey Branches, composer Jeremy LeClair suggested we shoot some footage of the music boxes he had been experimenting with. After ordering hundreds of the little toys from an online vendor, he'd been taking them apart: flipping the drums around so the notes would run backward, switching the teeth from one with another, ultimately creating melodies that were just shy of recognizable. He wanted to test the way the toys moved and sounded when placed on different surfaces and record the result. We tried a wooden table, a cookie sheet, a cardboard box. This footage was never meant to be incorporated into Grey Branches, but when we placed the toys into the box and watched them writhe around in the viewfinder, we were mesmerized. They seemed alive. And, as they unwound, they seemed to die. It was our editor, Scott Magie, who lobbied for the strength of this footage, for its symbolism, and for the use of it to bookend the film. What you'll see here is some sample footage, then the sole take of the cardboard box footage that was used to open and close the film. It begins around 3:58. When the lifespan of these toys is played out in one take, the death becomes strangely moving. Music Box  (MOV) Thursday June 26, 2008 The Last Temptation of Werner Paul Foster Here's something to get us started. German director Werner Herzog became a kind of spirit guide to us during the production of Grey Branches. Picture us constantly quoting him, discussing his films and, worse, speaking in a ludicrous Bavarian accent. Example: in moments requiring a particular gusto, we would call upon the spirit of Werner and say: "Haf you got thee gutz?!" It happened. Anyway, this mash-up came out of that. The recipe includes a track from Peter Gabriel's soundtrack to The Last Temptation of Christ, an interview Mr. Herzog did for NPR's Fresh Air, and a photo by Robin Holland. Play it LOUD, mister!