audio & video

And Safely Back To Earth

“…And Safely Back To Earth” is a non-narrative four-part video by Gregory Damien Grinnell with a semi-improvisational score by Mission Creep, sourced entirely from archival NASA footage, tracing the arc of space exploration from it’s early days to the present and beyond.

Source film + live audio above is from “No Telemetry” @ The Midway Cafe, Jamaica Plain MA, 04.26.17. A night of film and live music accompaniment featuring several Boston area artists, filmmakers and composers observing Yuri’s Night—a global celebration of space exploration occurring each April—in commemoration of April 12, the date of Yuri Gargarin’s first manned spaceflight (1961) and the inaugural launch of NASA’s Space Shuttle (1981).

Gregory Damien Grinnell: electronics, trumpet, bass, keys; Yuri Zbitnoff: drums; Tony Savarino: guitars; PEK: reeds; Tamara Gooding: electronic percussion

Bring Us Your Women

Live video mixing and projections for Bring Us Your Women, an international collaborative film anthology & live multi-media music and dance performance dedicated to women and the pursuit of divinity and freedom. Conceived, authored and directed by multi-disciplinary artist Catherine Capozzi and with a cast of over 20 musicians, 13 filmmakers and a dozen dancers, the project seeks to tell existing and re-imagined stories of historic and mythical individuals, each presenting a message of humanity that transcends gender and religion. The production has had numerous performances since 2018 spanning large, full ensemble productions at the American Repertory Theater’s Oberon Theater, the Somerville Theater and “sample-sized” mini-productions in various New England clubs and art venues.

Video for performance involved both improvising video mixing techniques in concert with live musicians and dancers and synching timecode and metronome parameters of existing video assets for orchestra.

Imploding Empire Entertainments/Dissolving Astronaut

Imploding Empire Entertainments (1990-1996)/Dissolving Astronaut (2011-2019) sought to blend the temporal “gig” sensibility of a rock performance with the visuals and aesthetics of art installation. Performing alone or partnering with musical acts, IEE brought an array of projections, slides, and visual effects to art galleries and rock clubs alike. As a temporary “set up and play” attitude was the focus, performances were often short, improvisational, and subject to the vagaries of the venue du jour. Equipment was sourced and retrofit with rough handling and short set-up times in mind. Few performances were allowed the luxury of lead installation time and technical rehearsal so much of the focus of the performances was the temporal nature of the event and overcoming the associated technical and logistical challenges therein.

On the rare occasion that an installation was slated to be permanent or semi-permanent, the group could adapt to a more leisurely schedule and a more planned set-up and presentation.

Shows included UMASS Harbor Gallery, Hynes Auditorium (Boston), Max Fish (NYC), and touring productions with musical acts Inner Beauty, PRONG (Sony Music), Teledubgnosis and Mission Creep.