Microscope presented “Eau de Nowhere,” a live concert by electronics duo Xeno & Oaklander, composed of New York based artists Liz Wendelbo and Sean McBride, with visuals performed live by multi-disciplinary artist Scott Kiernan
The event, was live-streamed on their website on May 1 2020, and featured Xeno & Oaklander playing an approximately 50 minute set — including the premiere of a new unreleased song “Losangeur,” as well as other classic and recent songs of theirs — while live audio mixed by artist Egan Frantz, and live camera feeds from their studio were manipulated by Kiernan and mixed in real time with original footage.
The minimal, elegant, analog synth based songs by Wendelbo and McBride “tend to disintegrate and build themselves back up again, with the aim to conjure up a synesthetic state where a sound feels like a color and a scent.” - LW. Sharing equal dedication to analog tools, in this case video synthesizers and broadcast technologies, Kiernan provides visual compositions of the same sensibility and finesse.
This is the first online and remotely executed performance in a series of collaborations between Xeno & Oaklander and Scott Kiernan counting shows on E.S.P. TV, for Optics 0:0 at Roulette (curated by Victoria Keddie), as well as live concerts at Rough Trade and Mois Multi Festival, among others.
“Shared signals and streams of images fill the watery nowhere they’re stuck inside. But, after pacing this same space for days, a few puffs of perfume in the music studio cues a reverie. Suddenly, the room has a limit. The walls become defined, and if walls… then a way past them. Jump cut > to the dream of the machines.” – SK