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Erbsat Esrhosc

Fri, 12 Jul 2024 09:07:21 -0700

Los Angeles-based video artist and producer Laskfar Vortok makes his first appearance in the EVAR catalogue with "Erbsat Esrhosc." An unusual title that reflects the artist's interest in the bizarre, whether he's making music or producing videos and visuals, "Erbsat Esrhosc" bristles with erratic patterns, anarchic atmospheres and glitchy soundscapes. The Mexican-born talent explores ideas based on the hypothetical concept of a planetwide city, otherwise known as an ecumenopolis, weaving such ideas against a cinematic backdrop, nodding to his long-running love for cinema. Across the five-track EP, he also draws inspiration from the heated and hectic energy of L.A, where he's resided most of his life.

Produced in memoriam of Michael Gregory Harrison, aka Bad Timing, and following a period of introspection and creative and personal challenges, Laskfar Vortok began work on "Erbsat Esrhosc" in 2018. The EP honours Michael's brilliance as an artist and a friend; the title being an anagram of a phrase that they shared between them.

Erbsat Esrhosc EP
Laskfar Vortok
Evar Records • RAVE4EVAR008
2024 July 12

Bandcamp
Evar
Bleep

WARNING: This video contains flashing images and stroboscopic sequences and may potentially trigger seizures for people with photosensitive epilepsy. Viewer discretion is advised.

Creative Direction
Jay Asavabenya & Jin Jindawitchu

Animation
Jay Asavabenya
Jin Jindawitchu
Purim Suthvanich
Sathida Taesriprasert
Laskfar Vortok

Edit
Laskfar Vortok & Strangeloop

Co-presenter
The Teaching Machine

Daedelus — After After Ever

Fri, 12 Aug 2022 08:07:17 -0700

Daedelus — After After Ever (Official Music Video)
2.733 minutes | sound

Music: Daedelus
Video: Laskfar Vortok

Released on Dome of Doom with additional assistance from the timeless dancers still twirling somewhere in the 90s. How impossible it is to know what motivated those moves busted.

Find the sound here: daedelus.lnk.to/SimmersOver

Ark Noir — Orion's Belt

Thu, 10 Mar 2022 15:21:36 -0800

Ark Noir — Orion’s Belt (Official Music Video)
6.383 minute video | sound

Directed by Strangeloop & Laskfar Vortok
Audio mixed by Matthias Gamm Mastered by Bernhard Range
Released by Enja Records

Speed Dealer Moms — LA August 1

Wed, 11 Aug 2021 18:22:08 -0700

Speed Dealer Moms — LA August 1 (Official Music Video)
10.92 minutes | sound

Music: Speed Dealer Moms (Venetian Snares, John Frusciante, Chris McDonald)
Video: Laskfar Vortok (Featuring: LADY BAMBS)
Released by Evar Records

The delirium of the decisive rhythmic behavior of the track led me into investigating different dimensions of transfer and automation. On one level there is a storytelling of quantized visual information and cybercultural notions of dispersed authorship through the (inter)activity of digital images and their contents. On a secondary level, the interactivity the viewer experiences with the images is itself a “distant early warning system” of not-yet-realized autonomous art making processes (as expressed by some of the overwhelming machinic images) and embedded in the process of the video’s very own production.

Assisted by algorithmic editing, I wrote a program which took an audio input and measured it against a threshold, making pseudo-random decisions about which audio events would result in an edit, a cut, an unintended juxtaposition. Here the warning system, on a third level, is also describing the creator as a spectator of their own work.

For LA August 1, the human-machine interface still ended-up needing to be weighted by human intervention at the editing level to reach a sufficient compromise in the broad paradigm the track establishes. The program on its own produced interesting results, but too rudimentary and sloppy as a whole. The role of the editor then became to refine and sculpt the emergent cavalcade of the everyday, the absurd, and the hidden.

Speed Dealer Moms — April Two 11

Thu, 17 Jun 2021 13:17:39 -0700

Speed Dealer Moms — April Two 11 (Official Music Video)
6.3 minutes | sound

Music: Speed Dealer Moms (Venetian Snares, John Frusciante, Chris McDonald)
Video: Laskfar Vortok
Featuring: LADY BAMBS
Released by Evar Records

The recollection of a single day is passed over in succession; the day re-lives itself endlessly. This is achieved through original footage of Vienna speekfreakdom and Hong Kong proliferating aggravations, meanwhile as the archetypes rattle the tin can of reality’s veneer, through which urgent visual transfusions seep into the eye, and spread out to glut the receiving human body with an addictive substance which is not blood, not morphine, but comes sharply razored with deadly images: a compulsive matter that remains lodged in the retina, corrosively burning away and impossible to retract.

Nous Alpha — Virtues

Fri, 07 May 2021 11:13:46 -0700

Nous Alpha — Virtues (Official Music Video)
5.05 minutes | sound

Music: Nous Alpha (Christopher Bono & Gareth Jones)
Video: Laskfar Vortok
Featuring: Estevan Carlos Benson, LADY BAMBS, Kerstin Hovland
Released by Our Silent Canvas

In conversing with Christopher Bono for the relational thematics of ‘Virtues’, it became clear that the organic nature of the recording sessions and their more abstract connections with networks of organic matter themselves (such as mycelium) gave way to a visual framework which could freely articulate the associative environs and processes that we associate with fungi (decay, de-composition, degradation). From here I became interested and curious in different methods of linking what was happening visually to these integral organisms and the by-products of their biological activities. The relationship between visuals and music rests in part upon the work of my collaborators, and encompasses ideas of natural movement, as exemplified in Estevan Carlos Benson’s natural brushstroke technique, which at times envelopes the frame or over-takes it in a manner mirroring fungal growth. In addition natural movement as (re)enacted by humans, there are are the 3D-renderings of LADY BAMBS, which (re)created procedural models of digital movement that directly embody mycelial network propagation and which provide a channel into the microcosm of these organic structures, which I believe Nous Alpha was also achieving with their heavily modulated and dense textures in the music.

Alejandro Bernál — Isla

Sat, 21 Nov 2020 15:22:43 -0800

Alejandro Bernál — Isla
6.133 minutes | sound

Music: Alejandro Bernál
Video: Laskfar Vortok
Released by Otono Records

Record release for Detrás de la montaña
Presented by Coaxial Arts

Ghost Against Ghost — Darth Mango

Mon, 02 Nov 2020 16:22:41 -0800

Ghost Against Ghost — Darth Mango (Official Music Video)
3.5 minutes | sound

Directed by Laskfar Vortok and Strangeloop
Music by Ghost Against Ghost (Christopher Bono)
Produced by Our Silent Canvas

Video artists Laskfar Vortok and Strangeloop (Flying Lotus, Brainfeeder, Erykah Badu) created a compelling video that poeticizes the lyrics of “Darth Mango” through highlighting footage of personalities and events that represent the agenda and actions of the Trump movement contrasted against images of resistance expressed through peaceful protests and important moments of social activism. Bono originally began composing this ornately orchestrated and complex piece during the fall of the 2016 presidential campaign. He became driven by deep concern for the rising trends surrounding the ascendancy of Donald Trump. At the apparent normalization of explicit falsehoods, disrespect and verbal abuse against woman and opponents, as well as a general mentality of encouraging hate, anger, fear and division, Bono turned to music to process what was the beginning of a deeply dark period of American history. He put the piece away for a few years to focus on other projects, but it lingered in the back of his mind. In 2019, with the specter of the upcoming 2020 presidential campaign, after watching the horror of society and democracy crumbling before his eyes for four years, he was determined to complete it in time for the election.

Four Larks Frankenstein

Wed, 12 Feb 2020 07:10:38 -0800

THE WALLIS and FOUR LARKS production
FRANKENSTEIN
THE WALLIS ANNENBERG CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS
BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA
FEBRUARY 12 – MARCH 7 2020

31st Annual LA STAGE ALLIANCE OVATION AWARD WINNER
Video/Projection Design — Intimate Theater

Created, Directed & Composed* by Mat Sweeney
Choreography* & Scenic / Properties Design by Sebastian Peters-Lazaro
Costume Design by Lena Sands
Lighting Design by Brandon Baruch
Sound Design by Alex Hawthorn
Projection Design by Laskfar Vortok
Set Dressing by Regan Baumgarten
Make-Up Design by Jesse Rasmussen & Pamela Bjorklund
Photographs by Kevin Parry & James Vitz-Wong & Laskfar Vortok

STAGE RAW TOP TENLA THEATRE BITES BEST THEATRE OF 2020

Originally presented at The Wallis in a sold out season from February 12 – March 7 2020

featuring Max Baumgarten, Lu Coy, Philip Graulty, Yvette Cornelia Holzwarth, Joanna Lynn-Jacobs, Kila Packett, Lukas Papenfusscline, Craig Piaget, James Vitz-Wong, Katherine Washington, James Waterman, & Claire Woolner

Chronosthesia

Sat, 11 Jan 2020 15:23:39 -0800

CHRONOSTHESIA
JANUARY 11 2020 • THE BASIC PREMISE • OJAI, CALIFORNIA

Curated by Alex The Brown
Presented by The Basic Premise

Laskfar Vortok & Strangeloop re-convene as part of Alex The Brown‘s curated live event Chronosthesia to re-score and re-animate excerpts of Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982) using a variety of software, from Notch and Resolume on the visual side, operated by Strangeloop, to Tidalcycles, ORCΛ, and Bitwig Studio on the audio side, operated by Vortok.