Melanie Jame Wolf and Jacob Vogan
Booth 1
Sole Capacitor by Jacob Vogan
Jacob Vogan is an artist from Buffalo, NY now based in Rochester. He’s worked as a freelance photographer for the past 10 years but often finds the camera to be the last thing he picks up in his practice. Born into a family of musicians, Vogan's always been fascinated with sound. He was trained on piano from age 5 and feels his approach to making art is much like composing music–moving from one decision to the next, always leaving space for improvisation. He’s interested in systems of power (political, religious, corporate, etc), and how they have influenced our cultural evolution. Vogan’s work is influenced by growing up queer in a devout christian home and his life-long interest in science and the workings of the world around him. He often incorporates found materials or learning new methods of making in his process.
In Sole Capacitor, Vogan will be "exploring the connection between the confession booth and the circuit party as spaces of simultaneous confession and repentance; of vulnerability and healing”.
Booth 2
Tonight by Melanie Jame Wolf
Melanie Jame Wolf is an artist who works solo and with friends. They make interdisciplinary pieces about power and flows of immaterial capital. They examine these economies and entanglements through projects for theatre, gallery, and screen spaces.
Coming from a background in contemporary performance, Melanie Jame works mainly with text, sound, moving image, choreography, & textiles. Their work is concerned with the poetics and problematics of ghosts, class, pop, sensuality, gender, narratology, and the body as a political riddle. Wolf pursues an ongoing interest in analysing the idea of performance-as-labour in artistic, popular entertainment, and everyday contexts. Their work often focuses on specific performance techniques, for example: impersonation, rehearsal, or stand up - using this strategy as a lens to analyse broader political currents wherein performance is understood as a means of survival and an engine for fluidity of subjectivity. Leaning into a hyper-stylised pop aesthetic, they are invested in humour as a strategy for critical possibility, and in working with language in subliminal and surprising ways. Their work has been presented at: HAU - Hebbel am Ufer; Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art; nGbK; The National 2019: New Australian Art biennial at Carriageworks; Festival of Live Art, Melbourne; VAEFF Film Festival, NYC; Arts Santa Monica, Barcelona; Schwules Museum, Berlin; Sophiensaele, Berlin; Münchener Kammerspiele; Arts House, Melbourne; & Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane.
“Tonight is… an act of cultural edging that is both a sanctuary for rehearsing our ideal selves and a cruel fiction running on an engine of nostalgia for a space and time that is yet to be.”
