Performing group Invisible to kick off UNC's Process Series

Science, sound and sculpture meet in an experimental collaborative performance, called “Flying Erase Head,” that will kick off UNC’s Process Series on Friday in Gerrard Hall.

The performing group, known as Invisible, will showcase a musical piece that focuses on innovative and pleasant sounds.

“Invisible is an established and respected artistic collaboration with a history of creating fascinating new performance work,” said Tim Scales, the audience engagement consultant for the Process Series, in an email.

“Flying Erase Head” features an original musical invention that collaborating artists Mark Dixon and Bart Trotman have named Elsewhere’s Roof, which is a percussion device that uses the sound of water dripping to create non-rhythmic, random beats.

The piece is purposefully unfinished, and the group will focus on experimenting with its new instrument and style.

“In this piece, we are surfing the borderline between information and chaos,” Dixon said.

Dixon said the inspiration for the device, which he created, came when he and Trotman were working in an old, run-down shop building. During a rainstorm, they heard water leaking through the ceiling and falling into buckets that had been placed around the floor.

“It was this percussion symphony that took us to another world,” Dixon said.

This is the second instrumental device Invisible has created, the first being an IBM Selectric typewriter connected to the keys of an acoustic piano. When used, it creates both piano music and a typewritten page.

Dixon said Invisible’s art form is one that finds creative uses for seemingly ordinary objects.

“The idea behind (Invisible) is that the things of the world don’t have to be just the things in the world,” he said.

Invisible is the first act in the sixth season of the Process Series. The series seeks to provide artists with time and space to showcase their works in progress, while also making accessible the process of art creation to the community in Chapel Hill.

The Process Series benefits both audiences and artists, in that the former sees a creative work it may not be exposed to otherwise, and the latter gains resources and feedback from the community.

“The Process Series is the ideal venue for (Invisible) to push its creative boundaries with an engaged, supportive and responsive audience,” Scales said.

Joseph Megel, the series’s artistic director, said he is targeting a large, varying audience with the series.

“I’m looking for people interested in the subjects being explored, in the performers, in how art gets created,” he said.

The performances, which are selected by an advisory committee of faculty, are free and open to the public.

Megel has worked on encouraging and facilitating innovation in theater for many years and is now bringing that to the Process Series, which receives support from many arts and humanities departments at UNC.

In addition, the series receives funding and support from the College of Arts and Sciences and the Institute for the Arts and Humanities, the latter of which is a new partnership this year.

“The idea is to give artists space and some time and some room to be able to do something new in front of an audience and start getting some feedback,” he said.

“What we’re trying to do is make accessible to the community and to UNC and the student body the actual process of art creation.”

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