Sound of Color #1
Combining improvisation, electronic music, psychedelic and ambient aesthetics, with live images and analog techniques, the audiovisual events of Sound of Color returns for an eleventh season at KET.
Jannis Anastasakis (guitar, analog synths, live electronics) – known for his use of atmospheric effects and the creation of handmade pedals with the internationally renowned company JAM pedals – and Natalia Manta, a visual artist whose work combines sculpture, projections, and moving images, collaborate with distinguished trumpeter, composer, and curator Peter Knight and visual artist Erato Tzavara.
🔷 Peter Knight is a composer, trumpeter, and curator whose practice thrives in the spaces between genres, categories, and cultures. His recent solo work extends the possibilities of his instrument with innovative approaches that interweave acoustic preparations, extended techniques with electroacoustic processing via laptop, vintage delays, and tape machines. Peter is interested in the use of repetition, rhythmic overlapping, slow harmonic evolution, and subtle timbral evolutions to shift our perceptions of linear time. As Artistic Director of the Australian Art Orchestra (2013–23) Peter commissioned over 100 works and collaborations with a diverse range of artists including Alvin Lucier, Senyawa, Nicole Lizée, Anthony Braxton, Erik Griswold, and Jules Reidy, and led performances by the ensemble in over a dozen countries. Peter’s first solo release on ROOM40, Shadow Phase, was included in Headphone Commute’s Best of 2022, which described it as, “a carefully curated exercise in reflective restraint, dreamy atmospherics, ebbing dynamics.” His new solo, For a Moment the Sky Knew My Name, is available now for pre-order on ROOM40 on September 11.
🔶 Erato Tzavara is a video artist specialized in moving image techniques for live performance and digital scenography. Through collaborations in dance, theater, and music improvisation she works with the plasticity of the digital image in physical space and mixes analog aesthetic and digital compositing tools to create moving collages from different sources of video (live feed, pre-recorded, archival, graphics). In her personal work she draws on photography, video essays, and writing to capture the experience of the contemporary urban subject. She has presented work in theaters, off-scene artistic spaces, music venues, and festivals in Germany, UK, Canada, India, Greece, and France.
🔶 Natalia Manta is an artist based in Athens. Although clay is her primary medium, she also skillfully uses metal, wax, photosensitive chemicals, and video. Collaboration with various artistic disciplines is an integral part of her practice. From 2017 to 2020, she taught sculpture at the Athens School of Fine Arts, the same university where she earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees. For the past 10 years, she has been co-organizing and curating the audiovisual improvisational events “Sound of Color” with Jannis Anastasakis. Her works have been presented in exhibitions and institutions in Greece and internationally. In 2022, she was awarded the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Artist Fellowship by ARTWORKS and has participated in important residency programs abroad. Her creations can be found in private and public collections.
🔷 One of the most distinctive guitarists and musicians on the Greek improvisational scene, Jannis Anastasakis has developed a recognizable personal sound that moves between ambient and psychedelia, balancing melody and noise. He is the founder of JAM pedals, a company that manufactures handmade pedals used by leading musicians (Bill Frisell, John Scofield, Daniel Lanois, John Medeski, Nile Rodgers, Lee Ranaldo, etc.). He has collaborated with important artists from the Greek and international music scene, such as Arve Henriksen, Eivind Aarset, Christian Fennesz, Giuseppe Doronzo, Savina Yannatou, Haig Yazdjian, Thodoris Rellos, Michalis Siganidis, Floros Floridis, Lena Platonos, Spyros Polychronopoulos, Dionysis Savvopoulos, Haris Lambrakis, and others. He is developing the audiovisual project “Sound of Color” with sculptor Natalia Manta on live visuals.