Brian House + Sue Huang

Since 2004, Brian House and Sue Huang have worked together as Knifeandfork. Culture guide Flavorpill writes, "the imaginative bicoastal duo['s] installations utilize unorthodox media, including text messages and video clips, in their expository repositioning of traditional art forms." Knifeandfork has exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles; the Contemporary Arts Center (CAC), Cincinnati; Rhizome at the New Museum, New York; the Beall Center for Art + Technology, Irvine; and Kulturhuset, Stockholm, among others. House is currently Assistant Professor of Art and Studio Head of Digital Media at Lewis & Clark College, and he holds a PhD in Computer Music from Brown University. Huang is currently Assistant Professor of Digital Media and Design at the University of Connecticut and holds an MFA in Media Arts from the University of California, Los Angeles.


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Oh Dear Me (2016)

A series of musicians are situated along a path winding through the historic jute mills of the Blackness area of Dundee, Scotland. When participants type a message at computer consoles on either end, their words are encoded via rearranged fragments of the “Jute Mill Song,” a folk work written in 1920 by Dundee mill worker and labor activist Mary Brooksbank. The musicians subsequently pass the music to one another by ear until the message is decoded on the opposite terminal. Along the way, the melodies reverberate in the urban spaces associated with Dundee’s industrial past and connect historical textile production with the contemporary labor of computation.

Commission: NEoN Digital Arts Festival; Musicians: Ana Romero, Arin Grattidge, Colette Colman, Emily Stokes, Joey O’Neil, Jordan Robertson, Kenny Letham, Marcus Shanks, Rebecca Wilson, Scott Kerr; Documentation: Bonnie Brae Productions; Thanks: Donna Holford-Lovell, Dan Faichney, Anna Murray

Arrangement for Building (2014)

Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition is performed by a chamber orchestra from Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music. Though the musicians are perfectly synchronized in time via networked devices, they are spatially distributed throughout the Contemporary Arts Center building—they play not only on the distinctive zig-zag staircases and in the gallery spaces that open from floor to floor, but also in the administrative offices, the maintenance rooms, and other concealed areas that are nonetheless essential to the institution. The audience, while prevented from hearing the ensemble as a whole, is invited to roam, encountering intersections of sound as they traverse the space.

Cinematography: Nupur Mathur, Tony Walsh; Ensemble leader: Erin Torres; Musicians: Nave Graham, Katelyn Kyser, Adam Butalewicz, Matt Cullen, Brooke Ten Napal, Daniel Arute, John Renfroe, Keith Kile, Dasom Cheon, Peter Gorak, Amy Pirtle; Curator: Steven Matijcio

MOCA Grand Prix (2009)

In MOCA Grand Prix, game consoles in the plaza let participants race real remote control cars through MOCA’s permanent collection exhibition. The wifi-enabled cars stream back images of Pollocks and Rothkos now appropriated for the background of a retro-style racing game. Awards are presented for the fastest times of the evening.

Production assistance: Meghan Grebling, Matt Miller, Ronald Vega, Alanna Yu, Jay Yan; Video documentation and editing: Alex MacInnis; Photo documentation: Patrick Miller; DJ: Wendy Yao; Blog: Guthrie Lonergan; Thanks: Aandrea Stang, Meghan Grebing, MOCA Think Tank and staff

Emptiness is Form (Golf and Donuts) (2009)

Knifeandfork appropriates MOCA's architecture for a unique mini-golf course in which visitors show off their skills, are rewarded with phone calls, and are served fresh, vegan donuts.

Voice interventions: Nathan Philips; Donuts: Deanna Moody of Dee's Bakery and Donuts; DJ: Wendy Yao; Blog: Guthrie Lonergan; Production assistance: Meghan Grebling, Matt Miller, Ronald Vega, Alanna Yu, Jay Yan; Video documentation and editing: Alex MacInnis; Photo documentation: Patrick Miller; Thanks: Aandrea Stang, Meghan Grebing, MOCA Think Tank and staff

Trying the Hand of God (2009)

A carefully choreographed, repeating reenactment allows participants to play the role of Diego Maradona, the Argentine soccer legend who scored the illegal but unpenalized “Hand of God” goal against England during the 1986 FIFA World Cup. TVs throughout the museum show the event as it is repeatedly remade.

Announcer: Enrique Gutierrez of KMEX/Univision 34; Director: Mike Cahill; Players: Josh Anderson, Scott Davis, Kenny Garay, Oscar Garay, Elmer Garcia, Brian Shim; Lighting: Jules Medina; Production assistance: Bobby Campo, Meghan Grebling, Matt Miller, Alanna Yu; Video documentation and editing: Alex MacInnis; Photo documentation: Patrick Miller; DJ: Wendy Yao; Blog: Guthrie Lonergan; Thanks: Aandrea Stang, Meghan Grebing, MOCA Think Tank and staff, Megan Metcalf

Hundekopf (2005)

Hundekopf uses Berlin’s Ringbahn as a literary (and literal) vehicle to investigate the nature of private experience in public space. After texting a phone number printed on flyers distributed throughout the city, a participant is told to board a specific train arriving in the next few minutes. Once on the train, Hundekopf knows the location of the participant because it scrapes train times from the BVG alert system [Ed. note: this is before GPS in phones]. Participants receive a text-message after they pass each station on their way around the Ringbahn that is place-specific, and both the landscape outside of the train and the passengers within it are recontextualized into the narrative.

Editing: David Feinberg; Thanks: Jesse Shapins, Carl Johan-Kjellander