An installation of noise puppets at GRAFT Gallery in Barelas based on a concept Demarco generated for live performance using light-sensitive oscillators inside the mouths of puppets to create voices.

Demarco co-curated MOUTHPIECE with GRAFT and built three new puppets as part of the show. She also led workshops on building waterproof contact microphones and light-sensitive oscillators. The monthlong exhibition included an aerial show, a light-based sonic event and a theatrical night featuring renowned guest performers.

light-sensitive oscillators / birch / rayon / tulle / tumbleweed / PVC / foam / sisal / audio tape / LEDs / rope

2016

–Prototype puppets from 2015

MOUTHPIECE artists: Manny Rettinger, Erin Fussell, Monica Demarco, Mauro Woody, Clifford Grindstaff, Liz Rincon, Electric Girls, Danny Crouch, Cecilia McKinnon, Beth Hansen, Jessica Chao, Jazmyn Crosby, Marisa Demarco

Photos by: Allison Pharmakis and Joanna Furgal

Video by: Acidtrash111

In Our Time, As It Was In Yours (Transmisión)

Death Convention Singers led a sonic and visual procession through Santa Fe’s historic plaza as part of the exhibition An Evening Redness in the West, radiating the brutal energy and aesthetic of the apocalypse using custom instruments. We installed our cart live in the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, along with additional art work from members of the collective and yellowed water from the Animas River disaster.

The title was taken from “Expert Judgment on Markers to Deter Inadvertent Human Intrusion into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, Sandia National Laboratories report SAND92-1382.”

speakers / oscillators / microphones / umbrellas / speaker wire / bone / found organic objects / poultry netting / aluminum screen / VHS tapes / antlers

2015

Artists: Raven Chacon, Scott Williams, Jessica Billey, Ariel Muniz, Monica Demarco, Clifford Grindstaff, Marisa Demarco, Autumn Chacon, Giovanna Urbina Anderson, Kenneth Cornell

Photos courtesy the Institute of American Indian Arts

PRESS: Hyperallergic / Santa Fe New Mexican

“A call was made out to the international ‘Ladyz in Noyz’ collective, a virtual collaborative network of women practitioners in experimental musics and sound arts. … The initial call/performance was sent out to members and responses were culled in this audiovisual collage. In addition to being a document to the ideals of the ‘Ladyz in Noyz’ network, this film exemplifies the ways music and feminist networking can be demonstrated, heard, and seen.” –Marlo De Lara, composer and musician who put out the call

2016

Response to Ladyz In Noyz International Call from Marisa Demarco on Vimeo.

International Call and Response: Ladyz in Noyz from marlo on Vimeo.

The chaos and calm of the white fuzz from the outer reaches of uhf frequencies used to transmit television. Excerpts from a 30-minute live performance by The Jeebies.

streamers / projections 

2011

The Jeebies: Channel 83 from Marisa Demarco on Vimeo.

Performers: Clifford Grindstaff, Marisa Demarco

Projections by Jessica Billey

Composition, lyrics and live visual performance inspired by the document created by a panel of experts convened by the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, the nuclear waste disposal site in the salt beds beneath the Chihuahuan desert in Southern New Mexico. The panel was tasked with developing a way to mark the radioactive waste disposal site out to 10,000 years, through the rise and fall of cultures, languages and symbols. Performed at Ende Tymes Festival of Noise and Experimental Liberation in New York.

hand-built audio tape reading glove / cassettes 

2015 / 2016

Another version of this song:

Video by Robert Mizaki

Excerpts from a live performance in 2011 at Titwrench in Denver by Milch de la Máquina built around the intense drought, fire and smoke throughout the Southwest at the time.

stilts / hand-built waterproof mics / glass carboys / nylon / pipe 

2011

Milch: The Dress from Marisa Demarco on Vimeo.

Performers: Christy Cook, Bethany Delahunt, Stephanie Graner, Emma Crane, Mauro Woody, Marisa Demarco

Full video by Eric Parthum

Milch de la Máquina subverts the low status of the backup singer, and with extended vocal technique, interrogates the ways women’s voices have been used to move products–and propagate a message of grace and safety–by corporations and government in recent U.S. culture.

microphone / microphone stand / veils

2016

Performers: Gena Lawson, Mauro Woody, Liz Rincon, Cecilia McKinnon, Rosie Hutchinson, Marya Errin Jones, Marisa Demarco

Photos by Vincent Comparetto

Audio recording by Kate Warner

This piece was built around generating massivity from small movements using hand-built gloves with electronic drum triggers on the fingertips. Shown in these excerpts of “Groundswell,” the performer is a conduit, pulling power from below and releasing it upward.

electronic drum gloves / balloons / helium

2013

Bigawatt: Groundswell from Marisa Demarco on Vimeo.

Photo by Annah Anti-Palindrome

Video by Gena Lawson

Excerpts from a Milch de la Máquina composition that made use of choregraphy and directed tones to access pitch-shifting via doppler effect

megaphones / piñata

2010

Milch: Egg from Marisa Demarco on Vimeo.

Performers: Mauro Woody, Gena Lawson, Monica Demarco, Emma Crane, Marisa Demarco

Filmed by Autumn Chacon

PRESS: Westword

Milch de la Máquina built frames of light and wearable amplifiers to corrupt the idea of women as silent subjects of art.

LEDs / hand-built ruby amps / contact microphones / chicken wire

2012

Milch: Frames (INTRO) from Marisa Demarco on Vimeo.

Artists: Marya Errin Jones, Liz Rincon, Rosie Hutchinson, Mauro Woody, Gena Lawson, Monica Demarco, Mello Sanchez, Marisa Demarco, Tahnee Udero, Autumn Chacon

Photos by Eric James

Full video by Autumn Chacon