Bill Jones | studio

Bill Jones and Ben Neill performing Afterimage at Issue Project Room, Brooklyn, 2011. Bill Jones – interactive video, Ben Neill – mutantrumpet.

I’ve collaborated with a number of people over the years including Ardele Lister, Thomas McEvilly, and David Humphrey. By far the most extensive collaboration was with Ben Neill. Night Science, 2011 is our most recent work.  Ben and I began our collaboration in 1995 (Blue Maroon – see gallery, below), developing new performance applications for existing midi technology and employing current VJ software as it emerged. In this way I ported my practice as a camera artist into the more digitally advanced realm of musical performance. We began our collaboration by animating stills projected from banks of slide projectors through midi signals sent from Ben’s mutantrumpet, a hybrid acoustic/digital instrument he developed years before in anticipation of a rapidly growing field of analogue digital musical interfaces.

Bill Jones, Blue Maroon, midi controlled slide projections, 1996

Bill Jones, Blue Maroon, midi controlled slide projections, 1996

Bill Jones, Blue Maroon, midi controlled slide projections, 1996

Bill Jones, Blue Maroon, midi controlled slide projections, 1996

Bill Jones, Blue Maroon, midi controlled slide projections, 1996

Bill Jones, Blue Maroon, midi controlled slide projections, 1996

Bill Jones, Blue Maroon, midi controlled slide projections, 1996

Bill Jones, Blue Maroon, midi controlled slide projections, 1996

Bill Jones, Blue Maroon, midi controlled slide projections, 1996

Bill Jones, Blue Maroon, midi controlled slide projections, 1996

Bill Jones, Blue Maroon, midi controlled slide projections, 1996

Bill Jones, Blue Maroon, midi controlled slide projections, 1996

Bill Jones, Blue Maroon, midi controlled slide projections, 1996

Bill Jones, Blue Maroon, midi controlled slide projections, 1996

Bill Jones, Blue Maroon, midi controlled slide projections, 1996

Bill Jones, Blue Maroon, midi controlled slide projections, 1996

Bill Jones, Blue Maroon, midi controlled slide projections, 1996

Stills from Blue Maroon, Bill Jones and Ben Neill, midi controlled slide projector musical performance, first performed at Exit Art New York in The Shape of Sound 1997.