Tremorrag is an audio-visual performance inspired by synesthetic principles of sound, image, and movement. This project focuses on the concept of the ability to visualize and hear movement which normally is felt rather than seen or heard. They explore the subtlety of movement and the poetics of gesture with live drawing.

For the video, they use traditional pen drawing and digital design on a Wacom tablet and video effects processing. The projected video is a mix between their black and white drawings and animations. Eng adds digital effects to her drawings turning static design into dancing calligraphy, swarms of insects, and live abstract expressionism. The animations resemble early experimental filmmakers such as Len Lye, Viking Eggeling, Oskar Fischinger, as well as artists: Henri Michaux, Cy Twombly, and Frank Stella.

Tremorrag, 2010-present
Live drawing performance duo
Sound/Video: Pascal Battus and Angie Eng
TRT: 30-45minutes

The drawing is used as an emotional gesture to capture the energy or essence of a place, person, or thing as well as symbolic narrative. Eng is interested in presenting drawing live because of its instantaneousness of the medium that allows for a dynamic element as each choice is made. This demystification of process has been a recurring element in her performance work. Thus the ‘liveness’ is also considered an element with time, sound image, movement, emotion, symbol, and form.

Using a micro-camera attached to his thumb, Battus captures extreme close-ups that play with perspective and scale.  The process is revealed to the audience using a second camera. Wider shots focus on his hand that holds the pen while the other moves the two pickup mics along with the paper.  With 2 camera angles, Battus can switch between two spaces that heighten our awareness of the process as well as traveling to the virtual where one is absorbed by the abstract landscapes. Battus does not control visual composition but relies on small motors that vibrate the paper to navigate the pen.  Chance is a strong element of his visual composition, and each drawing is very different each time it is performed.