Test Pattern 07: Holland Andrews

OVERVIEW

Test Pattern returns to the ICA auditorium on Friday April 7, with a performance by vocalist, composer, and performance artist Holland Andrews. Their work focuses on the abstraction of operatic and extended-technique voice to build cathartic and dissonant soundscapes. Andrews arranges music for voice, clarinet, and electronics and frequently highlights themes surrounding vulnerability and healing.

For their Test Pattern performance, they will collaborate with new media artist and VCUarts Kinetic Imaging instructor Eric Millikin to create an immersive sensory environment. The performance will be followed by a conversation with VCUarts Graphic Design Professor Nicole Killian.

In addition to creating solo work, Andrews develops and performs soundscapes for dance, theater, and film, and their work has toured nationally and internationally with artists such as Bill T. Jones, Dorothee Munyaneza, Will Rawls, and poet Demian Dinéyazhi. Notable musical collaborations include Son Lux, Christina Vantzou, William Brittelle, Methods Body, West Thordson, Peter Broderick, Darian Donovan Thomas, and Nils Frahm. Andrews has gained recognition from publications such as The Wire, The New York Times, Electronic Sound, Uncut Magazine, Le Monde, and BBC Radio. Their latest EP Doubtless was released in October 2022.

Visit their instagram here.

Eric Millikin is a new media artist based in Richmond, Virginia. He comes from a working-class family, growing up in a mobile home in the woods of rural Michigan. Millikin is a first-generation college student, earning his BFA from Michigan State University and MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University’s Kinetic Imaging program, where he currently teaches. His artwork has been featured in WIRED, USA TODAY, and The New York Times. His recent residencies include Cow House Studios in Ireland, Ayatana Biophilium hosted online from Ottawa, Canada, and Artist is Absent hosted online from Ukraine as the Russian military invaded.

nicole killian is a designer, artist, and educator based in Richmond, VA. killian’s practice oscillates between digital and analog modes for testing publishing projects. Their work has been exhibited at Sediment in Richmond, CAVE in Detroit, Arcadia Missa in London, Present Works in Milwaukee, Little Berlin in Philadelphia, Embassy in Los Angeles, Sadie Halie Projects in Brooklyn, Nomade Gallery in Hangzhou, and Dreamlands: Immersive Cinema and Art at the Whitney Museum of American Art for Lorna Mills’ Ways of Something. killian’s expanded approach to publishing considers objects as containers for language—language that gets activated when read, passed, held, and handled.

ABOUT TEST PATTERN

Test Pattern is a hybrid performance series inspired by the legacy of visionary public-access TV programs and alternative video movements in the US. The series invites artists to turn the ICA auditorium into an experimental production studio for week-long residencies, during which they collaborate with members of the local community to create a live performance and internet broadcast. Test Pattern offers the public a unique window into the creative process—visitors can observe rehearsals, participate in live tapings and online streams of the performances, and access the performances afterward through videos, websites, and publications.