Rapture/Rupture

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Mixed media installation with four-channel sound and text,
4:53 minutes

Solo exhibition at the Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery in Saratoga Springs, NY for the "Elevator Music: Investigations in Experimental Sound" series. June 25– October 16, 2005 (extended).

From the postcard announcing Rapture/Rupture:

Weaving together two centuries of tradition with Jesse Pearlman Karlsberg's personal history, Rapture/Rupture is a modern reconstitution of the song "Russia" — a shape note composition written in 1786 by New England tunesmith Daniel Read, with words from Isaac Watts' 1719 Christian reworking of the Psalms of David. The artist uses new technologies to slice, spread, shatter, and stretch a recent recording of the song to the brink of illegibility. He pushes the sounds to reveal complex emotions such as isolation, confusion, and joy. As much a self-portrait as a formalist revision of an archaic musical style, the eerie and ethereal score describes a simultaneous affection for and alienation from the shape note singing tradition.

— Ginny Kollak (Curatorial Assistant, Tang Museum)

Inside Rapture/Rupture, view out the Tang Museum elevator door A tour group exits the elevator after listening to Rapture/Rupture View of Rapture/Rupture from the hallway, with Linda Pearlman Karlsberg (my mom) and me inside Detail of Rapture/Rupture, text "... is alienation His throne. In ..." (back left corner) Detail of Rapture/Rupture, ceiling and right wall Detail of Rapture/Rupture, elevator door, ceiling, and left front corner Detail of Rapture/Rupture, text "... the religiosity in ..." (back right wall) Detail of Rapture/Rupture, text "... in all my straits sincere ..." (back right wall)