Fabric Environments by John Toth

SCULPTURE LINKS	John Toth Intermedia. Hypermedia and the Sublime.
	FABRIC ENVIRONMENTS
	In A Circle painted environment and fabric structure for performance
In A Circle is a collaboration that will use the internet and other technologies to link groups of participants in many sites and cities. The core collaboration at this point is the linking of live performances in Buffalo and New York City via the internet I will create fabric installations in multiple sites that will define the structure and framework for performance and art. Artists in Buffalo include composers, poets, video artists, musicians and visual artists. Artists in New York City will provide choreography, dance , theater, video, opera, composers, musicians, visual arts, cyber arts. Teleconferencing and live internet connections will bring interactive possibilities between performers at different sites. ( a dancer in one city will duet and improvise with a dancer in another city or a visual artist and musician might interact with several dancers in other cities).
	In A Circle # 1f , Audart / Art and technology Circus installation for performance
	In A Circle Victoria Anderson, Choreography
	In A Circle Sarah Carl, Dancer, Actor
Music performances with the East Buffalo Media Association
	Mars 1a Media Study/Buffalo EBMA performance Don Metz, composer; Michael Basinski, poet fabric, 8-units 18' x 18' x 9'
	Bat # 1a, fabric, 96" x 96" x 96"
The Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, N.Y. Fabric sculpture installation in collaboration with John Cage and LeJaren Hiller for their music composition for six 6 harpsichords, titled HPSCHD, with 40 slide projectors and 16 - 16mm film projectors .
	HPSCHD # 4a, 8 fabric units, 18' x 18' x 9' Albright-Knox Art Gallery Collaboration with John Cage and LeJaren Hiller
	HPSCHD # 2a, 8 fabric units, 18' x 18' x 9' Collaboration with John Cage and LeJaren Hiller fabric installtion with 40 slide projectors and 16- 16mm film projectors
Public Installations
	Elicot Square # 2a, fabric installation in the Elicot Square Building fabric 40 feet by 60 feet
	Elicot Square # 1a, fabric installation 2 fabric and wood units, 8 feet by 50 feet white tricot and bent poplar
In 1989 I had the pleasant experience of meeting dance choreographer Ruby Shang. Ruby saw slides of my stationary fabric installations and thought it would make a good collaboration to have to have her dancers move and manipulate my fabric structures within her dance composition. "TALES OF EXILE" premeired in 1989 at the Lincoln Center "Out-Of-Doors Festival" in New York with Ruby Shang Dance Company and theater performance directed by Gilbert T'sai with music composition by Carman Moore.
	Tales of Exile Collaboration with Ruby Shang and Dance Company, at the Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors Festival (1989). Dancer manipulated fabric structures.
Tales of Exile Gilbert Tsai, director adapted from"Invisible Cities" by Italo Calvino
	Tales of Exile Carman Moore, composer and the Sky Music Ensemble with Leroy Jenkins - violin and Sam Rivers - saxophone
Tales of Exile Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors Festival Modern Dance
Tales of Exile Dancer manipulated fabric sculptures by John Toth
Tales of Exile
Tales of Exile
Tales of Exile
Tales of Exile


	Net Web fabric installation, 36" x 36" x 36"
	Screen # 1a, maquette for sculture with bent poplar and white fabric. 12" x 10"
Performance fabric installation at Times Square, NYC.
	Snake, Earth Day # 1a, fabric sculture, 30' x 4'
	Snake, Earth Day # 2a, fabric sculture, 30' x 4' Fabric structures from "Tales of Exile" at Earth Day Festival
Volcano, Earth Day rip stop nylon fabric, 72" x 24" cir. Volcano at Earth Day Festival
Fabric Is A Structure For Behavior
Perhaps the earliest memories we have of fabric are from the embryonic membrane that first served as our protective shelter. And immediately from the womb we were dressed in furs, blankets and clothes. Later, as a child, I crawled under the quilting frame of my grandmother’s Slavic sewing circle. My back to the damp basement floor, I watched, under the quilting frame, as needles poked through the tightly stretched fabric, stitching remnants from our worn out shirts into brightly colored geometric patterns. Sitting around the perimeter, the husbands occasionally rose to readjust the clamps holding the quilt to the frame, testing the tension, aware of the surface. The lights above lit the fabric, coloring the shapes, as I watched below the patterns grew.	I played under fabric landscapes that covered furniture in storage, in the scary part of the attic. Within the quiet moments of hide-and-seek, lying under the fabric protection, I discovered a place that gave refuge and a structure for visual fantasy. In later years, I camped in dark green resin soaked cotton canvas tents and watched shadowy trees and blistering light bend on sharp angles across the woven textured surface that promised, during rain, not to drip unless I touched it. As an artist I use fabric to mingle the mystery of materials from brightly colored nylon and synthetic grids to metallic meshes and translucent Mylar’s, with light, film and projected video John Toth, 1990
defining links:	Installation Art Unlike traditional art works, installation art has no autonomous existence. It is usually created at the exhibition site, and its essence is spectator participation. Installation art originated as a radical art form presented only at alternative art spaces; its assimilation into mainstream museums and galleries is a relatively recent phenomenon. The move of installation art from the margin to the center of the art world has had far-reaching effects on the works created and on museum practice. From Margin to Center: The Spaces of Installation Art Author:Julie Reiss Publisher:MIT Press
	Modern Dance