Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects is pleased to present a new video work by Joel Tauber. Tauber’s most recent work, entitled “The Flying Project”, chronicles the artist’s quest to fulfill his long-standing dream to fly empowered by the transcendental qualities of music. Embarking on a journey that culminates in the artist’s flight 150 feet above the desert, suspended from helium balloons and playing the bagpipes, the work traces, beyond its quixotic veneer, a deeply human search for meaning.

In his new work, “The Underwater Project: Turning Myself Into Music”, Tauber continues to spin a tale around the desire for spiritual experience. At the same time, he develops the idea further by turning his bodily experience into the musical score of the piece itself.

Presented as a three channel video installation, the work traces a total of 40 scuba dives the artist performed over the last year. The projections show crossovers of the underwater world he discovers during these dives, images of the artist underwater immersed in clouds of air bubbles, and a motion graph that chronicles the parameters (depth and duration) of each dive. The images are accompanied by a musical score that is composed by translating the dive parameters into different instrumental voices and notes, resulting in a different melody or “song” for each dive. The installation encompasses a 51 minute musical composition that is interwoven with the imagery and the narrative of the dives.

Joel Tauber received his MFA degree from Art Center College of Design. His “Flying Project” has been shown in solo exhibitions at the Adamski Gallery, Aachen, Germany, and at Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects. He has been included in the “California Biennial” at the Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, in “Light and Spaced Out: 11 Artists From Los Angeles” at the Herve Loevenbruck Gallery, Paris, in “Stuff From L.A. and Other Places” at Christine Koenig Gallery, Vienna, and in “To Believe Much More Than That” at the Wight Gallery, UCLA, Los Angeles.