Lost in Music

Van McElwee's latest project, Modular Mazes: Van McElwee and Friends, is a collaborative effort exploring the possibilities of the labyrinth via music, gallery installation and website. In these six video projections, McElwee combines endlessly branching pathways, digital architecture and the construction of virtual reality through chance, set to music by James Hegarty and Semi-Acoustic Noise Ensemble. PLEX, for example, is a representation of the multiscreen movie theater created from twenty black cube interiors that continue to expand and loop back on themselves. Y-Space (one of two 3-D works) is built from a left turn and a right turn, constantly veering through a Y-shaped, mirrored passage; a random edit program determines which way the camera moves, creating a spontaneous mirror maze that stretches to the horizon. Modular Mazes, a joint production of the New Music Circle and Webster University Film Series, debuts at 7:30 p.m. at Webster University's Moore Auditorium (470 East Lockwood Avenue; 314-968-7487 or www.newmusiccircle .org). Tickets are $7 to $15.
Sat., Feb. 27, 2010