Stan Brakhage Visions in Meditation Vol 1-4
Live Score
Steve Gunn’s live performance of Stan Brakhage’s Visions in Meditation #1–4 brings together Brakhage’s experimental cinema and Gunn’s distinctive approach to guitar, improvisation, and composition.
Originally developed for VIDEODROOM at Film Fest Gent in 2021, the performance features Gunn creating a live guitar score for Brakhage’s films, responding to their shifting rhythms, textures, movement, light, and abstract imagery. Rather than functioning as a conventional soundtrack, the music enters into a dialogue with the images, following their changes and allowing sound and vision to continually reshape one another.
Brakhage’s Visions in Meditation series explores cinema as a form of visual music, moving away from conventional narrative and toward perception, sensation, landscape, and rhythm. Gunn’s live score approaches the films in a similar spirit, using the guitar as a means of spontaneous interaction with the images.
The performance has been presented at film festivals and cinemas internationally, including Film Fest Gent in Belgium, Curtas Vila do Conde in Portugal, and Museum of National Cinema in Torino, Italy, Salerno International Film Festival in Italy and with Deeper Movies in London.
Looming change / Building Fabric
Commissioned recording and performance
Looming change / Building fabric was a commissioned collaboration between Steve Gunn and Australian artist and musician amby downs (Tahlia Palmer), created for Sol LeWitt: Affinities and Resonances at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney. The piece was made in response to LeWitt’s monumental Wall Drawing #955: Loopy Doopy (red and purple). For Gunn, the commission was particularly meaningful: he had worked as an assistant to LeWitt years earlier and had remained deeply influenced by his ideas about process, repetition and the relationship between art and music. Working remotely across Australia, the United States and Europe, Gunn and amby downs combined guitar, tones, textures and field recordings into a 40-minute meditation that mirrors the flowing lines and layered structures of LeWitt’s drawing. The work premiered at the Art Gallery of NSW on 19 October 2022 and was subsequently released by Longform Editions.
Looming change / Building Fabric: Sol LeWitt: Affinities and Resonances
commissioned work for Art Gallery of New Wales in Sydney, Australia
http://kaldorartprojects.org.au/projects/project-37-sol-lewitt/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
https://stevegunn.bandcamp.com/track/looming-change-building-fabric
The Life and Death of Westerly Windina Dir Jamie Brisick 2024
Soundtrack (Gunn Truscinski Duo) recorded at Echo Canyon NYC
The documentary The Life & Death of Westerly Windina tells the remarkable story of Westerly Windina, formerly Australian surfing legend Peter Drouyn, and her journey of identity, transformation and self-discovery. The film’s soundtrack, featuring the experimental music of the Gunn-Truscinski Duo, adds another emotional layer to Westerly’s story. Steve Gunn’s atmospheric guitar work and John Truscinski’s expressive drumming create a sound that feels both unpredictable and hypnotic, reflecting the uncertainty and intensity of Westerly’s life. Their music moves between quiet, spacious passages and more powerful, chaotic moments, mirroring the documentary’s themes of change, freedom and reinvention.
The Life & Death of Westerly Windina has received strong recognition at international film festivals, reflecting both the power of Westerly Windina’s story and the filmmakers’ sensitive approach to it.