Yann Novak

Presence

DRM472

July 3, 2020

Digital

Presence was originally performed at an event curated by VOLUME at the Torrance Art Museum in June 2010. Throughout the event, multiple artists performed simultaneously in the space. This is when I first experienced the work of taisha paggett.

By the time I began to play, she was at the end of a three-hour durational movement piece. Seeing her perform across the room had a huge influence on how I performed the material I had prepared, and set up a pacing I continue to explore today. In hindsight, this was our first collaboration, but our first official collaboration was a few years later and led to many more over the next 10 years.

I was lucky enough to get to design the packaging for the original release of Presence –– the image I used for this reissue was the originally the planned cover for the first release, up until the last minute. 

Unfortunately then, I folded under the fear that it was too figurative, and removed Taisha at the last minute.  I am excited to get to feature her in this new version, since she has become such an important artist and friend to me.