DREYDL: ZOL ZAYN MIT MAZEL is a Gematria slot machine; it speaks to the mystic, the gambler, and the Torah scholar. Beginning with a slot machine adaptation of dreydl, the interactive installation brings the player into the world of paylines and card counting combined with the Jewish mystical practice of alpha-numeric text interpretation. Game Developer:... Continue Reading →
The Resonant Sukkah, 2022 James Forest Reid, Mitch Reid, and M. James Becker Aluminum, voile, reclaimed wood, piano strings, schach 8 ft x 8 ft x 8ft "And don‘t worry about the wind. No matter how many winds will roar, No matter how many generations will come, the sukkah will always remain standing." -"A Sukkahle,... Continue Reading →
“As if generations, centuries, of Jews had returned from the past to the mystical moonlit night, to gaze with fiery eyes at the horrors closing in on their shtetl." Sh. An-sky, the socialist revolutionary, ethnographer, and writer best known for his work The Dybbuk, probably the most widely produced play in the history of Jewish... Continue Reading →
"Decentered Listening is an immersive sound installation created with seismic data collected from Antarctica. This project was made in collaboration with Peter Bromirski, an ice seismologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, who studies the speed and patterns of ocean wave impact on the ice to determine the ice shelves' integrity over a period of... Continue Reading →
This excerpt from the Synagogue to Silverbells installation piece focuses on Robert May, the author of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
Birds of North America was an original play that premiered at the Wagner New Play Festival in the La Jolla Playhouse. It focused on the relationship between a father and daughter who watch birds together ever year; it used this to tell a larger story about the modern world, intimacy, and the environment. In Spring of 2017, I worked closely with writer Anna Moench and Director Jennifer Chang, to compose the music and sound for Birds of North America.
I aimed to create a warm soundscape that invited the audience into the intimacy of the father and daughter's relationship. It was important for me that sounds were accurately placed in space and could precisely move across the room; speakers surrounded the room, and this allowed for the sensatation of a flocks of birds to circle the audience before flying off into the distance.
The play was built entirely out of the dialogue between a father and daughter, so I decided to form the soundtrack primarily out of duets between guitars. With that being said, I didn't want the soundtrack to become two guitars reciting monologues next to each other or one merely becoming a harmony to the other. I really wanted the melodies to form out of the interactions between the guitar parts. I spent the month of May copiously writing and recording the soundtrack, meticulously drafting the songs until they became synonymous with the emotions the writer had imagined.
Linked below is a brief write-up about Birds of North America and the complete soundtrack.
http://theatre.ucsd.edu/season/WNPF2017/Birds.htm
Last Galician Switchboard (2022) The Resonant Sukkah (2022) Dreydl Slot Machine (2023)
The short film Holy City New Jerusalem follows a Jewish family that joins a California coastside cult. Through lyrical compositions of archival footage and Yiddish folklore, the film explores mysticism, religious authority, and nostalgia. https://player.vimeo.com/video/655116028?h=1dcb4d00fd Holy City New Jerusalem from J. F. Reid on Vimeo.
I Have Seen By Rosa Nevadovska, translated by Merle Bachman Voice-Over by Liliana Torpey Programming, art, and music by James Forest Reid
James Forest Reid 