claire rousay with Jacob Wick

Do you like my fort “We recorded the audio in person, on the dogstained couch in my living room. My dog who stained it was laying between us, farting every once in a while. That was in December. We recorded the video last week, talking on the phone. In A Lover’s Discourse, Roland Barthes writes that talking on the phone is “a cacophony, and…what it transmits is the wrong voice, the false communication.” It’s nice to know that Barthes can be wrong, too. The wrong voice is the true communication. Whose voice is right anyway. Do you like my fort? We’re trying to protect each other, to hold a space for each other, a space where we can play. Just like we’ve always been doing. “

claire rousay and Jacob Wick are a duo. Their performances chew up the fragile masculinity and tepid pretension of recent improvised music and spit out something queer and dripping. They have been performing together since June 2018.

claire rousay is a person who performs and records. She currently lives in San Antonio, Texas. Her performances and recordings explore queerness, human relationships, and self perception through the use of physical objects and their potential sounds. rousay performs with Carol Genetti, Ingebrigt Haker-Flaten, Ken Vandermark, More Eaze, Tom Carter, and others. rousay’s work has been performed at locations such as Casa del Popolo, Constellation Chicago, Experimental Sound Studio’s Option Series, Iklectik Art Lab (London), Issue Project Room, and the Tobin Center for Performing Arts (San Antonio).

Jacob Wick is an improviser, writer, and artist. His work is dedicated to and informed by queer feelings and queer politics. As an improviser and trumpet player, he has performed in a variety of contexts, including at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Kennedy Center, and the University Museum of Contemporary Art (MUAC). He has performed with Matana Roberts, Andrea Neumann, Gerald Cleaver, Katherine Young, Judith Hamann, Toshimaru Nakamura, and others.