FIRES under FIRE a 911 windows installation by Berlin artist Kain Karawahn video art installation: FIRES under FIRE September 30 - October 13, 2000 (can be viewed from 911’s exterior, dusk ’til dawn) Screening / Reception: Thursday, October 5th, 8:00 p.m. (reception follows) 911 Media Arts Center, 117 Yale Ave North, Seattle Kain Karawahn, an internationally renowned performer, videographer, and photographer from Berlin, uses fire and pyrotechnics as his choice of artistic medium. As he states: "Fire is the medium of power." In Seattle for Center on Contemporary Art’s New Prometheans International Fire Art Festival (Sept. 29 - Oct. 7), he will exhibit a video installation in 911’s storefront windows Sept. 30 - Oct. 13, and screen examples of past performances and artwork on Oct. 5th. Karawahn will install a five-part video and audio installation entitled FIRES under FIRE using all of 911’s storefront windows. Orchestrated to the rhythm of breath, the series of looping video sequences have an organic pacing. Life-size flames fill one monitor. On another screen, flames from hundreds of lit candles move as if they were alive. Video signals from a live camera being incinerated provide abstract images. Text from the pages of burning books is almost legible before being destroyed. A fifth monitor asks: "how hot could it get if the internet is on fire?". Karawahn is a conceptual artist concerned with exploring relationships between knowledge, power, and fire. As he writes: "Observing and experiencing fire makes you more powerfully aware of origin, mortality and the future and, at the same time, can arouse an immense feeling of astonishment. The more you are shaken awake, the more violently you react." Karawahn began his fire performance career in 1984 with an illegal ignition event at the Berlin Wall. Nationally, he has performed in New York City and at the Cleveland Performance Art Festival where he created a tribute to the Cayahoga River, the only river to have ever caught fire because of chemical pollution. On Thursday, October 5th, 8:00 p.m., at 911 Media Arts Center, Karawahn will screen rarely seen video clips documenting past performances and artworks. He will be available after the screening to discuss his work at a reception open to the public. On Saturday, Oct. 7th (at Sand Point), Karawahn will debut fireselfmusicianized, a collaborative music and sound pyro-performance paying tribute to local son Jimi Hendrix and his first guitar ignition. Visit CoCA’s website www.cocaseattle.org for more info about New Prometheans International Fire Art Festival.