Experimental Series consists of four evenings curated by artist Richard Garet, alternating with his audiovisual installation ELECTROCHROMA, where Garet invited some of the most exceptional artists from today’s East Coast experimental music-and-visual arts scene to come and perform live.
Wednesday, September 29
Maria Chavez – Jeremy Leclair – Keiko Uenishi
Wednesday, October 13
Gill Arno – Zack Layton
Wednesday, November 3
Jesse Kudler – Ben Owen
Wednesday, November 24
Kamran Sadeghi – Bonnie Jones – Richard Garet
GILL ARNO was born in Italy and lives in Brooklyn, NY. His work explores areas where sound and image overlap, and is often constructed with found objects and found sound. In the project mpld he utilizes two old modified slide projectors to create performances where static images become pulsating and fade continuously into one another. The projector’s mechanical sounds are tapped and manipulated to reveal their musical potential. Other activities include performances with the New York Phonographers and in various other collaborative and improvised settings. He publishes books, recordings and other multiples via his own imprint, Unframed Recordings, and runs Fotofono, a small studio in Brooklyn where sometimes public events are held. Wednesday, October 13
MARIA CHAVEZ Born in Peru, avant-turntablist Maria Chavez currently resides in Brooklyn, New York. Chavez’s work is focused on short solo electro-acoustic sound pieces using a collection of new and broken needles that she calls “pencils of sound” and a selection of records, which provide the palette. Many of her live sound installations have focused on the paradox of time and the present moment, with many influences stemming from improvisation in contemporary art. Her work has been recognized by the Jerome Foundation, which awarded her the Emerging Artist Grant by New York’s Roulette Intermedium in 2008. In 2009, she became a recipient of the Van Lier Fellowship which is generously offered to young sound artists by The Edward and Sally Van Lier Fund of the New York Community Trust. She is also included in the book PINK NOISES: Women on Electronic Music and Sound, written by Tara Rodgers and released by Duke University Press. She has traveled extensively, sharing the stage with Pauline Oliveros, Thurston Moore and Otomo Yoshihide to name just a few. She has performed in venues including the Contemporary Arts Museum in Bordeaux, France; the Akademies der Kunste in both Vienna and Berlin; and Sonoteca in Lima, Peru. She was an artist in residence in 2008 with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company and the DIA:Beacon Museum and recently performed for Christian Marclay and the Whitney Museum of American Art in NYC as part of Christian Marclay: FESTIVAL. Wednesday, September 29
RICHARD GARET is interested in the phenomena found and produced in time-based media, and human beings’ relationship with both artificial and natural environments. His audiovisual exploratory steps are focused on concept and function, material and process, listening, viewing, and experience. Even though Garet’s work suits the standard gallery setting, many of his other activities as an artist explore the various practices of experimental sound and video performance. All of these modes are additional ways in which Garet’s work exposes the audience to real-time explorations of audiovisual processes, emphasizing the experiential, the sensorial, and the active-reception of the body and mind. Wednesday, November 24
BONNIE JONES works with sound, text, and performance. Born in 1977 in South Korea she was raised by dairy farmers in New Jersey, and currently resides in Baltimore, MD. In sound performances Bonnie plays the circuit boards of digital delay pedals. Her primary sound collaborators are Joe Foster in Korea (as the duet “English”) and Andy Hayleck. She is also a member of the Performance Thanatology Research Society, a interdisciplinary performance group dedicated to the advancement of a higher histrionics brought on by imminent finalities. Bonnie has performed at the Kim Dae Hwan Museum, the Ontological-Hysteric Theater, the ErstQuake Festival, and the 14 Karat Cabaret. She is currently an MFA candidate at the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts, Bard College. Wednesday, November 24
JESSE KUDLER, born 1979, creates concrete music on the computer, composes low-tech multi-channel sound works, and improvises on cheap consumer devices: a no-name electric guitar, hand-held cassette recorders, radios and transmitters, various small junk, and pedals/electronics. Kudler attended public school until Wesleyan University, where he studied music with Ron Kuivila, Alvin Lucier, and a little bit with Anthony Braxton, among others. He eventually became active as an organizer and performer in improvised, experimental, and electronic music, forming a regular duo with fellow student Jonathan Zorn and leading the large electronic improvising ensemble Phil Collins. Kudler has also worked as a recording engineer for various projects. In his various travels, Kudler has performed with Matt Bauder, Kyle Bruckmann, Chris Cogburn, James Coleman, Tim Feeney, Marcos Fernandes, Brent Gutzeit, Horse Sinister, Bonnie Jones, Jason Kahn, Mazen Kerbaj, Pauline Oliveros, Bhob Rainey, Vic Rawlings, Christine Sehnaoui, Mike Shiflet, Jason Soliday, Howard Stelzer, Christian Weber, Matt Weston, Jack Wright, Jason Zeh, and many others. He has toured the United States several times. He performed as part of the 2010 No Idea Festival, 2008 Dartmouth Festival of New Musics, and the 2007 Phoneme Festival. Jesse Kudler lives in Philadelphia. Current and recent projects include: HZL, an environmental electronics duo with Tim Albro; a duo with Ian Fraser; Tweeter, a treble-intensive noise trio with Alex Nagle and Eli Litwin; Benito Cereno (with Dustin Hurt, Chandan Narayan, Tim Albro, and Ian Fraser); duos with Chris Cogburn and Christian Weber; solo performance and recording; and various ad hoc groupings. Kudler is the co-founder and co-Director of the Philadelphia Sound Forum. Wednesday, October 13
ZACH LAYTON is a composer, curator, improviser and new media artist based in Brooklyn with an interest in biofeedback, generative algorithms, experimental music, Buddhism, and chance. His work investigates complex relationships and topologies created through the interaction of simple core elements like sine waves, minimal surfaces and kinetic visual patterns. As an improviser and composer he is interested in the use of the unconscious as a means of production and often utilizes an EEG as a means of generating brainwave music. Zach’s work has been performed by the Cleveland chamber symphony and he has performed and exhibited at the kitchen, issue project room, roulette, diapason, PS1/MoMa, anthology film archives, joe’s pub, exit art, SCOPE art fair, art forum berlin, new york electronic art festival, yerba buena center for the arts, Eyebeam, sculpture center, millennium film workshop, St. Mark’s Ontological Theater, Dumbo Arts Festival, New York Digital Salon, Miguel Abreu Gallery, Participant Gallery, Monkeytown and many other venues in New York, South America and Europe. He has collaborated with Luke Dubois, Vito Acconci, Joshua White, Jonas Mekas, Tony Conrad, Bradley Eros, Alex Waterman, Nick Hallett, Andrew Lampert, Matthew Ostrowski, Michael Evans, MV Carbon, Seth Kirby, Matthew Welch, Christine Bard, Andy Graydon, Ryan Sawyer, Matt Mottel, Brian Chase, Bradford Reed, Anthony Huberman, Sarina Basta, Gareth James, Emily Manzo, Patrick Hambrecht, Marissa Olsen, Angie Eng, Adam Kendall, Chika Ijima, Peter Gordon, Peter Zummo, Tristan Perich and Ray Sweeten among many other artists, filmmakers, curators, musicians and friends. Zach is also founder of Brooklyn’s monthly experimental music series, “Darmstadt: Classics of the Avant-Garde” co-curated with Nick Hallett, co-curator of the PS1 summer warmup music series from 2007 – 2009 and curator at Issue Project Room. Zach has received grants from the Netherlands America Foundation, Turbulence, Free103.9, Experimental Television Center, Jerome Foundation, NYFA, the Danish Council for Visual art, the City of Copenhagen Artist in Residence Program and is a graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory and the Interactive Telecommunications Program. Wednesday, October 13
JEREMY LECLAIR'S work juggles notions of success and failure while exploring the origins and evidence of experiential pleasure. His pieces combine research methods, labor-intensive processes and conceptual rigor to poetically disrupt behavioral patterns of hearing and seeing and psychological patterns of expectation. Working primarily with known quantities from popular music and culture, he aims for the tipping point between enjoyment and criticality. A dyed in the wool New Englander, LeClair lives on the pleasant cusp of coastal Maine and New Hampshire, where he helps run a small gallery/performance space called BUOY. Wednesday, September 29
BEN OWEN'S current work includes improvised and graphics score based performance, audio and video collaborations. Early sound studies began with cassettes and live radio, in tandem with stone lithography printmaking and photographic slide projections. His process of lithographic printing is balanced by the intended preservation and natural degradation of marks. He finds complimentary inherent similarities between the cycles of inking and surface reception of printmaking, mark making through drawing on printing stones and audio marks amplified by contact mics and environmental recordings. He is interested in the relationship between the spacial aspects of existing sound fields, intervened environments, and the projection and reflection of light. Locations are an active and physical palette, much like an improvisational setting where control is relinquished. Through mark making, and an attention to instability he continues the practice of listening and response. Wednesday, Novemeber 3
KAMRAN SADEGHI (aka Son of Rose) is an artist and composer who creates sensory environments at the intersection of sound, light, acoustics, and technology. He draws from these elements to accentuate time and space, and to play with the awareness that can materialize between their physical properties and the human perception. Sadeghi is mainly interested in sound for its impermanence, non-object nature, and structural integrity. His compositions are often marked with hyper magnification, stillness, unexpected shifts, and sharp punctuations that give way to an idea of drawing lines in space with sound. Kamran Sadeghi’s work has received critical acclaim in publications such as The Wire Magazine, Signal To Noise, e/ I and several international online publications. He has shared the stage in performances with artists such as Richard Chartier, Fennesz, Akira Rabelais, Tim Hecker among other notables. Sadeghi’s performances, collaborations and installations have been experienced at the Henry Art Gallery (Seattle), ICA (Boston), Diapason Gallery (New York), 4Culture (Seattle), Staalplaat (Berlin), DTW (New York), Corcoran Gallery of Art (DC), RAM (Italy), SICMF (Korea) and others. Kamran Sadeghi currently lives and works in New York City www.blanketfields.com Wednesday, November 24
KEIKO UENISHI / O.BLAAT is based in Brooklyn, New York, sound artivist, social composer, and a core member of SHARE (http://share.dj), o.blaat (Keiko Uenishi) is known for her works formed through experiments in restructuring and analyzing one’s relationship with sounds in sociological, cultural, and/or psychological environments. Her installations include: Aboard: Fillip2 for “six sites for sound” exhibitions in London, UK (2005), J’ai un secret merveilleux: Midas for City Sonic Festival 2006, Mons, Belgium. To explore in the field of aural perceptions, o.blaat created Car décalé (légèrement), a series of feedback performance work. In March 2009, o.blaat installed SOUNDLEAK: TheROOM (Simulation of neighbours) at Medien Kultur Haus, Wels, Austria, funded by Linz 2009 Kulturhauptstadt Europas. Uenishi also has an on-going open project BroadwayDreams (collaborative ‘blink media documentation’ on local businesses and sidewalks, utilizing web 2.0), featured in Conflux Festival 2008, NYC. Most recently, Uenishi completed an interaction project with Christian Marclay's’ Sixty-Four Bells and a Bow at Whitney Museum of Art in July 2010. Upcoming projects including a participatory composition Paiva Games: Sound Dams for Paivascapes festival alongside the River Paiva in Northern Portugal in October 2010, commissioned by Meet the Composer/Global Connection, and a surround-sound composition for Kaffe Matthews’ Sound Bed in the early 2011. o.blaat performed and/or presented works in locations including: Whitney Museum of American Art, P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Museum, DIA:Beacon, Lincoln Center, Park Avenue Armory, Cornell University, Sculpture Center, and ICA Philadelphia (USA); MUTEK festival, and Electric-Eclectics festival (CAN); ClubTransmediale, ZKM, and Munich University (DE); Ultrahang festival (HU); Netmage festival and Interferenze Festival (IT); City Sonic festival (BE); veza.klingt.org festival for Elias Canetti’s ‘Ear Witness: 50 Characters’ in Kleylehof, Konfrontationen festival in Nickelsdorf, Vienna Konzerthaus and Alte-Schmiede in Vienna (AT); Skolska28 Gallery, Institut Intermedii, and National Gallery (CZ); Village of Nodar, Museu Serralves and Casa da Musica (PT); Atlantic Wave Festival, ICA London, IMT Gallery London, Futuresonic Festival, Tate Britain and Fortescue Avenue Gallery (UK), Sydney Opera House (AU). o.blaat has collaborated with numerous artists including: Miguel Frasconi, Ricardo Arias, Klaus Filip, Noid, Toshio Kajiwara, Ikue Mori, Kaffe Matthews, Marina Rosenfeld, Takehisa Kosugi, DJ Olive, Eyvind Kang, Sachiko M, Aki Onda, Adriana Sã, John Klima, Sawako, Katherine Liberovskaya, Kurt Ralske, HC Gilje, Lukasz Lysakowski, Nobukazu Takemura, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Merce Cunningham Dance Company, among others. Keiko Uenishi holds LL.B (bachelor of law in International Law) from Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan, and MS (master of science in Digital Media) from Polytechnic Institute of New York University. Wednesday, September 29
Dates
September 29–November 24
Admissions
Free
Location
The Main Gallery
51 Bergen St.