Fort Houston » Theatre Intangible

Tonight at Zeitgeist Indeterminacies: Joo Won Park w/ John Latartara 09-27-2013

Concerts, Fort Houston, Visual Arts No Responses »

Sep 272013

There are TWO must-see shows tonight in Nashville, TN. At 7 p.m. at Zeitgeist Gallery, Joo Won Park will foley everyday objects like bananas and spatulas and process the sounds through the real-time audio synthesis program SuperCollider. At 9 p.m., Boheme Collectif will host the latest installment of the experimental/electronic art and music showcase Future Night. More on the latter in the next post.

I’ve been incredibly excited about the Joo Won Park Indeterminacies show ever since Zeitgeist’s Lesley Beeman turned me on to the artist’s YouTube channel a few months back. Check out the below videos to get an idea of what exactly Joo Won does.

Indeterminacies is a series of performances organized by Lesley Beeman and Lain York. It’s based on John Cage’s idea about creating processes with no predetermined outcome, welcoming the unexpected and learning from the accidental.

Here’s the description from the Facebook event page:

Joo Won Park (b.1980) wants to make everyday sound beautiful and strange so that everyday becomes beautiful and strange. He performs live with toys, kitchenware, vegetables, umbrellas, and other non-musical objects by digitally processing their sounds. He also produces pieces made with with field recordings, sine waves, and any other sources that he can record or synthesize. Joo Won draws inspirations from listening Florida swamps, Philadelphia skyscrapers, his 2-year-old son’s play, and other soundscapes surrounding him. He has studied in Berklee College of Music and the University of Florida, and currently serves as an assistant professor of music at the Community College of Philadelphia. Joo Won’s music and writings are available on ICMC DVD, Spectrum Press, MIT Press, and PARMA recording.

John Latartara was the very first performer signed up for Indeterminacies. (Theatre Intangible recorded it. That podcast is available here.) He’s coming back to moderate the discussion portion of the program.

As always this event is free and open to adventurous and inquisitive people.

Saturday morning, Joo Won will teach two FREE workshops at Fort Houston (organized by Zeitgeist Gallery). Here are the details:

Composing Soundscapes

Free Event
September 28, 2013, 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

“This class is for musicians, non-musicians, tech-savvy and luddite alike. You will learn the fundamentals of composing music using sampled sound from the environment. Materials: Bring a recording device (portable recorder, phone, laptop, or what have you) and a playback device with good speakers. Leave your preconceptions at home.”

Intro to Music Coding with SuperCollider

Free Event
September 28, 2013, 1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.

“In this workshop/demo, instructor Joo Won Park will go over the basics of coding sound with SuperCollider. SuperCollider is one of the most powerful and versatile sound synthesis freeware available for electronic music composers. It is a tool to understand fundamental digital signal processing techniques as well as a platform to experiment with new compositional and synthesis ideas. SuperCollider can be used to build interactive performance systems and generate algorithmic compositions. To get the maximum benefit from the workshop, please download SuperCollider at www.audiosynth.com to your laptop. The program is available for PC, Mac, and Linux. This class is for electronic musicians, sound artists, music-oriented programmers, and music technology enthusiasts.”

Reserve your spot at the workshops at the Fort Houston classes page.

Indeterminacies: Joo Won Park with John Latartara
Friday, September 27th, 2013, 7 p.m., free show

@ Zeitgeist Gallery
516 Hagan Street
Nashville, Tennessee 37203

Saturday at SNAP Center: ON/OFF Electronic Art Exhibition 08-03-2013

Circuit-Bending, Concerts, Fort Houston, Visual Arts No Responses »

Aug 012013

The Wedgewood-Houston neighborhood is kicking off a new monthly art crawl, beginning Saturday, August 3rd from 5:30pm to 11pm. I’m teaming up with Mike Kluge (Future Night at Boheme Collectif) to curate an electronic art exhibition at the SNAP Center called “ON/OFF.”

The art community centered around Chestnut Street (near Greer Stadium) has long been one of Nashville’s best kept secrets. The Saturday art crawl is a great opportunity to tour wonderful spaces such as music producer Lonie John Hutchin’s new Cleft Studios, world famous Infinity Cat Records, community makerspace Fort Houston, and galleries such as Ground Floor Gallery, Ovvio Arte, Seed Space, Track One and Zeitgeist Gallery.

For our ON/OFF exhibition at SNAP Center, Mike and I called upon members of the circuit bending and electronic music and art communities to show off interactive installations, reactive video, sound sculptures, flashing lights and things that go buzz.

There will be two live performances. At 7pm and 9pm, artist David Wright LaGrone will perform live dynamic video art with guitar pedals and the Hard Soft Synth 3jb, an innovative lo-fi video synthesizer from Bleep Labs. At 8pm and 10pm, artist and Watkins professor Morgan Higby Flowers will perform realtime audio visuals using a no-input system. The output ranges from dirt-filthy, loud, and stroboscopic to soft, rhyth-matic NTSC rivers.

The participating artists include:

Zach Adams
Brains Bailey
Benton Bainbridge
Lawrence Crow
Josh Gumiela
Linda Heck
Morgan Higby-Flowers
David Wright LaGrone
Andrew Morill
Adrienne Outlaw
Luke Rainey
Stan Richardson
Liz Clayton Scofield
Derek Schartung
Russell White

(Artist list is subject to change.)

This should be a fun show! Check out previews of Adrienne Outlaw‘s and Zach Adams‘ works below.

And be sure to check out all the other great gallery exhibits.

More info on the Facebook event page.

ON/OFF Electronic Art Exhibition (Wedgewood-Houston Art Crawl) Saturday, August 3rd, 5:30-11pm, FREE, all ages

@ SNAP Center 1224 Martin St, Nashville, TN 37203

Parking locations: 516 Hagan St. 37203 500 Houston St. 37203 427 Chesnut St. 37203

This article was adapted from my guest post at Nashville Arts Magazine.

Fort Houston Granted Parking Variance, Classes Resume!

Fort Houston, Wedgewood/Houston 1 Response »

Jun 072013

Fort Houston

Truly amazing news, folks! First off, if you haven’t been keeping up with our coverage of the Fort Houston saga, start here and here. The Nashville Scene has a great piece covering the essentials here.

Fort Houston went before the Board of Appeals yesterday over the prospect of getting a parking variance. This would basically allow them to host classes at their NoHo facility, even though they lack the required number of parking spaces as dictacted by city codes. Because their landlord originally resisted the variance, Fort Houston’s prospects were looking dire.

I’m happy to learn that the city granted Fort Houston the parking variance! This means that Fort Houston will soon resume classes like Greg Pond’s much-heralded 3D Printing and Arduino workshops.

Sean Maloney over at the Nashville Scene blog Country Life has the scoop. Check out his full article here.

The Rest of the Fort Houston Story

Fort Houston, Wedgewood/Houston No Responses »

May 232013

One of the many rooms in community creative space Fort Houston

Back in April, I wrote a blog titled “Fort Houston and the Nashville Art Scene Need Your Help!” The piece talked about the vitality of the Wedgewood-Houston arts community and vaguely discussed Fort Houston‘s difficulties in passing the city’s complex coding process. I entreated everyone to write letters to the mayor and city council reps. But I could only tell you part of the story — partially out of deference to Fort Houston while they attempted to resolve matters privately, partially because I didn’t know the whole story.

This morning the Tennessean published an article called “New artists warehouse Fort Houston runs into codes issues.” (In the print edition, it’s titled “Arts Space Seeks Zoning Variance.”) In the article, reporter Joey Garrison uncovers further layers of Fort Houston’s difficulties and reveals disputes with the Houston Street property landlord. The landlord’s arguments in the piece don’t make any sense whatsoever, and I’m convinced he’s not being honest about his motivation. Fort Houston’s lease runs out in November, and I don’t think it is likely that the landlord will renew it (especially after the Tennessean article). The only solution seems to be buying the property outright, but that would require a wealthy benefactor.

There are further layers of intrigue as yet unpublished … other players, other factors; but it would be irresponsible for me to discuss the rest until Fort Houston opens the dialogue. For now, Fort Houston needs your support like never before. Tour the facility. Talk with the staff. Ask what you can do to help.

Many a cadre of talented young people in Nashville have attempted to put together creative spaces like Fort Houston. It’s an incredibly-difficult enterprise. Most fail after less than a few years. But this one is special. Over the past three years, I’ve witnessed firsthand the Fort Houston founders’ high levels of professionalism, work-ethic, future-planning, business savvy and innovation. They are the best and brightest of Nashville’s creative up and comers. If this can happen to them, it can happen to any new arts organization. The question we really need to be asking our city leaders is this: “You have shown you are willing to support large commercial enterprises with questionable ties to the arts community. But are you willing to support young artists, new organizations, bottom-up development, the true future of Nashville’s art scene? Think hard on that before you reply. Your answer determines our future support of YOU.”

And before you read the Tennessean article, read Fort Houston Co-Founder Ryan Schemmel’s introductory remarks to the article here.

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