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E067 Brainwaves 09/02/2011

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Sep 022011

Dylan Simon, Ken Soper, Tony Youngblood

Ken Soper and Dylan Simon make analog synthesizer music . . . WITH THEIR MINDS!!!

Sabine Schlunk from Gallery F asked me to curate the music portion for the August 27th opening reception of the exhibition Figure 1: Scientists and Artists Picture the Intangible. The T.I. crew ended up doing a total of three improvs (the second, a jazz love letter to the planets helmed by Jamison Sevitts; the third, an ode to art and the philosophy of George Braque directed by Craig Schenker).

The first was “Brainwaves,” a collaboration between KEN SOPER, DYLAN SIMON, and myself. Ken has been experimenting with a Teletron — Robert Schneider’s hacked Mindflex toy that outputs one’s thoughts to control voltage. He put on a phenomenal proof-of-concept set at the Tim Kaiser Noa Noa house show earlier this year. For this performance, we decided to use TWO Teletrons. I very hastily hacked the one that’s been lying in my basement for a year, and Dylan Simon took the controls. The result is a visual and auditory experiment-gone-right. Enjoy.

Watch the below clip for a great introduction by Ken Soper. Stay tuned for podcasts of the night’s other two improvs.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 22:45 — 36.4MB)

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Saturday at Gallery F – Theatre Intangible Live!

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Aug 252011

Hydractinia symbiolongicarpus colony. Scanning electron micrograph.

Hard to believe that Scarritt Bennett Center’s Gallery F has only been open for three years. In that short time, they’ve meditated on the Japanese earthquake, danced and wallowed in unrefined oil, raced paintbrush-armed robots on a paper floor, exhibited cutting-edge artists, premiered experimental dance and music performances, housed weekly poetry readings, and even chauffeured art-goers between buildings in a go-cart driven by a lounge singer belting out 70′ pop hits.

On Saturday, August 27th, Gallery F celebrates their third birthday with an exhibition opening: Figure 1: Scientist and Artist Picture the Intangible. I was asked by gallery director Sabine Schlunk to curate a series of musical performances for the evening, and as a result, Theatre Intangible presents THREE excited new pieces:

Brainwaves: Ken Soper and Dylan Simon play analog synthesizers with their minds, using two circuit-bent Mindflexes, a ball-levitating children’s toy controlled by the power of concentration. Drawing inspiration from this Robert Schneider hack, Ken and I modified the Mindflexes to output synthesizer-friendly control voltage. This performance will be an unpredictable lab experiment, colliding art with science.

Space Waves: A three-piece jazz ensemble inspired by Don Cherry’s world fusion period meditates on the planets in eight vignettes (one for each planet). This trio, comprised of Jamison Sevits on trumpet/flugelhorn, Randy Hunt on upright bass, and Matt ___ on percussion use music to connect the scientific qualities of the planets (Venus as the hottest, Jupiter the largest) with the mythological elements that have inspired centuries of art (Mars the God of War, Nepture the God of the Sea).

Art Waves: “Art is made to trouble, science reassures.” — George Braque. Craig Schenker (alto saxophone) and Jamison Sevits (trumpet) perform “Tips,” a series of duets written by Steve Lacy and inspired by the notebooks of painter George Braque. Of the series, Lacy writes, “These are aphorisms, speculations, observations, but especially advice to himself as an artist and to all other artists. . . Last year, I took 14 of these phrases, and set them, in a chosen order, for voice and soprano and alto saxophones. Illustrated by the improvised sections, the result is a sort of ‘casebook cantata’, and a working examination into the nature of free play, in this case between two saxophonists, but also about preparation and spontaneity, and of music and information.” The Gallery F performance is adapted by the performers for trumpet and alto saxophone.

Gallery F opens at 6pm; performances start at 7pm. These performances are just one small piece of the hugely-ambitious exhibition. Below are the full details from the Gallery F website. Hope to see you there!

This show reveals congruencies between the curiosity and compulsions that drive both scientists and artists. Science and art seek answers to similar questions, questions that stretch our sense of where life and consciousness begin and end. In rendering the invisible visible, the intangible material, art and science give us a glimpse into lives we cannot imagine and bodies we cannot relate to. Both artistic and scientific images are filled with marvel at the phenomena and spirit of life.

ARTISTS AND SCIENTISTS Kelly Bonadies, Ryan Hogan, Jaime Raybin, Terry Thacker, James Perrin, Rhendi Greenwell, Laura Stevens, Anita Mahadevan-Jansen, Emily Reinke, Jason D. Dapper & Piotr Kaszynski

CURATED BY Perrin Ireland & Matt Christy, gallery F. Artists in Residence

OPENING RECEPTION Sat, Aug 27, 6 – 9p
7:00p – The music of Theatre Intangible Live featuring three special performances.

OPEN STUDIOS 5. AUG 27 – Tour the studios of Erin Plew, Gordon Roqué, Lauren Willis, Carolyn McDonald, Patricia Earnhardt, Sabine Schlunk, Matt Christy, Sierra Faye Mitchell, Perrin Ireland & Bob White

Gallery F
1000 19TH AVE S (CORNER OF GRAND)
NASHVILLE, TN 37212
615.320.4651

Saturday at Noa Noa: CHARLIE & CHRIS RAUH Return! SQUARE PEOPLE, MEGA IMPROV + MORE!

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Aug 032011

Arclyte (left to right: Craig Schenker, Chris Rauh, Charlie Rauh)

In my last post, I alluded to a secret show going down this Saturday. I can finally reveal the details.

Charlie and Chris Rauh of too many Nashville bands to mention (SQUARE PEOPLE, ARCLYTE, and FOUR SIDED CIRCLE are a few) moved away more than a year ago to New York and DC respectively. This weekend, they’ll be back in town for a special show at house venue Noa Noa. They’ll be sitting in on various projects and participating in a round robin with a who’s who of the Nashville avant garde music community.

Also on the bill is the second performance of the harp/guitar duo ¡BICEPS’ YANKE!, the first performance of the avant-jazz brass/woodwind trio TRICERATOPS (Robbie Hunsinger, Jamison Sevitts, Craig Schenker), and the thirty-seventh performance (around that) of SQUARE PEOPLE! Also on hand will be some surprise guests participating in the improv to be recorded for an upcoming Theatre Intangible podcast!

This is a can’t miss show, and the best part is it’s FREE! Doors at 7, music at 8.

Here are the full details:

Rauh Brothers Return
Saturday, April 6th, 7pm-?? back porch at Noa Noa.
All ages, byob, free.
Park on street, front lot, and back alley.
* Square People
* Triceratops
* ¡Biceps’ Yanke!
* Theatre Intangible Live Improv w/ surprise guests

Noa Noa (house)
620 Hamilton Avenue
Nashville, TN 37203

Free Download: FORECASTING live at Gallery F

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Jul 182011

On June 11th, I performed my contribution to the JAPAN 2010 2011 show at Scarritt Bennett Center’s Gallery F live during the opening reception. I’ll be editing and reworking the show for a future Theatre Intangible episode. For now, I thought you might enjoy hearing the untouched original version. Rhendi Greenwell (cello) and Virgile Ganne (harp) played earlier in the night, and they were kind enough to take part in the performance. Forecasting is infinitely better for their input.

DOWNLOAD OR STREAM HERE.

My piece is playing on continual loop at Gallery F until August 20th. If you have time, check out the show. The videos, photographs, sculptures, and paintings are some of the best I’ve seen at the gallery.

Here’s my artist statement:

The depth of the devastation wrought by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan hadn’t truly reached me until I began culling sound bites for this performance. Instead of a nation in crisis, here was one man crying in his apartment as bookcases fell around him — one American college student in Japan video-blogging about the scores of American-friendly “junkfood” remaining on the shelves after the other food was picked clean – or one devastated soy sauce business owner who faced a 5 year re-fermentation period before his product could be sold again.In my juxtapositions, you’ll see I am critical of nuclear energy; however, I am not against the power source. My true target is certainty. Beware those who are sure. Before the earthquake, many intelligent people were certain that nuclear power was safe. Many were scientists who were well-equipped with tools to compensate for certainty and other human biases. Nuclear energy WAS safe . . . as long as the world behaved as we expected it to. They failed to imagine the set of circumstances that played out in the Japanese reactors. If there is a lesson to be learned, it is this: We should explore new technologies, carefully weigh the costs and benefits against other methods, and proceed cautiously with great respect for that which we fail to take into account.

Tony Youngblood (Adventure Bomb) creates sound sculptures using field recordings, media clips, and samples culled from the day of the performance. The “scoop and loop” process weaves a one-time-only tapestry with no rehearsal. The result is raw, unrefined, and “of-the-moment.” The sound sculpture on exhibit was performed live at the opening reception on Saturday, June 11^th and features Rhendi Greenwell on cello and Virgile Ganne on harp. You can hear more sculptures and live improvs at Tony’s experimental music podcast Theatre Intangible (http://www.theatreintangible.com).

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