Visual Arts » 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

Thursday at Third Man Records Light and Sound Machine: Speaking Directly 09-19-2013

Visual Arts No Responses »

Sep 182013

Third Man Records and the Belcourt Theatre bring you the next installment of the experimental film series Light and Sound Machine. Thursday’s film is Speaking Directly.

Attempting the summarize SPEAKING DIRECTLY, the first feature by the defiantly independent American auteur Jon Jost, is a bit of a feat. Like nearly all his subsequent films, it was produced on a pauper’s ransom, in this case a meager $2500 loan from Jost’s wealthy ex-lover. Yet, having been produced shortly after Jost’s release from prison for draft resistance, the culmination of two-plus years worth of ideas on cinema and society explode off the screen as though they were conceived in a pressure cooker. Its collage of kitsch Americana, socio-political essays, home movies, and interpersonal interviews opens itself to a myriad of interpretations. Self-described as a “State of the Nation address, from the perspective of someone other than the President”, it also serves as exploration into the complexities communication, an audit of one’s own existence, and can even be seen as a precursor to the sort of reporting by way of personal experience popularized today in outlets like NPR’s THIS AMERICAN LIFE. However you choose to read Jost’s impressive and complicated debut, one thing is for certain, as critic Jonathan Rosenbaum noted, you can think of no other film quite like it.

I pulled that quote from the Belcourt and Third Man sites.

Speaking Directly will be preceded by Owen Land’s short New Improved Institutional Quality: In the Environment of Liquids and Nasals, a Parasitic Vowel Sometimes Develops (1976, USA, 16mm, 10min).

Over on the Nashville Scene Country Life blog, Jim Ridley has a great write-up about Speaking Directly as well as previews of upcoming Light and Sound Machine picks. (Hint: buy your tickets in advance for the October screening!)

Tickets are $10 at the door or $8 in advance for Belcourt members.

As always, thanks to Ben Swank and James Cathcart for putting this on!

The Light And Sound Machine
Co-presented by Third Man Records and the Belcourt Theatre
Speaking Directly
September 19th, 2013, 7pm, $10 ($8 Belcourt members)

@ Third Man Records
623 7th Ave S – Nashville, TN 37203

Gallery Shows Tonight: “No Media” in Clarksville, “Monsters, Prophets, Sinners & Tourists” at Watkins 09-05-2013

Concerts, Visual Arts No Responses »

Sep 052013

There are two great art happenings tonight, and it’s killing me that I can’t attend both.

The first is a Watkins opening reception for two of its new faculty members, Fine Art chair Kristi Hargrove and Fine Art assistant professor Morgan Higby-Flowers. The show “Monsters, Prophets, Sinners & Tourists” is open tonight from 5:30pm to 8pm.

According to the Watkins event page, Hargrove will “present a collection of work across disciplines, from the series ‘Playing with the Pause.’ Her studio practice is primarily drawing, but includes investigations into other media such as photography, sculpture and installation.” Higby-Flowers, who has performed at Noa Noa, Boheme Collectif, and the Wedgewood/Houston ON/OFF exhibit, is “exhibiting a single channel video entitled ‘Timonds are [not] Forever,’ captured in realtime via a self-contained analog system using a Sandin Image Processor, video mixer, camera and CRT television.”

As a part of the Clarksville First Thursday Downtown Art Walk, Austin Peay professor Josh Gumiela is presenting a NO MEDIA event.

The concept:

Participating artists are randomly matched in sets of 3 && given 10mins to perform. NO MEDIA aims to bring together artists from a broad range of performable disciplines (poets + dancers + expanded cinemaistas + free jazzers + audio/video noise makers + etc) to challenge the conventions of their practice by responding in realtime to artists from other disciplines.

The Rules:

No Media At The Beginning!
[NO preparation is allowed. Bring your tools, devices, instruments, props, etc., but you’ve got to start with a blank slate. NO time will be allotted for ‘setup’. There will be a 2min turn around time where you can carry your stuff up and meet your collaborators]

No Media At The End!
[NO documentation allowed. It happens once && in realtime.]

Today Josh sent out the final details for the show, which I am including below. He’s appeared on several Theatre Intangible episodes and has exhibited work at Future Night, The Circuit Benders’ Ball, and the Wedgewood/Houston ON/OFF exhibit.

I’ll be performing at tonight’s NO MEDIA event, armed with an SK-1 keyboard. It should be a blast!

The when and where:Thu Sept 5, 6pm – 8pm

Please arrive by 6pm in order to be entered into the pool of performers.

124 Strawberry Lane
Clarksville, TN 37040

(map: http://goo.gl/maps/H2546)

The Rules:

This is important. Be sure you review the rules of the event before you arrive, they will be strictly enforced: http://no-media.tumblr.com/

The Equipment:

There will be a PA, mixer, and one video projector available. We will also have power outlets available near the performance area. That’s it. Bring all cables/wires/misc. tech required for your performance.

The Performers:

You! And anyone else you can bring along to participate. We need as many performers as possible in order for this to be a success. Absolutely anyone is welcome. This is a safe place to take risks and experiment. No documentation is allowed so there’s no worry that your performance will be captured on YouTube or Facebook for all of eternity. Assume that most, if not all of us, will fail in epic fashion. And that’s totally okay. Actually, it’s kinda the point.

Cheers,

-Josh

Call for Artists: Bring Your Own Beamer (Projected Light Show) during September 7th ArtsMusic@Wedgewood/Houston

Visual Arts, Wedgewood/Houston No Responses »

Aug 282013

Adan De La Garza’s April BYOB at Chestnut Studios

I’m seeking video artists for a projected video art show at Track One (beside Ovvio Arte) for the September ArtsMusic @ Wedgewood/Houston, Saturday September 7th. The new monthly Wedgewood-Houston art crawl had its inaugural show the first Saturday in August. Last month I teamed up with Mike Kluge to curate an electronic art exhibition at SNAP Center. In addition to Track One, the September crawl will also feature Zeitgeist Gallery, Fort Houston, Ovvio Arte, Cleft Music, Infinity Cat Records and more.

Track One is letting me set up a pop-up show in their HUGE warehouse space, and I figured, “What better way to fill the space than beamed light?” I decided to host a Bring Your Own Beamer show after being inspired by Watkins professor Adan De La Garza’s BYOB at Chestnut Studios in April. And no, we’re not talking about BMWs. In Europe, projectors are sometimes called “beamers.”

What is BYOB? From the official website:

BYOB is a series of one-night-exhibitions curated by different people around the world. The idea is simple: Find a place, invite many artists, ask them to bring their projectors.

BYOB is a way of making a huge show with zero budget. It is also an exploration of the medium of projection.

Who created BYOB?

BYOB is an idea by Rafaël Rozendaal. The first edition of BYOB was initiated by Anne de Vries & Rafael Rozendaal in Berlin.

For the Track One BYOB, I’m hoping to fill an entire corner of the room with light. We’re looking for video artists with vivid, eye-catching work who can provide their own projector and playback medium. The art needs to work without a soundtrack as we’ll be featuring a separate selection of sound art through a PA system. Your art can be digital video, 8mm or 16mm film, slides through a slide projector, live manipulations via overhead projectors, magic lantern art, projected shadow art, reflected light art, laser art, and whatever you can imagine, as long as it’s the medium of thrown light. We can project on walls, floors and ceilings. We can hang white fabric from the rafters and back project. We can tie a projector from a rope and swing it. Anything is possible, and I’d love your input. The idea is that people will open the door into the warehouse and be transported into an alien world of moving light.

I took a few pictures of the space, included here. Much of the storage materials in the room will be moved out of the way. Notice that arched ceiling with the white cloud insulation? Are you thinking what I’m thinking?

The event will happen Saturday, September 7th from 8pm to 11pm. If you participate, you must arrive by 3pm at the latest to set up your projector. You must not break down your equipment until after 11pm. You provide your projector, adapters, video source and short extension code.

If you’re interested in participating, write to me at tony@theatreintangible.com.

Thanks to Track One’s Boyer Barner and Fort Houston‘s Ryan Schemmel for putting this thing together. Big thanks to Rafaël Rozendaal for the BYOB concept and to Adan De La Garza for hosting the first Nashville BYOB and giving me his blessing to set up this one.

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