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Saturday at Arts and Music at Wedgewood/Houston: David Lusk Gallery Opening, Carl Oliver Synthesis, Glitch Art Show and More! 03-01-2014

Concerts, Visual Arts, Wedgewood/Houston, Where to find Nashville avant-garde No Responses »

Feb 272014

Travis Janssen’s “Conversion/Convergence” coming to Seed Space

The March 1st Arts & Music @ Wedgewood/Houston is an art crawl you can’t miss. The David Lusk Gallery adjacent to Zeitgeist is opening to the public for the first time. Seed Space is exhibiting a killer show featuring Travis Janssen’s multi-media installation “Conversion/Convergence,” an ingenious projection through a box fan. Nearly all the WeHo galleries have new exhibits, including Ovvio Arte, Zeitgeist, 444 Humphreys, Julia Martin Gallery and Ground Floor Gallery.

I helped put together two shows at the Track One warehouse that I’m incredibly excited about. From 5:30 to 9 p.m., Nashville experimental/electronic artist Carl Oliver will stand in the center of the huge Track One warehouse and perform a longform modular synth improvisation. Because it’s modular, he’ll be rerouting patch cables on the fly. It’s going to be especially cool after the sun goes down. Imagine walking into the warehouse to find a distant figure lit by a single lamp. Walk around the giant room and explore its natural reverb as the music interacts with the space. Check back throughout the night to hear how the improv evolves. Learn more about the Track One events at the Facebook event page.

A little after 9p.m., the space will transform into a giant multimedia experience for the glitch art showcase LightJazz. Morgan Higby-Flowers is curating a show featuring Watkins visiting artists Nick Briz and Jon Satrom and several Nashville new media artists. The event is a part of Higby-Flowers’ RipZipRarLANd, four day event featuring Briz and Satrom. RipZipRarLANd starts with a NO MEDIA show at Noa Noa and ends with a Watkins gallery opening. Learn more at the RipZipRarLANd Facebook event page.

Here’s the full Arts & Music @ Wedgewood/Houston scheduled pulled from the Facebook event page:

Join us for the March 1st edition of Arts & Music @ Wedgewood/Houston, featuring the public unveiling of the David Lusk Gallery!

Open 5:30 – 9:00 p.m. (Times vary by gallery.)

Featuring the galleries and businesses:

David Lusk Gallery, Fort Houston, 444 Humphreys, Ground Floor, Infinity Cat Recordings, Julia Martin Gallery, Ovvio Arte, Seed Space, Track One, Zeitgeist Gallery

Here’s what’s happening this month:

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David Lusk Gallery
516 Hagan Street

5:30 to 9 p.m., Grand Opening!

Art dealer David Lusk, who established his Memphis gallery in 1995, is opening a new 2,500-square-foot gallery in Nashville on March 1 beside Zeitgeist Gallery. The opening exhibition will feature mixed-media works by 23 artists, including 13 from Tennessee, among them Maysey Craddock, Kit Reuther, Mary Addison Hackett, William Eggleston, and the estate of Ted Faiers.

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444 Humphreys Popup Gallery
444 Humphreys Street (Outside)

6 – 11 p.m., works by Allie Kuzyk & Kevin Guthrie

Allie Kuzyk’s works rely on systems and visual hierarchies to present her playful illustrations rooted in pop culture headlines. Her multimedia installations are both light hearted and challenging and reinterpret the idea of boring old infographics.

Kevin Guthrie’s works immortalize personalities from popular culture, often the likes of forgotten athletes, blues musicians, or lesser known historical figures, drawn on the unprinted sides of torn beer cases.

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Ground Floor Gallery
427 Chestnut Street (inside Chestnut Square)

5 to 8 p.m.

New works by Heidi Martin Kuster, Mandy Brown, Anne Daigh and a participatory piece by Janet Decker Yanez

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Julia Martin Gallery
444 Humphreys Street (Inside)

6 to 9 p.m., Works by Megan Kimber

Julia Martin Gallery is proud to present the work of one of Birmingham’s finest, Megan Kimber. The spirit of her work is potent. Her execution, so delicate and graceful one can imagine the figures having blossomed from the very fibers of the surface upon which her brush applied them.

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Ovvio Arte
425 Chestnut Street

6 to 9 p.m, photographic portrait series

Walk in to Ovvio on Saturday night and participate in Veta&Theo’s NEW PHOTOGRAPHIC PORTRAIT SERIES. Bring your head, they’ll shoot it. Part of the Arts & Music at Wedgewood/Houston First Saturday crawl. Have no fear – it’s just a camera.

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Seed Space
1209 4th Ave South (Inside Track One)

2 to 4 p.m, Rachel Reese workshop, $25

Join Seed Space for the next Professional Development Workshop, The Voice of Criticism in Contemporary Art, with Possible Press founder Rachel Reese.

7 -to 9 p.m., Matt Gilbert’s “Font Flowers” and Travis Janssen’s “Conversion/Convergence”, free

Matt Gilbert’s “Font Flowers” are a series of prints which examine typography design.

Travis Janssen’s multi-media installation “Conversion/Convergence” consists of a series of prints and a projection filtered through an altered box fan, creating a hypnotic pinwill image of rainbow colors on a wall.

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Track One
1209 4th Ave South

5:30 to 9 p.m., Live in the Track One warehouse: Carl Oliver Synthesis, free

Carl Oliver performs a longform modular synthesizer improvisation in the Track One warehouse. Walk around the giant room and explore its natural reverb as the music interacts with the space.

9 p.m, Live in the Track One warehouse: LightJazz, free

Watkins visiting artists Nick Briz and Jon Satrom and Watkins professor Morgan Higby-Flowers are throwing a massive glitch art experience in the Track One warehouse. The show will explore digital culture, hacking, remix culture, and experimental new media.

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Zeitgeist Gallery
516 Hagan Street

5:30 to 9 p.m., Two new shows open at Zeitgeist

Trace Element by Lars Strandh (Paintings)
Harmony of the Spheres by Kevin Cooley and Philip Andrew Lewis (Mixed media – vinyl, audio, video, photography)

I can’t resist posting a few more of Carl’s modular synth experiments. Check out his YouTube channel for more.

Call for Participants: No Media at Noa Noa and Glitch Art Show at Track One

Concerts, Making, Visual Arts, Wedgewood/Houston, Where to find Nashville avant-garde No Responses »

Feb 182014

Chicago new media artists Nick Briz and Jon Satrom will be in Nashville February 28th through March 3rd for a Watkins College visiting artist series. While they’re in town, Watkins professor Morgan Higby-Flowers is curating two off-campus shows featuring the artists. And he’s looking for collaborators.

The first show is a NO MEDIA event on Friday, February 28th at 7:30 p.m. here at Theatre Intangible headquarters aka Noa Noa house. NO MEDIA is, as its website states, “an open improvisational realtime/performance media art event.” By “open,” they mean ANYONE can participate, including you. All types of expression are welcome, including music making, acting, dance, singing, visual art, poetry, storytelling, puppetry, etc.

Here’s how it works. When you arrive, you put your name in a hat. The hosts then draw three names. If your name is called, you have two minutes to prepare. Then you perform for 10 minutes with your two randomly-chosen collaborators. This is repeated until all the names are drawn. No documentation is allowed. It happens once and in realtime.

What makes this particular NO MEDIA event special is the fact that NO MEDIA co-creator Nick Briz will be performing alongside the locals. If you use Facebook, you can find out more on the Facebook event page. If you’re interested in performing, contact Morgan at mhigbyflowers@gmail.com.

The second show is glitch media show happening at the Track One warehouse during the March 1st Arts & Music @ Wedgewood/Houston. At 9 p.m. the warehouse will transform into a massive multimedia experience. The show will explore digital culture, glitch art, hacking, remix culture, and experimental new media. Morgan is seeking Nashville electronic and experimental musicians and video-makers to perform. Here’s the Facebook event page. If you’re interested in performing, contact Morgan at mhigbyflowers@gmail.com. Make sure you specify which event you’re applying for.

Incidentally, there’s another great event happening earlier that night in the same space. From 5:30 p.m. to 9 p.m., Carl Oliver will perform a longform modular synth improv. What makes this especially cool is that he will be performing in the center of a HUGE empty warehouse. The natural reverb is going to be out of this world. I’ll write more about this closer to the date, but in the meantime, check out the Facebook event page.

The two Nick Briz / Jon Satrom events are part of RipZipRarLANd, a four-day series sponsored by Watkins College. The series also features lectures, workshops and a gallery opening. Check out the full schedule on, you guessed it, the Facebook event page.

Jon Satrom undermines interfaces, problematizes presets, and bends data. He spends his days fixing things and making things work. He spends his evenings breaking things and searching for the unique blips inherent to the systems he explores and exploits.

Nick Briz is a new-media artist, educator and organizer whose work has been shown internationally at festivals and institutions and is openly and freely available on the web.

RipZipRARLANd is a utopic local area network inspired by experimental new-media art, located in Middle Tennessee, EVERYWHERE (192.168.0.x). A time-space constructed of old new-media memories floating within–once free/open–networks and contemporary ethics of openness and sharing.

As [users/artists] we consider ourselves [creators/producers], however, in the eyes of contemporary (networked) corporations, we are the product being sold for billions of dollars. These wide-spread software-as-service models don’t trade in their technology as much as they trade in humans. SoftwARE iz Humans…

RipZipRARLANd’s piratical inhabitants employ messy and dirty experimental processes. Their digital practices have grown out of the infinite copy-ability of data and inevitable decay of digital media. They hack, reclaim, remix and share in an effort to promote and preserve a genre/medium/culture.

Come celebrate experimental new-media art, glitch art, GIF culture, piratical practices, and creative problem creating.

NO MEDIA
Friday, February 28th, 7:30 p.m., free
@ Noa Noa (house)
620 Hamilton Avenue, Nashville, TN 37203

LightJazz
Saturday, March 1st, 9 p.m., free
@ Track One during Arts & Music @ Wedgewood/Houston
410 Chestnut Street, Nashville, TN 37203

2014 Circuit Benders’ Ball: Call for Participants!

Circuit Benders Ball, Circuit-Bending, Concerts, Fort Houston, Visual Arts, Wedgewood/Houston, Where to find Nashville avant-garde No Responses »

Jan 072014

Logo by Rachel Briggs.

The 2014 Circuit Benders’ Ball is now accepting submissions! We’re looking for performers, live visual accompanists, multimedia artists, workshop instructors and speakers. The entry deadline is Sunday, February 9th at 11:59 p.m. To submit, fill out this short form.

The Circuit Benders’ Ball is a biennial celebration of hardware hacking, art, music and the creative spirit. The event will take place at Fort Houston in Nashville, TN on Saturday, April 12th, 2014. The Ball will feature (at least) two stages, ten or more performers, an interactive art gallery and electronic workshops. Learn more about the 2010 Circuit Bender’s Ball here and the 2012 Ball here.

The submissions will be reviewed by a panel of judges, including myself, Geo Leonard, Josh Gumiela, Megan Kelly, and Stephen Zerne.

We want the Ball to be a safe and welcoming environment for everyone, and we’re working on drafting a strong anti-harassment policy (and subsequent staff training) to ensure that all performers and attendees feel safe and comfortable. We’re also doing everything we can to make sure the call goes out to a wider audience than just our social networks. Our previous CBBs were over-representative in straight white cisgender male performers, and we intend to work harder this year at recruiting more women, people of color, people with disabilities and people who are gay, bisexual, asexual, intersex or transgender. This doesn’t mean we’re discriminating against straight white dudes or selecting performers based on any of these characteristics. Rather, we’re attempting to confront implicit biases in ourselves and in the selection process that could discriminate against people with these or other characteristics.

Here are some guidelines on what we are looking for.

Music/Multimedia Performers

We’ll have at least two stages for quick turnover and short sets to make room for many artists. Sets should be approximately 15 minutes. (Longer for headliners.)

Performances should somehow involve circuit bending, instrument design or creative coding. You need not have built the machines yourself. Although experimental / non-rhythmic is our main focus, we’re also open to other genres. We’re also open to multimedia performances, dance, theatre, projection mapping and whatever you can dream up!

Live Visual Accompanists

One of the most talked-about aspects of the previous CBBs was the pairing of performers with visual artists. If you’re a filmmaker, lighting designer, or artist of any stripe, you can collaborate with a performer to mastermind a beautiful audio/visual synthesis.

Visual Artists

We’re looking for art to display in the CBB gallery. Art can be 2D, 3D, sculpture, interactive, film/video or installations. In keeping with the theme, the art should have an electronic or mechanical element. We love interactive devices that make light and/or sound! You can also show off some of your circuit-bent gear!

Workshop Instructors

For this year’s ball, we’re looking for simple, inexpensive workshops. For that reason, all workshops will cost $15 and last 1 hour and 15 minutes. Workshop teachers get $12.75 per student. Fort Houston gets the remainder. All materials and teacher fees must come out of the $12.75 per student. The challenge for the teachers is to pick a topic that doesn’t use expensive materials and doesn’t take longer than an hour and 15 minutes from start to finish. Examples of low cost workshops include paper circuits, paper automata and introductory courses to programs like PureData and Supercollider.

Keeping the class time short means we can program more workshops. Keeping the costs low means we can attract more students.

Workshop teachers must source all materials, except for materials provided by Fort Houston and the students.

Speakers/Panelists

We would love to add panel and presentations to this year’s event! Lead a discussion or join someone else’s.

Here’s an example of a panel topic a local bender submitted:

Towards a Circuit Bending Standardization: This panel explores developing a technical standard for circuit bending interface and controller design. Such a standard could benefit designers who aim to sell their innovative devices while making it easier for artists to assemble a fully interconnectable arsenal of circuit bent instruments without any electronics expertise.

Compensation:

The Circuit Benders’ Ball is a non-profit event created to educate, inspire, and connect. Soon, we’ll launch a Kickstarter campaign to help finance the event. All Kickstarter donations and ticket sales (after expenses) go to the artists, on a sliding scale, based on distance from Nashville. The farther you have to travel, the bigger piece of the pie you get. We may agree to a set guarantee for featured artist, to be decided. The more we make, the more the artists make. Not a dime goes to me or anyone on the organizing staff. More details coming soon.

Submit!

Apply to the Ball with this short form. The entry deadline is Sunday, February 9th at 11:59 p.m. In fairness to everyone, we won’t start assembling a lineup until the deadline has passed. Once we’ve assembled a lineup (approximately February 15th), we’ll seek confirmation with the artists we’ve picked. When everyone is confirmed, we’ll notify the artists who were not selected and then announce the lineup publicly. See you in April!

Saturday at Boheme Collectif: Mike Kluge’s Future Night 11-23-2013

Concerts, Where to find Nashville avant-garde No Responses »

Nov 212013

Mike Kluge’s incredible electronic art and music series Future Night is happening again on Saturday, November 23rd at Boheme Collectif. The show includes new art installations by Theatre Intangible participants Zach Adams (CMKT4, Nashville Robotic Philharmonic), Josh Gumiela, Robbie Lynn Hunsinger, Ryan Hogan, Devin Lamp, Morgan Higby-Flowers and Tyler Blankenship. The Watkins University Company H artist collective will also exhibit works.

The music lineup features underground legend R. Stevie Moore, the talented experimental artist Dylan Ethier, the electronic rock band Nudity (who are finally getting the national exposure they deserve), Devin Lamp’s immersive 8-piece orchestral rock band The Ascent of Everest and the four-piece rock band Chalaxy.

If you happen to be a Facebook user, you can RSVP and find out more on the Facebook event page.

Here’s a video of the installations at a previous Future Night:

Future Night
Saturday, November 23rd, 2013, 7 p.m.
$5, BYOB

@ Boheme Collectif
919 Gallatin Ave, Nashville, TN

Park in the Boheme lot or at Hairworld next door.

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