Seed Space » Theatre Intangible

Saturday at Track One: Tatsuya Nakatani Gong Orchestra 09-04-2014

Oct 022014

Tatsuya Nakatani. Image by hearhums.blogspot.com

Phenomenal percussion/sound artist Tatsuya Nakatani will returning to Nashville on Saturday, October 4th, and this time he’s enlisting eight Nashville artists for a gong orchestra. This is organized by local prepared guitarist Brady Sharp who has been helping Nakatani book shows in Nashville for years. This is the first time (that I know of) that Nakatani will be performing with a gong orchestra in Nashville.

Seeing and hearing Nakatani is a near transcendent experience. I can only imagine what that experience will be like augmented with eight gong players in the HUGE space where this went down.

Brady Sharp’s blog VKMusic has the details:

Percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani (from Kobe, Japan via Easton, PA) will be performing solo and then with the Nakatani Gong Orchestra. The Nakatani Gong Orchestra will be made up of 8 local Nashville musicians and local visual artists that will be well-schooled in Tatsuya’s intricate and unique conduction methods. Gongs are very complex resonating objects, and the clouds of harmonic textures produced by the subtle bowing, striking, and tapping of multiple gongs produces a very soothing, sonorous tide of harmonic waves that gives the audience a truly unique experience. No earplugs will be needed!

Mr. Nakatani has performed as a percussion soloist all over the world. His Gong Orchestra conductions have been performed at diverse venues all across the U.S. including the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C.

The show will be during the Wedgewood/Houston First Saturday Art Crawl, and will begin around 9pm after the art openings and events start beginning to wind down.

More info at VKMusic.org and NYCNash.

Tatsuya Nakatani Gong Orchestra
Saturday, Oct 4th, 9 p.m., $10 admission
@ Track One (1209 4th Ave. South – Corner of 4th and Chestnut)

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.

Friday at Seed Space: Robbie Lynn Hunsinger’s Reactive Sound Sculpture “Skitter Flutter” 05-10-2013

Visual Arts, Wedgewood/Houston No Responses »

May 062013

Nashville musician and multi-media artist Robbie Lynn Hunsinger has a new exhibit opening up at Seed Space on Friday, May 10th from 6pm to 8pm. The reactive sound sculpture is a collaboration with Middle Tennessee Robotic Art Society members Patrick Becker and Steve Ghertner. Skitter Flutter sounds absolutely fascinating, and I can’t wait to check it out on Friday.

The press release at robbiehunsinger.com says Skitter Flutter,

grew partially out of Hunsinger’s Arduino and Sax duet for robotic drummer that she premiered at Soundcrawl 2012.

Skitter Flutter is also heavily influenced by Hunsinger’s years of pre-dawn bird rescue in the Chicago area as Founder of The Chicago Bird Collision Monitors program, a very successful conservation effort in which volunteers save injured and stunned migratory birds that have struck buildings.

She became fascinated with the idea of creating an invisible array of reactive sounds similar to small mammals, insects or birds but created entirely by motors. Sounds pull the viewer in but dissipate upon investigation, much as crickets grow quiet as we approach.

The mirror neuron creates a reaction in an observer which reflects the chemical changes in the person actually experiencing an event firsthand, which seems to manifest the neurological existence of empathy.

“You get hit, I flinch.” These interactive sound sculptures encourage this type of response. They are as much felt as seen or heard.

More info at the Facebook event page and SeedSpace.org.

Robbie Hunsinger: Skitter Flutter
Opening reception Friday, May 10th 6-8pm.
Seed Space
(Inside Chestnut Square Building)
427 Chestnut Street, Nashville, Tennessee 37203

Scott Smallwood’s Solar Powered Sound Installation “hideout” opens Friday at Seed Space

Circuit-Bending, Visual Arts 1 Response »

Mar 142013

Nestled in the heart of Nashville’s burgeoning arts community NoHo* (NOrth of HOuston Street), Chestnut Studios gallery Seed Space continues to book exciting sound and video art. If Seed Space curates it, it’s definitely going to be interesting.

But when I read about the Scott Smallwood installation opening this Friday, my jaw dropped. Scott’s a sound artist, composer, inventor, and performer, and he’s worked with some serious badasses: Pauline Oliveros, John Butcher, Joe McPhee, Cor Fuhler, Phil Gelb, Todd Reynolds, and Mark Dresser.

Scott builds his own electronic instruments, sound installations, and even musical video games. hideout, the piece he’s unveiling Friday night at the opening reception is

a quiet, immersive soundscape based on environmentally-empowered sound circuits. Evoking the structural acoustics of hidden, safe zones in nature and architecture, these sounds can evoke feelings of safety and security, as well as a heightened sense of intrusions from outside sources. As one adapts to the quiet sounds that are often masked or silenced by the presence of crowded social spaces, the piece is also subtly interactive, as the sounds are directly responsive to the presence of light in the space and changes of light distribution through the presence of shadows, reflections, and absorption caused by movement through the space.

If Scott’s previous creations are any judge, hideout will be an art opening you won’t want to miss. Salivate over the video clips of Scott’s work below and then go over to the Seedspace page for more info.

Scott Smallwood’s hideout
Opening Reception Friday, March 15th, 6-8 pm.
hideout will show March 15 – April 29.

Seed Space Gallery
427 Chestnut Street, Nashville, 37203