May is the Month of the Ecstatic Moment @ ISSUE Project Room

May is the Month of the Ecstatic Moment @ ISSUE Project Room

During the month of May, ISSUE Project Room will present a series of performers whose works embody notions of the ecstatic through the use of a variety of extended techniques including free improvisation and sounds bordering on noise.

The ecstatic refers to a state outside of the body. Historically, ecstasy has been associated with religious and mystic states. Willhelm Reich discusses the concept in conjunction with sexual energy and orgasm. Bataille conceives of ecstasy as a “’yawning gap’ between the one and the other” — a dissolving of the boundaries between traditional subject-object relationships. Rather then attaching this idea to a specific state or act, we utilize this term as an active concept describing a means of production. Furthering Bataille’s notion, Jean-Luc Nancy points out “one could not properly say that the singular being is the subject of ecstasy, for ecstasy has no ‘subject’ – but one must say that ecstasy (community) happens to the singular being.” This concept of ecstasy as a state outside one’s self yields potential for new forms of community and experience.

Perhaps Faruq Z. Bey’s (5/27 and 5/28) comment on his decision to start playing after seeing John Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders perform best exemplifies our concept of the ecstatic:

The people who were rioting in the street, they moved like one mind. It was almost like how a hive of insects moves. It was like a wave; it just moved, but that whole episode put me in a frame of mind of thinking about our position here as a subculture, and how to deal with that.

The ecstatic moment is predicated on being there, being present, being an event. Jacques Attali has argued that the rise of the recording industry has had a profound transformation on the production of live music, likening music to a simulacrum of itself where consumers relate more to the recording (better fidelity) than the event of live performance. For Attali, music is the organization of noise and that organization is a mirror of the social; but, rather then being a one-to-one reflection of the social, music can act as a prophetic force for the future due to its inherently anti-material nature.

Re-imagining traditional notions of authenticity and authorship, Sam Ashley’s (May 13) work ranges from symbolic representations of shamanic phenomena to direct presentations of magic events, devices, or objects. Described as amplifications of imaginary sounds, Ashley’s live practice goes beyond the limitations of tangible devices. Engaging with the non-material world through direct spirit possession, Ashley goes as far as to credit ghosts as his collaborative artistic partners.

Free improvisation plays an ulterior role in relation to what Attali defines as the driving force behind the economy of music in a capitalist society: the reproduction of the original. Performers like Giuseppi Logan, Befo’ Quotet, TAUOM (May 14th), Paul Flaherty, Chris Corsano, Okkyung Lee (May 20th), and Paul Metzger (May 21st) all work with varying levels of improvisation in their work to create unique live events that release music from its material constraints (notation).

David Keenan recently coined the term Hypnagogic Pop to describe the work of James Ferraro and his contemporaries, whose work exemplifies the reordering of tropes of 80’s American culture through the sonic unconscious. Through the dissemination of low-cost production and DIY aesthetics, Hypnagogic Pop forms micro-musical communities that reverse Attali’s assessment of the recording industry’s push towards high-fidelity. Ferraro’s live performances and recordings consist of reordered samples that blur all distinctions between the fidelity of the record and the authenticity of the event–ultimately undoing the dichotomy of the simulacrum in capitalist culture.

Exploring questions of spiritual practice and historical conceptions of ecstatic music, Ensemble Simul Cantare will present a program of medieval vocal church music on a shared evening with metal guitarist Mick Barr (May 5th). Prince Rama of Ayodhya were raised on an ashram by Hare-Krishna parents and sing mantra-laden psychedelic anthems of devotion and ecstasy (May 15th), while Genesis P. Orridge’s Thee Majesty explore notions of transgender, identity disruption and the manipulation of form through spoken word poetry.