ISSUE’s 2012 Emerging Artists Commissions
ISSUE Project Room’s 2012 Emerging Artists Commissions will focus on transdisciplinary practices with a special attention to contemporary political, aesthetic and social concerns. This year we attempted to reach outside our normal range of focus to include a wider variety of artists working across different media. ISSUE’s curators Lawrence Kumpf and Zach Layton worked with panelists Matthew Walker, James Hoff, Howie Chen and Ulrike Muller to select this year’s commissions. We are very much looking forward to working with the applicants in the upcoming year.
ISSUE Project Room’s Emerging Artists Commission program is made possible, in part, with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature; and by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.
Artist-in-Residence James Ilgenfritz: The Ticket That Exploded: An Opera (based on a novel by William S. Burroughs)
Artist-in-Residence James Ilgenfritz presents The Ticket That Exploded: An Opera based on William Burroughs’ 1962 dystopian novel about identity disintegration, oppression of humanity’s collective consciousness through technological influence, and revolution through the subversion of those very technologies. Featuring vocalists Ted Hearne, Nick Hallett, Melissa Hughes, Anne Rhodes, Steve Dalachnsky, and Ryan Opperman, an ensemble of fifteen instrumentalists, and live video projections from Jason Ponce, the opera will be organized using the same cut-up techniques and emphasis on language that distinguishes Burroughs’ literary work.
ISSUE’s Artist-in-Residence program is made possible, in part, through generous support from the Jerome Foundation; the Suzanne Fiol Memorial Fund; Meet the Composer; the Foundation for Contemporary Arts; and with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the New York State Council on the Arts, celebrating 50 years of building strong, creative communities in New York’s 62 counties.
ISSUE @ 110 Livingston: Okkyung Lee (Artist-in-Residence)
This performance will take place at our future home in Downtown Brooklyn, 110 Livingston (entrance at 22 Boerum Place).
Cellist and improviser Okkyung Lee is a 2011 ISSUE Artist-in-Residence. A native of Korea, Okkyung Lee has been developing her own voice in a contemporary cello performance, improvisation and composition. using her solid classical training as a springboard, she incorporates jazz, sounds, Korean traditional and pop music, and noise with extended techniques to create her unique blend of music. She has received a composer commission from New York State Council on the Arts (2007) and a Foundation for Contemporary Arts grant (2010).
In long white shadows the performance space is explored by performers who constantly change their relationships within and towards to it. The audience is faced with rather unusual ways of perceiving the music and movement: simple, slow and hypnotic at times.
Michelle Boulé is a dance artist, teacher, and BodyTalk practitioner based in New York. She has been performing and teaching internationally over the last 11 years. Since 2001 she has worked with Miguel Gutierrez and the Powerful People and in 2010 received a New York Dance and Performance Award “Bessie” for her performance and creative collaboration in Last Meadow by Miguel Gutierrez and the Powerful People. She has also worked with the Deborah Hay Dance Company (William Forsythe commission If I Sing to You), John Scott, David Wampach, John Jasperse, Liz Santoro, Neal Beasley, Donna Uchizono, Christine Elmo, Beth Gill, Judith Sanchez-Ruiz, Doug Varone (Metropolitan Opera Ballet, Opera Colorado), Netta Yerushalmy, and Gabriel Masson. She is part of the teaching faculty and Artists Advisory Council of Movement Research in New York. She has also been a faculty/artist-in-residence at Hollins University (Roanoke, VA) and the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign, IL). She participated in the SKITE artists residency in Caen, France in 2010, and in 2002, she was a DanceWeb scholarship recipient at Impulstanz in Vienna. She has shown work in New York at the Center for Performance Research, Judson Church, P.S. 122, Danspace Project, the Bushwick Starr and at the Krannert Center in Illinois and the University of Utah.
Prince Rama: UTOPIA=NO PLACE
2011 Artist-in-Residence Prince Rama will transform ISSUE Project Room into a point of origins. They will construct a “sacred space” using gathered matter from off-site urban wilds of Brooklyn. Audience members will be invited to build their own instruments and utilize them in an extended jam session open to anyone who wishes to attend (regardless of musical skill). This aims to investigate the utopian symbology of “the jam session” as a poetic reenactment and microcosmic creation of an ideal democratic society. Cut off from the rest of the world, yet wholly imbedded within it, this ritual space becomes a NO PLACE.
**PLEASE BRING ALONG AN INSTRUMENT!**
ISSUE’s 2012 Artists-in-Residence: Yarn/Wire
“Over the last half decade, Yarn/Wire has immensely expanded the repertoire for two pianists and two percussionists. For their 2012 Artist-in-Residence stint, the ensemble will work with a diverse roster of composers, performers, and sonic architects and utilize the full capabilities of Issue Project Room’s acoustics and speaker array to produce works of both epic scale and scope. Highlights include collaborations with Pete Swanson, Tristan Perich, and Nathan Davis.”
Yarn/Wire is a chamber quartet specializing in the performance of 21st century music. A unique instrumental combination of two percussionists (Ian Antonio and Russell Greenberg) and two pianists (Laura Barger and Ning Yu) allows Yarn/Wire to interface with both traditional performance practice and emergent stylistic trends with ease. Founded in 2005 at Stony Brook University, the members of Yarn/Wire have extensive performance and pedagogic experience encompassing international and domestic music festivals, college and university residences, and substantive work in the avant-garde theater and DIY/punk worlds. Frequent collaborations with composers on new work form a significant portion of the ensemble’s activities. In addition to presenting multiple US premieres, Yarn/Wire has given the world premieres of over two dozen new works written specifically for the ensemble.
Established in 2006, ISSUE’s AIR program provides emerging artists with a 3-month residency including rehearsal space, production, curatorial, and pr/marketing support to create new works, to reach the next stage in their artistic development, and gain exposure to a broad public audience. ISSUE’s Artist-in-Residence program is made possible, in part, through generous support from the Jerome Foundation, the Suzanne Fiol Memorial Fund, and with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the New York State Council on the Arts, celebrating 50 years of building strong, creative communities in New York’s 62 counties.
ISSUE’s 2012 Artists-in-Residence: Sergei Tcherepnin
“During my residency at IPR I will be working on a few related projects. The first is to continue an ongoing investigation of difference tones, which are pitches that occur in the ear and brain as a result of two or more pure tones. I hope to develop a tuning program on the computer that will aid in a research period of listening to specific intervals and frequency ranges, while noting how the resultant ear tones appear to sound different from each other. As part of this project I will perform on a difference tone keyboard which I will begin to develop at IPR. In conjunction with this project I will continue to work with transducers, exciting various metals, paper, and cardboard, while delving into the materiality of sound. This project, combined with the difference tone project, will manifest as an installation in which materials in the room sing and dance with ear tones. As part of this project I will also work with human resonators, doing a series of one-on-one massage performances.”
Sergei Tcherepnin is a Brooklyn-based artist who uses performance, composition, and installation to explore the materiality of sound and its physical and psychological effects on the listener. He has performed throughout NYC as an improviser with piano and modular synthesizer at venues such as the Stone, Roulette, Abrons Art Center, the Whitney Museum, the Tank, Douglas Street Music Collective, Paris London West Nile, and i-Beam Brooklyn. His compositions have been performed by ensembles such as Transit, Da Capo Chamber Players, St Luke’s Chamber Ensemble, American Wind Symphony Orchestra, American Symphony Orchestra, at spaces such as Merkin Hall, Cami Hall, Dia:Beacon, Chelsea Art Museum, Diapason Gallery, Louis Kahn’s “Point Counterpoint II,” National Youth Olympic Stadium (Tokyo), Moscow Composers Union Concert Hall, St. Petersburg Composers Union Concert Hall, and the Fisher Center for Performing Arts at Bard College. His multi-channel performances and installations have been mounted at Audio Visual Arts, Societé (Berlin), Casey Kaplan Gallery, 47 Canal, and Recess Art.
Established in 2006, ISSUE’s AIR program provides emerging artists with a 3-month residency including rehearsal space, production, curatorial, and pr/marketing support to create new works, to reach the next stage in their artistic development, and gain exposure to a broad public audience. ISSUE’s Artist-in-Residence program is made possible, in part, through generous support from the Jerome Foundation, the Suzanne Fiol Memorial Fund, and with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the New York State Council on the Arts, celebrating 50 years of building strong, creative communities in New York’s 62 counties.
ISSUE’s 2012 Artists-in-Residence: Aki Onda
“After performing as a musician using cassettes and electronics for close to a decade, I am now ready to move on to a new phase of my career. I would like to work more in interdisciplinary fields of collaboration, with filmmakers and choreographers. Moving images captured on film and moving bodies of dancers have always been vivid sources of inspiration for me in creating sound. I would like to experiment in between these fields, exploring the gaps and unknown territories within collaboration.”
Aki Onda is an electronic musician, composer, and visual artist. Onda was born in Japan and currently resides in New York. He is particularly known for his Cassette Memories project: works compiled from a “sound diary” of field-recordings collected by Onda over a span of two decades. Onda’s musical instrument of choice is the cassette Walkman. Not only does he capture field recordings with the Walkman, he also physically manipulates multiple Walkmans with electronics in his performances. In another of his projects, Cinemage, Onda produces slide projections of still photo images. Onda has collaborated with artists such as Michael Snow, Ken Jacobs, Alan Licht, Loren Connors, Oren Ambarchi, Noël Akchoté, Jac Berrocal, Linda Sharrock, and Blixa Bargeld.
Established in 2006, ISSUE’s AIR program provides emerging artists with a 3-month residency including rehearsal space, production, curatorial, and pr/marketing support to create new works, to reach the next stage in their artistic development, and gain exposure to a broad public audience. ISSUE’s Artist-in-Residence program is made possible, in part, through generous support from the Jerome Foundation, the Suzanne Fiol Memorial Fund, and with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the New York State Council on the Arts, celebrating 50 years of building strong, creative communities in New York’s 62 counties.
ISSUE’s 2012 Artists-in-Residence: Hunter Hunt Hendrix
“During my residency I intend to expand the vocabulary of Liturgy and Transcendental Black Metal along three trajectories. First I will explore and enhance resonances between the “burst beat” concept with techniques from the European avant-garde and American experimental traditions. Secondly I’ll explore multi-channel sound installation, creating an Ecstatic Space using autocatalysis, motion sensor and video elements. Third I will write and present in lecture form a Treatise on the Arkwork. These developments are en route to the composition of an apocalyptic Blakean minimalist black metal opera in the spirit of Scriabin, to be titled 01010n.”
Photo by Jason Nocito
Hunter Hunt-Hendrix is the singer, guitarist and songwriter for the Brooklyn black metal band Liturgy. Born 1985 in NYC, he matriculated at Columbia University with a B.A. in philosophy. During that time he also studied contemporary composition (electroacoustics, extended techniques and a seminar with Tristan Murail) while also maintaining a close connection to the D.I.Y. Brooklyn music scene, playing in hardcore, metal and math rock bands. In 2008 he formed Liturgy, a self-christened “Transcendental Black Metal” band committed to developing and enhancing resonances between black metal and various domains of avant-garde culture: serious music, contemporary art and contemporary philosophy. Liturgy has toured extensively in the US and Europe and gained a reputation for straddling the worlds of experimental music, indie rock and metal — playing festivals as diverse the Roadburn Festival, the Donau Festival and the New Yorker Festival — and has received accolades from the New York Times, Pitchfork, Berliner Zeitung, Decibel and others. In 2009 Liturgy released their first full-length on 20 Buck Spin, an underground metal label. Later that year Hunt-Hendrix delivered the lecture “Transcendental Black Metal” at the now-legendary Hideous Gnosis black metal theory symposium. The text of the lecture was subsequently published in the academic journal Lacanian Ink. In 2011, Thrill Jockey records released Liturgy’s sophomore release Aesthethica (called “one of the year’s most bracing” in a recent NYT review), cementing Liturgy’s place on the vanguard of experimental rock and stirring great controversy within the metal community. Hunt-Hendrix has also participated in a number of multimedia collaborations, including a performance with Kai Althoff, Brandon Stosuy and the Mirror Me Group (Dispatch gallery, 2009) and the Pipeline project with Kingsboro Press (W/ gallery, 2011). Current projects include an ongoing collaboration with abstract painter Erik Lindman and work on a new video art piece entitled “Genesis Caul”.
Established in 2006, ISSUE’s AIR program provides emerging artists with a 3-month residency including rehearsal space, production, curatorial, and pr/marketing support to create new works, to reach the next stage in their artistic development, and gain exposure to a broad public audience. ISSUE’s Artist-in-Residence program is made possible, in part, through generous support from the Jerome Foundation, the Suzanne Fiol Memorial Fund, and with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the New York State Council on the Arts, celebrating 50 years of building strong, creative communities in New York’s 62 counties.
ISSUE’s 2012 Artists-in-Residence
This year ISSUE recruited MV Carbon, Marie Losier and Alan Licht as guest panelists in addition to a recommending committee comprised of Kathleen Forde, Claire Chase, Robert Crouch, Hamish Dunbar, Tony Herrington, Jason Kahn, Andrew Lampert, George Lewis, Yann Novak, Josh Rubin, Mat Schultz and Esther Venrooy. The panelists will work with ISSUE curators Lawrence Kumpf and Zach Layton, Development Coordinator Matthew Walker and Executive Director Ed Patuto in selecting four artists or collectives for the 2012 presenting year. We greatly look forward to working with these artists in the upcoming year.
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Membership Events: Artists-in-Residence Nate Wooley & James Ilgenfritz
Photo by Brad Buehring
Two of our artists-in-residence for 2011, Nate Wooley & James Ilgenfritz, [Nate Wooley & MIVOS Quartet + Peter Evans, Saturday 6/18, FREE | RSVP] performed the other night at ISSUE’s future home 110 Livingston for a special membership event in the space. The duo, a pair of virtuoso listeners, left plenty of space for the room’s acoustics to take over. Check out their performance, available via the WFMU Free Music Archive.
Nate Wooley & James Ilgenfritz @ 110 Livingston
Photo by Brad Buehring
This past week, ISSUE held a reception and short concert by our Artists-in-Residence Nate Wooley & James Ilgenfritz [Artist-in-Residence Nate Wooley with MIVOS Quartet + Peter Evans: Saturday, 6/18, FREE | RSVP] at our future home at 110 Livingston in Downtown Brooklyn. This space, which has previously hosted more than a few string quartets, William Basinski, Ellen Fullman, and a solo acoustic (amplified) performance by Elliott Sharp, had still barely touched the performance style that makes up a healthy portion of our programming: free improvisation. Both Nate and James seem to approach improvisation as an act of listening. They leave ample space for silence, and even when playing solo don’t merely rattle off licks learned in middle school. The immediacy of their playing and their mental and emotional presence in the room is always felt.
This performance at 110 Livingston (their first public performance as a duo) seemed to amplify the artists’ awareness of their own sound. This highly reverberant space has not yet been acoustically treated, and when there are few other people and no furniture it’s difficult to even have a conversation in the room; any word spoken just bounces around the room for 7-8 seconds. So a duo performance by these two virtuoso listeners cannot help but include the room in the equation. The sounds are held, or blasted into the room. But they always step back to listen to the full sound. It’s always about the result, and about the aggregate of sounds heard, not only spoken; it’s not about the player.
Via the WFMU Free Music Archive
Artist-in-Residence: Richard Garet presents AREAL
AREAL (2010)
A new work by Artist-in-Residence Richard Garet
Interdisciplinary artist Richard Garet will be presenting AREAL, a new work for active listening, with further emphasis on physical reception by utilizing light and fog to activate ISSUE Project Room’s environment. This presentation anticipates the publication of Richard Garet’s AREAL by the West Coast media label 23Five Incorporated. It is not only the first time that this composition has been presented, but also the starting point for this performance installation. Garet will fill ISSUE Project Room’s performance area with fog, and an overhead projector will display colored light and activate the atmospheric space by changing color dynamics over time. The projector will direct light to the floor, creating a cone of light. The visitors will find themselves inside of the work actively listening and viewing. This piece will emphasize the experiential, the sensorial, and the active-reception of the body and mind. AREAL, as a composition, is a work that focuses on surfaces, gestures, differences, and distances among material and its phenomenology. It focuses on activating and amplifying expressive sonic manifestations of electromagnetic waves utilizing radio technology. All sounds used to make this piece emerged from interacting with objects, exciters, and extended techniques to activate sounds within the perimeter of the working table space. The outcome emerged from physical modulations and from establishing relationships that simulate social and spatial interactivity in the form of conversation, where what is voiced out is the result of colliding effects that are vacuumed by electromagnetic receivers from within the atmosphere of the working area.
Title: AREAL
Duration: 53′
Year: 2010
Richard Garet serves as ISSUE Project Room’s Artist-in-Residence October through December 2010. Garet’s works interweave multiple media including moving image, sound, live performances, and photography. Even though Garet’s work suits the standard gallery setting, many of his other activities as an artist explore the various practices of experimental sound and video performance.
Established in 2006, ISSUE’s AIR program provides emerging artists with a 3-month residency including rehearsal space, production, curatorial, and pr/marketing support to create new works, reach the next stage in their artistic development, and gain exposure to a broad public audience. ISSUE’s Artist-in-Residence program is made possible, in part, through generous support from the Jerome Foundation and with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the New York State Council on the Arts, celebrating 50 years of building strong, creative communities in New York’s 62 counties.
ARTIST IN RESIDENCE: MV Carbon & Brian Chase
ISSUE Project Room is pleased to present the third Artist-in-Residence performance by MV Carbon.
Part 1
MV Carbon and Brian Chase duo.
Part 2
MV Carbon solo set with sculptural instrument.
For the second half of the evening Carbon will perform a conceptual piece that explores the fluctuating facets of sentiment and nostalgia.
ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE: Richard Garet with special guests ALFI & WALDI
Richard Garet
For this performance Richard Garet will be presenting the latest development of his Light Field video series. These works examine process, color, motion, digital glitches, RGB phenomena, afterimage, and the sensory gaps between the eye and the mind. The techniques employed to make the work intend to push the boundaries of digital moving image and emphasize the media, digital permutations, and software processing as a pure and fundamental artistic gesture. Additional techniques utilized in various stages of the work are image scanning, analog and digital processes to treat light and image, rigorous and repetitive systems of digital corruption, degradation, and saturation of pixels. Ultimately Garet focuses not only in transposing, disembodying, and reconfiguring digital data, but also in expanding the aesthetics and possibilities of treated light, color, and motion as a physical experience. Garet will be performing a live electronic-experimental sound piece, to accompany the moving image, with a sonic system that consists of utilizing a modular synthesizer, analog gadgets, electromagnetic gadgets, light to sound real-time translations, methods of sonification applied to the modulation of the moving image that is being projected, and laptop processing. Richard Garet’s sonic approach during his live performances, like in the case of his sound compositions, propose that the listener/s engage with the work principally in a mode of active listening. However, in live situations Garet likes to emphasize the room’s physicality by activating the experiential, the sensorial, and the active-reception of the body and mind.
Richard Garet: Gap from ISSUE Project Room on Vimeo.
ALFI & WALDI:
Sonic perverts ALFI & WALDI return with “BAG IT” – an electro-acoustic set exploring the sounds your mother wouldn’t want you to hear. ALFI & WALDI is the duo of composers Alfredo Marin and Doron Sadja whose love story began while completing their masters at Bard College. Disgusting, beautiful, unbearable – lose control, lose your mind – let ALFI & WALDI in.
Richard Garet works interweaving multiple media including moving image, sound, live performances, and photography. He completed his mfa at Bard College, and was awarded a New York State Council on the Arts Grant. He currently has an artist residency at Issue Project Room, NY, and previously completed a residency at Taliesin West, Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture, Scottsdale, Arizona in 2006. Recent exhibitions and performances include: Never Can Say Goodbye at the former Tower Records Store; Sonochrome: an exhibition of recent works by Richard Garet, at the Public Trust Galllery, Dallas, Texas; Leervoll, Diapason Gallery; and previous exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MACBA), Barcelona, Spain; Biennial Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, San Juan, Puerto Rico; El Museo del Barrio, NYC; and more. His sound compositions have been published through sound based labels such as And-Oar, Non Visual Objects, Winds Measure Recordings, Unframed Recordings, Con-V, Leerraum, White_Line Editions, and Contour Editions. Additionally Garet co-curates with Louky Keijsers Koning, the monthly performance event LMAKseries, which integrates film, video, sound art, and media performance into the gallery’s mission at LMAK Projects in the L.E.S, NYC. Garet also currently directs the independent media label Contour Editions publishing works that explore the various possibilities of sound and light. http://www.richardgaret.com
ISSUE’s Artist-in-Residence program is made possible, in part, through generous support from the Jerome Foundation and with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the New York State Council on the Arts, celebrating 50 years of building strong, creative communities in New York’s 62 counties.
Talibam! featuring Artist-in-Residence Matt Mottel
Hailing from New York, Talibam! has been making their presence felt since 2003 through numerous live gigs, self-released cdr’s and label releases. Talibam! has toured Europe ten times since 2006 and released 18 records during this period.
They have releases on ESP Disk, Roaratorio, Azul Discografica, Evolving Ear, Pendu Sounds, Wallace Records, Holiday Records, Thors Rubber Hammer, Ecstatic Peace, Gaffer Records, Blackest Rainbow, and others.
Talibam! Is one of the most potent and fascinating bands in contemporary music. The six plus years of interplay between Mottel and Shea has created one of the most unique and exciting live shows and some of the most powerfully recorded documents of any era. At a time when most culture sticks to conservative niche opportunities, Talibam! is interested in expansion and exploration; They manage to part the sea by not sticking to genre, aesthetic predisposition or the usual norms of what being a ‘band’ is. More inclined to put on a show that any and all will like, and not be stymied by ‘avant’ type casting, they have won over both unsuspecting and in the ‘know’ audiences worldwide. The energy of Kevin Shea’s full steam drumming is not to be missed, nor is the primal tone of Mottel’s synth run through a Marshall Half Stack.
TALIBAM! is collaborating with some of the most accomplished musicians working today. On their past two studio albums, they have been joined by Cooper-Moore, Jon Irabagon (Thelonious Monk Jazz Saxaphone Award Winner 2008), Peter Evans and countless others monster players. Working with both jazz and rock musicians, Talibam!’s former collaborators are in BATTLES, TV ON THE RADIO, GRIZZLY BEAR, WOODS, AKRON FAMILY, and more.
Matt Mottel’s visage should be familiar to anyone who’s been going to shows in NYC in the past ten years. He’s been hanging around NYC clubs since he was like 16, and dropping electric mind bombs with his synthesizer in those clubs nearly as long with folks like Awesome Color, Akron/Family, Jeffrey Lewis, Chris Taylor (Grizzly Bear), Kenny Wollesen, Chris Corsano, Ras Moshe, Cooper-Moore, Sean Meehan, and his new band Shadow Maps.
Kevin Shea’s drumming and stage gymnastics have been gazed at with wide wonder through his membership in bands like Storm & Stress (Touch & Go), Coptic Light (No Quarter), People (I and Ear), Peter Evans Quartet (Firehouse 12), Kyp Malone (TV on the Radio), Tyondai Braxton (Battles) Sexy Thoughts (rcarchives.com), Mostly Other People Do The Killing (Hot Cup), etc.
ISSUE’s Artist-in-Residence program is made possible, in part, through generous support from the Jerome Foundation and with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.
Artist In Residence: Matt Mottel – Osmotic Imagination
‘A developmental work’ conceived by Matthew Mottel
photography by Syeus Mottel
photographic alteration/cinema by Brian House
lighting design by Ben Furgal
sound design by Matthew Mottel
Matthew Mottel, a native New Yorker, was influenced by many cultural ideas and people to shape his present. He has discovered that his father, Syeus Mottel, a photographer and theater director, documented many of the people that would have strong cultural value for his son. Syeus Mottel, a journalistic photographer, has one of the great underpublished narratives of cultural and political history of the late 1960′s – 70′s. His son has focused on his archive to create a contemporary ‘cinema of images’ that presents this photographic record not just as ‘pictures on a wall’ but in an environmental ‘dream state’ that hallucinates visual photographic interaction between Martin Luther King, the Silver Apples, John Cage, Ornette Coleman, journalistic photography at political rallies of the late 60′s/70′s, and iconic landscapes of America such as Big Sur, San Francisco, Washington DC and New York City.
Matthew Mottel will create an environment where photography will be digitally altered and projected at ISSUE Project Room with a backing soundscape that Mottel will perform with ‘electronically affected’ piano, oscillators and samplers. In a sense, his music is a personal take on the sum of his influences. The Silver Apples, John Cage, and Ornette Coleman factor heavily into his sound world, but his father did not introduce these artists directly to him. Instead, it must have been ‘influence via osmosis’ as these artists and more appear in Syeus Mottel’s photographic record of where and who he hung out with during this period.
‘Osmotic Imagination’ is a merger of visual stimuli and sonic alchemy. It attempts to contextualize contemporary culture to that of the past not by treating these images ‘unaltered in stoic preservation’ but to mutate historical documents and imagine a new life and future between people/places/time/thought of a past generation that have been fermented in ‘standard TIME MAGAZINE ideology’ that has not created a progression to betterment, but an end point. This work is a candid study of the past, and re-configures it for today’s society to hopefully inspire further social, artistic and political development.
Matthew Mottel, is an internationally recognized musician and artist, performing most notably with Talibam! for the past seven years. He has worked with Karole Armitage, Rhys Chatham, Cooper-Moore and many others.
Syeus Mottel is a published photographer, most notably documenting Lee Strasberg and the Actors Studio, and Buckminster Fuller. In 1973, he published a photojournalistic book ‘Charas The Improbable Dome Builders’ which documented the attempt to build geodesic domes on the Lower East Side on Manhattan.
Brian House is a bricoleur interested in art, code, and cognition. Brian’s work has been presented by the Museum of Modern Art (New York), the Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles), Rhizome at the New Museum for Contemporary Art, and has been featured in the New York Times, Dagens Nyheter, Metropolis, and Wired magazine.
Ben Furgal is an artist living in Brooklyn NY. He has exhibited at the Ridgewood Residency Program, Queens, NY, Video Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, Current Gallery, Baltimore MD, and his original artwork graces the cover of Dan Deacon’s Spiderman of the Ring’s LP.
Click here to read an in-depth discussion with Mottel on his residency.
ISSUE’s Artist-in-Residence program is made possible, in part, through generous support from the Jerome Foundation and the New York State Council on the Arts.
CSC Funk Band with Artist in Residence: Matt Mottel + Greg Ginn and the Taylor Texas Corrugators
The CSC Funk Band is Minimalist Funk. Repetition experiments. Improvisation exercises. Family fun. All star band killing it featuring Colin L (usaisamonster), Matt Mottel (talibam), Matt Clarke (Ostinato), Jimmy Thomson (Gwar), Jesse Lent (Monte Vista), Jonny Matteo(La Fundacion), Dave Kadden (Invisible Circle), Wes Buckley (Dick Heaven), a horn section. bongos. solos. psychadelic. myspace.com/cscfunkband
–for the first performance of Matthew Mottel’s Artist in Residency he brings to issue the CSC FUNK Band. In existence for over 2 years, they have been a happening vibe at parties/lofts/warehouses and clubs. Already out is a 45 rpm 7″ on Electric Cowbell with a split single to follow. In October they toured 8 men in one van up to Montreal and back on a 9 day sojourn. This gig on the 19th finds them at the home strectch of a 7 day tour where they will share the stage with the founder of BlackFlag ‘the greatest punk band ever’ who now leads an improvisational unit called ‘Greg Ginn and the Texas Corrugators’
Greg Ginn and the Taylor Texas Corrugators are an instumental group that incorporate many styles into their music. Rock/jazz/country/blues/latin/psychedelia all find their way into the mix. On the two studio recordings (Bent Edge released in 2007, and Goof Off Experts released in 2008), Greg plays all of the instruments except drums. We offer these recordings as free downloads. If you like them and feel they are worthwhile to pay for, we suggest making a donation to kittenrescue.org. These people do great work with cats. Live, the Corrugators are quite a different proposition. Playing about 150 shows (most of them opening for JAMBANG) in the last year, the group played 100% improvised sets. On the next tour, look for the Corrugators to introduce some sound loops into a portion of the set at times. For the tours, Greg has enlisted the JAMBANG members for the Corrugators as well, with Ginn playing bass/guitar, Gary Piazza on guitar, and Sean Hutchinson (borrowed from the New Moonson) on drums. http://www.myspace.com/txcorrugators
Artists in Residence: Shelley Burgon, Shannon Fields, Ryan Sawyer, Matt Lavelle, Laura Ortman & Jon Natchez
AIR Collective (January-March 2010)
To launch our 4th year of providing multi-month artist residencies, ISSUE will host the first AIR Collective Residency featuring Brooklyn-based musicians:
Jon Natchez
Matt Lavelle
Laura Ortman
Shannon Fields
Ryan Sawyer
Shelley Burgon
These composer/musicians have, for the greater part of the past decade, recorded and performed consistently beguiling and volatile and genre-defying music as members of the critically acclaimed group Stars Like Fleas. Tonight’s performances will be led by John Natchez and Matt Lavelle.
John Natchez presents “Game Night”. A pair of improvisation games for the audience’s listening (and viewing) pleasure. The first game will be a game titled “Raw Shack”, written by Shawn Feeney. More info on that can be found here: http://www.shawnfeeney.com/rawshack.php.
The second, composed by John Natchez will be a card game, played with an original deck.
Matt Lavelle has always been interested in songs in their own right,.and what can be done when they are given to the right people.The folks in this collective really provide the opportunity to explore just that,.something that cant really be found in Matt’s usual jazz and free jazz based community.The sensitivity to what makes a great song a bright moment and the courage to reach for it regardless of genre is exactly what the group will attempt tonight. Laura Ortman will be featured primarily on vocals and also violin.
As part of this new collective, these artists will be provided with rehearsal space, curatorial guidance, opportunities to meet with members of our Artistic Advisory, technical/production support, marketing/pr support, and opportunities to create new and site-specific works.
AIR Collective Performances: Jan 17, Feb 19, Mar 19
ISSUE’s AIR program made possible, in part, through the generous support of the Jerome Foundation.
ISSUE Artist-In-Residence Collective w/ Shelley Burgon, Shannon Fields, Ryan Sawyer, Matt Lavelle, Laura Ortman & Jon Natchez
AIR Collective (January-March 2010)
To launch our 4th year of providing multi-month artist residencies, ISSUE will host the first AIR Collective Residency featuring Brooklyn-based musicians:
Jon Natchez
Matt Lavelle
Laura Ortman
Shannon Fields
Ryan Sawyer
Shelley Burgon
These composer/musicians have, for the greater part of the past decade, recorded and performed consistently beguiling and volatile and genre-defying music as members of the critically acclaimed group Stars Like Fleas.
As part of this new collective, these artists will be provided with rehearsal space, curatorial guidance, opportunities to meet with members of our Artistic Advisory, technical/production support, marketing/pr support, and opportunities to create new and site-specific works.
AIR Collective Performances: Jan 17, Feb 19, Mar 19
ISSUE’s AIR program made possible, in part, through the generous support of the Jerome Foundation.
Artist-In-Residence: Matana Roberts, post-concert talk with Nate Chinen
“Ms. Roberts isn’t just mildly curious to expand her medium: She seems driven to do it.” – NY Times
“Matana is definitely nondescriptive. She’s not a lady, she’s not a man; she’s just a being…” – Jazz Times
“Roberts is a deep traditionalist who looks beyond the rigid distinctions and definitions of musical style” – Chicago Defender
“…alto saxophonist and clarinetist Matana Roberts –add this name to the frustratingly short list of excellent, female reed players…” – All About Jazz
“…Roberts is a fluid, elegant player who rejects the star soloist approach of many a saxophonist….” – BBC Jazz
“The sound of Matana Roberts’ alto sax spans jazz her-story, from its roots in New Orleans, through the swinging ‘30s-40s, to the New Thing.” – All About Jazz
A CAN CAN FOR COIN COIN…
Rooted in her strong belief that sharing honest creativity is a catalyst for instant community, Matana Roberts and ISSUE Project Room will join together for A CAN CAN FOR COIN COIN, a concert and food drive for her last performance as Artist-in-Residence on December 9th. While developing her blood narrative COIN COIN, she has been trying to connect the work to the social activism inherent in sharing art, and the devotion to community activism prevalent throughout in her family tree. In honor of her ancestors, she is creating this community-focused food drive benefiting the Bread and Life Soup Kitchen, a healthy food initiative that brings both physical and mental nourishment to in-need areas around Brooklyn.
Matana Roberts (Reeds)
Amelia Hollander (Viola)
Jessica Pavone (Viola)
Daniel Levin (Cello)
Keith Witty (bass)
Tomas Fujiwara (drums)
Daniel Givens (projections)
The concert will be followed by a talk with Nate Chinen, a regular music contributor to the New York Times, JazzTimes and The Village Voice.
COIN COIN: In Essence, a Musical Monument to the Human Experience
Matana will premiere the last of three new COIN COIN pieces which focus on spacial and environmental interplay while excavating themes relating to her familial heritage and own personal history.
Matana cultivates an environment where every surface, from walls to floors, to furnishings to large instruments, serve as sonic reciprocators. Keeping visual aesthetics in mind just as much as the auditory experience, and having utilized raw space and various architectures before, Matana creates a comprehensive sensory experience for the audience, attempting to create an intimate “womb” feeling.
Her work during the Residency focuses on and attempts to deconstruct recent discoveries in her lineage and family histories. Researching back to the 1700’s, Matana explores themes of hardship and perseverance while trying to find and construct her own identity. Since beginning this project, she has found that her lineage includes Irish, Dutch, Danish, English, Scottish, African and others, imploring a critical look
at the title “African American”.
Since her youth, Matana was surrounded by musicians who showed by distinct example the importance of listening to one’s personal creative voice while at the same time using the profound and many layered traditions of jazz and improvised musics to act only as her creative guide, not as her creative definer. By using their mentorship, she has been able to craft a voice and creative focus that truly speaks to her own artistic individuality. She feels strongly that her music should not only reflect the many colors and moods of universal human emotions, but that it should also testify, critique, document, and respond to the many socio-economic, historical, and cultural inequalities that exist all over the world.
Matana, a 2006 Van Lier fellow, Brecht Forum fellow, and 2008 and 2009 Alpert Award in the Arts nominee, has appeared as a collaborator on recordings and performances in the U.S., Europe, and Canada with her own ensembles as well as with the collaborative jazz trio Sticks and Stones, Black Rock Coalition founder Greg Tate’s Burnt Sugar, Reg E Gaines and Savion Glover’s homage project to the late John Coltrane, the Oliver Lake Big Band, and the Julius Hemphill Sextet and Merce Cunningham dance. She recently released a homage project to her hometown entitled The Chicago Project, on Barry Adamson’s Central Control International, produced by pianist extraordinaire Vijay Iyer, featuring friends and supporters of her Chicago development. She has also recorded as a side person on recordings with such iconic bands as Godspeed You Black Emperor, TV on the Radio, Guillermo Scott Herren’s Savath and Savalas, Silver Mt Zion, and sound artist Daniel Given’s Day Clear/Day dark. Matana is a member of the AACM– Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians and the BRC– Black Rock Coalition.
To learn more about Matana’s vision for her residency, read her interview “In conversation with Matana Roberts, ISSUE’s Current Artist-In-Residence” with David Martinson or visit www.matanaroberts.com
ISSUE’s AIR program made possible, in part, through the generous support of the Jerome Foundation.
Artist-In-Residence: Matana Roberts
“Ms. Roberts isn’t just mildly curious to expand her medium: She seems driven to do it.” – NY Times
“Matana is definitely nondescriptive. She’s not a lady, she’s not a man; she’s just a being…” – Jazz Times
“Roberts is a deep traditionalist who looks beyond the rigid distinctions and definitions of musical style” – Chicago Defender
“…alto saxophonist and clarinetist Matana Roberts –add this name to the frustratingly short list of excellent, female reed players…” – All About Jazz
“…Roberts is a fluid, elegant player who rejects the star soloist approach of many a saxophonist….” – BBC Jazz
On November 18, Matana will present COIN COIN Happening II: Fields of Memphis, featuring violinist Mazz Swift
Matana ( mah-tah-nah)Roberts, is a dynamic saxophonist, composer and improviser, who tries to expose in her music the mystical roots and spiritual traditions of American creative expression.
As a Chicago native she was fortunate enough to be surrounded by musicians who showed her by distinct example the importance of listening to one’s personal creative voice while at the same time using the profound and many layered traditions of jazz and improvised musics to act only as her creative guide, not as her creative definer. By using their mentorship, she has been able to craft a voice and creative focus that truly speaks to her own true artistic individuality. She feels strongly that her music should not only reflect the many colors and moods of universal human emotions, but that it should also testify, critique, document, and respond to the many socio-economic, historical, and cultural inequalities that exist not only in this country, but all over the world.
Matana, a 2006 Van Lier fellow, Brecht Forum fellow, and 2008 and 2009 Alpert Award in the Arts nominee, has appeared as a collaborator on recordings and performances in the U.S., Europe, and Canada with her own ensembles as well as with the collaborative jazz trio Sticks and Stones, Black Rock Coalition founder Greg Tate’s Burnt Sugar, Reg E Gaines and Savion Glover’s homage project to the late John Coltrane, the Oliver Lake Big Band, and the Julius Hemphill Sextet and Merce Cunningham dance. She recently released a homage project to her hometown entitled The Chicago Project, on Barry Adamson’s Central Control International, produced by pianist extraordinaire Vijay Iyer, featuring friends and supporters of her Chicago development. She has also recorded as a side person on recordings with such iconic bands as Godspeed You Black Emperor, TV on the Radio, Guillermo Scott Herren’s Savath and Savalas, Silver Mt Zion, and sound artist Daniel Given’s Day Clear/Day dark. Matana is a member of the AACM– Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians and the BRC– Black Rock Coalition.
ABOUT COIN COIN : a blood narrative in blacks, browns, reds , and blues….
Since 2005 Saxophonist/composer Matana Roberts has been experimenting on a sound narrative about the intricacies, contradictions and questions that surround the human bloodline experience. How when broken down into the most minute details new meanings arise beyond the surface levels of one dimensional human acceptance; generally attached to shades of difference, and fear of the unknown. Transcending sometimes the unbearable in order to create new possibilities of understanding the human condition.
Using herself and research she has done on her own bloodline history and various ensembles she leads as the “guinea pig” in this sound endeavor, she has been able to cull a myriad of rich and awe inspiring stories that speaks many interesting truths about the flexibility and wonder of individual understanding. Transversing the American South of days past– traveling reflections of African, French, Irish, English, Scottish, Canadian, and Choctaw, Cherokee, Chickasaw Native America history, Matana is weaving together stories and lore that speak to a very distinct, historically experimental, yet common, American experience. For her, a very personal search in sound practice that opens a dialogue for possibilities going beyond the specific; regenerating a focus that she hopes in the end celebrates the inherent potential that resides in the overflowing capability of human love, sadness, kindredness, perseverance, and joy
To learn more about Matana’s vision for her residency, read her interview “In conversation with Matana Roberts, ISSUE’s Current Artist-In-Residence” with David Martinson.
ISSUE’s AIR program made possible, in part, through the generous support of the Jerome Foundation.
Artist In Residence: Ha Yang Kim
Cellist, composer and improviser Ha-Yang Kim was born in Seoul, Korea. Ha-Yang made her professional solo debut at age 16 with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Hailed as “phenomenal” and playing with “brilliant technique full of energy, concentration, musicality and expression” (Mainpost, Germany), she performs new music as a soloist and with ensembles and artists in festivals and concert venues throughout the world. She is the founder of Odd Appetite, a cello-percussion duo which performs and commissions new contemporary works alongside original works and improvisations. Ms. Kim has developed a unique language of extended string techniques and has created her own music based on this work, as well as collaborating on new pieces from other composers. Her musical influences draw equally from a range of western classical music, American experimentalism, rock, jazz, and improvised music, to non-western musical sources from Bali, Korea and South Indian classical music (Karnatic). Her music has been performed in the US, Turkey, The Netherlands, Belgium, Korea, and Germany. In seeking new musical experiences, Ha-Yang has performed traditional and new Balinese music as a member of Gamelan Galak Tika, and has collaborated/ performed with many diverse musicians such as Evan Ziporyn, Cecil Taylor, John Zorn, Christian Wolff, Lee Hyla, Louis Andriessen, Lukas Ligeti, Larry Polansky, and Stefan Poetzsch, with whom she has presented original compositions incorporating electronics, dance, theatre, and multi-media.
Past performances include as soloist at Carnegie Hall, touring and playing at festivals in the US, Europe, Cuba and Bali, Indonesia, performing at the Bang on a Can Marathon with both her duo and the All-Stars, composing for and performing at the Kwacheon International Theatre Festival in Seoul, Korea, a solo recital at the Hochschule für Musik in Würzburg, Germany, and broadcast recordings for the Bavarian Radio Network. Upcoming performances of her music include at festivals in St. Petersburg and Moscow, Russia, Holland, Belgium and in the US. Ama, a CD of her own compositions, is released on Tzadik. Ms. Kim has also recorded for New World, Cold Blue, New Albion, Karnatic Lab and Bridge Records.
She has received prizes and awards including a grant from Meet the Composer, Trust for Mutual Understanding, the Argosy Foundation, the Ruth Schwob Foundation, and The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Ms. Kim has been an artist-in-residence at Princeton University, Brown University, Harvard University, Dartmouth College, Bates College, Brandeis University and at the Walden School for Young Composers. Ha-Yang studied cello, improvisation, and microtonality at the New England Conservatory of Music, Karnatic music concepts at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, and was on the faculty at Franklin Pierce College in New Hampshire, USA. She currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.
ISSUE Project Room’s Artist In Residence Program is made possible through generous support from the Jerome Foundation
Artist In Residence: Matana Roberts
“Ms. Roberts isn’t just mildly curious to expand her medium: She seems driven to do it.” - NY Times
“Matana is definitely nondescriptive. She’s not a lady, she’s not a man; she’s just a being…” – Jazz Times
“Roberts is a deep traditionalist who looks beyond the rigid distinctions and definitions of musical style” – Chicago Defender
“…alto saxophonist and clarinetist Matana Roberts –add this name to the frustratingly short list of excellent, female reed players…” – All About Jazz
“…Roberts is a fluid, elegant player who rejects the star soloist approach of many a saxophonist….” – BBC Jazz
“The sound of Matana Roberts’ alto sax spans jazz her-story, from its roots in New Orleans, through the swinging ‘30s-40s, to the New Thing.” – All About Jazz
Matana Roberts COIN COIN : a blood narrative in blacks, browns, reds , and blues….
Since 2005 Saxophonist/composer Matana Roberts has been experimenting on a sound narrative about the intricacies, contradictions and questions that surround the human bloodline experience. How when broken down into the most minute details new meanings arise beyond the surface levels of one dimensional human acceptance; generally attached to shades of difference, and fear of the unknown. Transcending sometimes the unbearable in order to create new possibilities of understanding the human condition.
Using herself and research she has done on her own bloodline history and various ensembles she leads as the “guinea pig” in this sound endeavor, she has been able to cull a myriad of rich and awe inspiring stories that speaks many interesting truths about the flexibility and wonder of individual understanding. Transversing the American South of days past– traveling reflections of African, French, Irish, English, Scottish, Canadian, and Choctaw, Cherokee, Chickasaw Native America history, Matana is weaving together stories and lore that speak to a very distinct, historically experimental, yet common, American experience. For her, a very personal search in sound practice that opens a dialogue for possibilities going beyond the specific; regenerating a focus that she hopes in the end celebrates the inherent potential that resides in the overflowing capability of human love, sadness, kindredness, perseverance, and joy.
COIN COIN, in essence, a musical monument to the human experience.
For her residency at the Issue Project Room Matana has decided to use her time there to create what she is calling “COIN COIN Happenings” based on ideas and concepts she has used to put together some of the larger ensemble chapters. Purposely pairing down each piece to duo live instrumental pairings, combined with pre arranged field recordings, she will experiment in ways that she has been unable to yet in some of the large ensemble pieces, aiming to create sonic environments that would pull even the most particular witness in. These Happenings will be based around three upcoming chapters of the work, whose current working titles are:
Wed September 30th– Chapter 6: exodus: bell, book, and candle
Thursday October 29th–Chapter 7: papa joe
Wednesday November 18th– Chapter 8: the field(s) of memphis
Her last performance in the Issue residency ( Wed, December 9th) will be the premiere of a current new reworking of a large ensemble chapter — Chapter 1—Gens de Couleur Libre/Free People of Color
Each performance will be followed by reading from Matana’s self published ‘zine about the project Fat Ragged and will evolve from there into a question and answer session for anyone in attendance about the project as well as a discussion of resources that can be used searching for ones genealogical traces.
Matana (mah-tah-nah) Roberts, is a dynamic saxophonist, composer and improviser, who tries to expose in her music the mystical roots and spiritual traditions of American creative expression.
As a Chicago native she was fortunate enough to be surrounded by musicians who showed her by distinct example the importance of listening to one’s personal creative voice while at the same time using the profound and many layered traditions of jazz and improvised musics to act only as her creative guide, not as her creative definer. By using their mentorship, she has been able to craft a voice and creative focus that truly speaks to her own true artistic individuality. She feels strongly that her music should not only reflect the many colors and moods of universal human emotions, but that it should also testify, critique, document, and respond to the many socio-economic, historical, and cultural inequalities that exist not only in this country, but all over the world.
Matana, a 2006 Van Lier fellow, Brecht Forum fellow, and 2008 and 2009 Alpert Award in the Arts nominee, has appeared as a collaborator on recordings and performances in the U.S., Europe, and Canada with her own ensembles as well as with the collaborative jazz trio Sticks and Stones, Black Rock Coalition founder Greg Tate’s Burnt Sugar, Reg E Gaines and Savion Glover’s homage project to the late John Coltrane, the Oliver Lake Big Band, and the Julius Hemphill Sextet and Merce Cunningham dance. She recently released a homage project to her hometown entitled The Chicago Project, on Barry Adamson’s Central Control International, produced by pianist extraordinaire Vijay Iyer, featuring friends and supporters of her Chicago development. She has also recorded as a side person on recordings with such iconic bands as Godspeed You Black Emperor, TV on the Radio, Guillermo Scott Herren’s Savath and Savalas, Silver Mt Zion, and sound artist Daniel Given’s Day Clear/Day dark. Matana is a member of the AACM– Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians and the BRC– Black Rock Coalition.
She has played alongside some of the most intriguing creative sound visionaries spanning across genres of this time period and currently resides in New York City
On January 25, ISSUE Project Room will inaugurate its new space at 110 Livingston with Gaudeamus Muziekweek, a four-day festival celebrating groundbreaking and challenging new music by emerging composers from around the world. Working in partnership ...
ISSUE is starting off the New Year with a change of scenery. That's right, Issue Project Room is moving out of our space at the Old American Can Factory and into 110 Livingston in Downtown Brooklyn. We've had a great run at the Can Factory,...