January 20 - 28 Video Week
A major mini-Festival featuring, examining, and hustling
live video art.
Friday,
January 20
Rhizome.org Presents...Crap-tops vs.
Laptops featuring Paper Rad, Treewave, E*Rock, Y.A.C.H.T., LoVid,
noteNdo, Bit Shifter, and Nullsleep
Computer-generated beats made with 8-bit and 32-bit technologies
come
together in this evening of video and multimedia performance.
Employing a
range of materials--be they hacked Atari consoles or more
recent
software--the artists demonstrate a common interest in 'dirt
style' and
bringing the obsolete to colorful and rhythmic life. Presenting
opposing
ends of the hi-tech (laptops) to low-end (craptops) spectrum,
the line-up will reveal how blurry the ratio of bits involved
in sound production can become. Can you tell whether the
sizzle of static or a chorus of 8-bit bleeps has been made
with the Nintendo Gameboy you trashed or the G5 you covet?
Join us on January 20th to test your ears and eyes.
door times: 7pm and 9pm (two separate seatings) admission: $5 (for Rhizome members), $8
(for non-members) reservations
are recommended Saturday,
January 21
EAI Presents...Cory Arcangel
He has hacked Domino's Pizza and ordered several
pies through a highly low-tech use of UNIX command line.
He recently committed Friendster suicide in front of a crowd
of museum goers. He has hacked Super Mario Brothers and
created a scrolling show of pixelated clouds. He has shown
at Team Gallery, Deitch Projects,
Space 1026, and most recently at PaceWildenstein.
He is everywhere like the Internet. He also operates a Web
LOG on that Internet.
And tonight EAI will present a special program of new and
recent videos selected by the artist.
door times: 7:30pm and 10pm (two separate
seatings) admission: $8 reservations
are recommended
Wednesday,
January 25
{R}ake A performance series of alternative and collaborative
electro-acoustic music and video
The a/v performance series {R}ake returns after a short
hiatus.
{R}ake focuses on electro-acoustic musicians and live video
artists who integrate their mediums in exploratory and collaborative
ways. {R}ake has called on some of its past performers to
generate a night fitting the unique space and ambience of
Monkey Town, creating music and multi-channel video appropriate
to both performance and dining in-the-round.
The evening features a/v improvisations ranging from the
sublime to the darkly absurd, investigations of sonic textures
and melodies intersecting with representational and abstract
video, and interpretations of John Cage. Means of production
include acoustic instruments, laptops, live cameras, software
and a table full of odd and found objects.
For a complete list of performers and descriptions of
their work, visit: {R}ake
time: 8pm - Midnight admission: $7 reservations
are recommended
Thursday, January
26
Unstablelandscape + del Zotto + Shiftic An evening of laptop/keyboard sounds and real-time
improvisational video
These three artists will perform an evening of laptop/keyboard
sounds and real-time improvisational video. Space, speed
and bodies collapse in fast paced sets with an unexpected
emergent theater of sounds wave spaces and retro-futuristic
pixel worlds.
Marlon Barrios Solano (Unstablelandscape)
is a dance artist and interactive video designer from Venezuela
based in NYC since 1994. He explores the interactive and
generative potential of real-time software and portable
computing for the creation of live visuals for Vjeing and
multimedia dance performances. He combines a strong computational
approach for the real-time manipulation of the video matrix
and its relationship with his physical actions. He is artist
in residency at STEIM (The Netherlands) and at ACCAD The
Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design (The Ohio
State University). He performs, lectures and teaches internationally
on interactive multimedia and performance. As a live video
performer he has presented his work in New York, Germany,
Poland and The Netherlands.
Walter Ego (aka Dennis Del Zotto) began
making music as a teenager, playing drums with various bands.
Since the 80's he has been making huge inflatable installations
and performance art. He has been given the moniker "The
Inflatable Man" and has also been known as "Zendez"
the performance artist. In recent history, he has taken
up mixing laptop and live percussion. He has performed at
Phenomena, Ongolia, Galapagos and
Share to name a few. Since 2002 he has performed with vocalist/performance
artist Shelley Hirsch at Phenomena (subtonic); PS1 in Queens,
BASS Museum of Art in Miami and for The Edible Dress
project in Nurnberg Germany.
Shiftic (aka Walter Froetscher) has ben
experimenting with music and sound since 1991, working primarily
with piano, analog/electronic Synthesizers, experimental
guitar & bass, digital editing and compositions. He
performed live in NY this year at Share with Shelley Hirsch
(experimental Vocals), Dennis Delzotto (electronic Percussions)
and performances in Vienna with Once 11 (electronic music),
Atmsferik (realtime 3D-animations) and DJ Heidecker (turntables).
His music is best described in terms of theatrical performance,
as a stage-set which invites the audience to assume the
actors' role. Lead voices are eliminated, allowing listeners
to discover their own imaginary space. Repetitive patterns
are used to avoid immediate associations and to stimulate
a territory for a new (re-) discovery and individual experience.
Inspired by textural and environmental sounds and his background
as both an architect and experimental dancer. Shiftic creates
sound spaces which feel familiar. These places are not new,
as they exist within each listener and are self-actualized
through the experience of sound. We all walk through spaces,
but can a space also walk through you?
door times: 8pm and 10pm (two separate
seatings) admission: $5 reservations
are recommended
Friday,
January 27
Harkness A/V Selects An evening of multisensory performance featuring work
by Bradley Eros, Ray Sweeten and the duo of Zach Layton
and Chika
These artists combine electronic sounds and projections
from a variety of 'alternative cinema' sources to create
an immersive media environment, maximizing Monkey Town's
quadravisual screening system. For those out there who miss
the 'chill-out room' era, this event should be for you...
Ray Sweeten will present, specifically
for Monkey Town, a piece for four oscilloscopes. An oscilloscope
is an analog instrument that graphs the flow of electrical
impulse on an x and y axis. Though its main
applications are in scientific research, Ray uses the 'scope
to visualize
compositions of sweeping electronic sound, creating sculptural
Lissajous
patterns and tesselations that seem to journey into the
beyond. Ray has
presented his oscillographic work at The Kitchen, Ocularis,
PS122, and the Roberta Beck Memorial Cinema.
Bradley Eros uses the medium of cinema
to evoke primal, biological forms:
fire, water, undulations of microscopic life, and the systems
of the human body. His experiments with color liquid projection
and the decomposition of celluloid have led him to a unique
aesthetic of ethereal and sensual beauty, which are most
often accompanied by haunting sound collages (also Bradley's
doing). He is the founder of the Robert (now Roberta) Beck
Memorial Cinema, hosted by Participant Gallery and was featured
in the Whitney Museum's 2004 Biennial.
Zach Layton and Chika will perform their
celebrated "alpha wave"
collaboration. Zach generates a variety of sine waves at
barely audible,
"fundamental" frequencies. When combined, these
sounds create 'acoustic
beats,' rhythmic pulses that exist in the spaces between
cycles of
differing acoustic waveforms. Zach's organic rhythms are
harnessed to
modulate the geometric visuals of digital video artist Chika,
whose
kinetic patterns of concentric circles and DNA-like forms
evoke the
pioneering computer animations of James Whitney. Their collaboration
has
been performed at "Becoming" events for Roberta
Beck Memorial Cinema and Millennium Film Workshop, and (of
course) at Harkness A/V Salon.
Curator and musician Nick Hallett is the
founder of Harkness A/V, a
collaborative multimedia project to promote the germination
of ideas among audiovisual artists, culminating in a regular
"salon" at Secret Project Robot.
door times: 7:30pm and 10pm (two separate
seatings) admission: $8 reservations
are recommended
Update:Both shows are Sold Out please
call if you would like to be on the Wait List.
Saturday,
January 28
Video Out The Story of VJ'ing and Live Video Art With a live set from Josh Goldberg
Directed by Paul
Vlachos and Meredith
Finkelstein, this film attempts to answer the
eternal question: "What is a VJ?" To which many
of the artists respond, "I hate that term." And
then they tell the camera some other terms they prefer.
Interspersing interviews with historic and contemporary
footage, the filmmakers draw connections between the San
Francisco light shows, Max's Kansas City, the founding of
The Kitchen by Woody and Steina Vasulka, and the myriad
club scenes where live video artists have tried, died, and
thrived.
The result is a comprehensive survey of what it means to
trick eyes and distort light by any means necessary.
duration: 83 minutes
door times: 7:30pm and 10pm (two separate seatings) admission: $8 reservations
are recommended
