ACE [Artist Curated Events]

Artist curated series of works expressing sound experience: video/audio, performance, installation, and more...

Fri, October 27 - Sun, October 29, 2023 Online presentations premiered.

PROGRAM #1
Video premieres Fri, October 27 at 6 pm

Intro (00:00:00)
I Cannot Feel the Land Beneath Me - Nuttaphol Ma (00:00:07)
The Sound of the Nexus Touches Our Warm Body - Marc Perez (00:02:41)
Jocko’s Exploding World - The Johnsons (00:09:04)
Wire Ghost Garden - Chad Eby (00:22:48)
Vertical Integration (In Memoriam James Thomer) - Eliot Burk (00:28:57)
End (01:14:35)

I Cannot Feel the Land Beneath Me - Nuttaphol Ma
“I Cannot Feel the Land Beneath Me” excavates Angel Island’s past hauntings to create a contemplative space between our dreams of leaving, dreams of roots. The soundscapes comprising of undulating waves landing on China Cove, echos of a lighthouse bell, footstep callings and wall scratchings become protagonists in the film.

The Sound of the Nexus Touches Our Warm Body - Marc Perez
"The Sound of The Nexus Touches Our Warm Bodies" is a track meant to depict our volatile partnership with technology. We all yearn to build connections, to access one another's hearts through a chiral network in attempts to make meaningful impressions and memories with one another. There is an immense beauty to this, as well as a sinister and malignant nature that exists within this nexus itself. It is vast, it is all knowing, it is all remembering, it is us yet not truly us. This track depicts a story of one's literally fusing with this world wide nexus we all have access to in the palm of our hands.

Jocko’s Exploding World - The Johnsons
Our homage to the late, great land speed vehicle designer and sculptor, Jocko Johnson.

Wire Ghost Garden - Chad Eby
"In the Wireghost Garden" is a generative sound piece which arises from a simulation of spring networks, physically modeled resonators, and synthetic tape delays. Once initiated, the system runs autonomously creating an ethereal but somewhat threatening soundscape of uncertain acoustic ecology.

Vertical Integration (In Memoriam James Thomer) - Eliot Burk
Partially destroyed fragments of hundreds of musical instruments being thrown, pushed, dragged, and swept down a 6-story stairwell, filmed inside the instruments.
Performed by Eliot Burk, Nelle Anderson, Nic Brennan, Brody Scott, Peter Hagar & Clare Marie Nemanich on 12/4/2022 in the Boss Baby Stairwell at the California Institute of the Arts.

The ground will sprout thorns and weeds, you’ll get your food the hard way, Planting and tilling and harvesting, sweating in the fields from dawn to dusk, Until you return to that ground yourself, dead and buried;
you started out as dirt, you’ll end up dirt. Genesis 3:17

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Video premieres Fri, October 27 at 8 pm
Up The Drone Suite - Hamscholar

"Up The Drone Suite" deconstructs the concept of "drone music" to arrive at a sort of sound collage that is elastic in its associations and laser-like in its focus on achieving the state of a waking dream in the listener. Imagery is taken from life. Magic Realism is, in fact, Realism.

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PROGRAM #2
Video premieres Sat, October 28 at 6 pm

Intro (00:00:00)
Secrets Beneath the Whispering Leaves - M A Harms & Clare Marie Nemanich (00:00:07)
Black Bird - Ingetrapt (00:06:41)
Paper Boundary - Leather Circuit (00:31:18)
Eight Triptychs - Onty & LilFireManic (00:41:54)
End (01:10:57)

Secrets Beneath the Whispering Leaves - M A Harms & Clare Marie Nemanich
How do you prioritize presentation and aesthetics when plating soups and salads? What techniques do you use to ensure consistent quality and flavor in soups and salads? We asked ourselves these questions, and many more. The only possible answer is "Secrets Beneath the Whispering Leaves."

Black Bird - Ingetrapt
A group of artists from all over Europe came together for the artistic residency. A blackbird living on this territory immediately introduced itself to the group, singing loudly, fluttering close by, occupying most of the sound space. The piece recounts the possibility of an encounter between humans and birds, the inter- species relationships that emerge, the possibility of friendship, politeness and respect between a group of humans and a bird.
The piece focuses on the sounds of a particular place. The aim is to oscillate between musical work and testimonies, to find the balance between joy, hope and anguish, particularly in relation to ecological issues, and to question the place of the artist with these issues.

Paper Boundary - Leather Circuit
The sounds, sights, weather, waves, creatures, and radio far from land.

Eight Triptychs - Onty & LilFireManic
Eight Triptychs is an experimental video production which presents eight three-part explorations of affective themes, drawn from six months of sampling audiovisual material from across the cyberethnographic landscape. Each Triptych is an assembly of three one-minute audiovisual mixes with a given one-word theme, such that each Triptych is an assembly of three words.
The Triptychs include: Emergency Nightmare Now; Hyper Nostalgia Repetitions; Infinite Victory Loop; Ultra Love Incoming; Density Saturation Texture; De Materialized Zone; God Seed Reentry; and Icon Index Symbol. These eight triptychs are presenting along with original music by musician and collaborator LilFireManic, as well as three original visual effects bumpers that serve as 'Interludes' after Triptychs 2, 4 and 6. Taken together, they constitute a journey across the various strata and flows which course across our cybercultural consciousness.

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Video premieres Sat, October 28 at 8 pm on phog masheeen's YouTube channel: https://tinyurl.com/AtBottom
At The Bottom - phog masheeen

At The Bottom features contributions by Wikigong, Skunk Puppet, Kurt Comstock, Janet Housden, Heather Williamson and phog masheeen.
The theme for At The Bottom was an intentional nautical reference. Chosen because of soundpedro's location of the physical event at Angeles Gate Cultural Center and because the city of San Pedro is a center of all things nautical. Although the prompt is "At the bottom." The videos produced by the various artists take the prompt in directions of their own choosing.
Read more about "At The Bottom" on phog masheeen's artist page

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PROGRAM #3
Video premieres Sun, October 29 at 6 pm

Intro (00:00:00)
I am in the Sea or Sea in me? - Gintas K (00:00:07)
Bioacoustic Variability - Grace Shannon (00:21:34)
You Had Me At WetWallet - Hamdrew Davis (00:26:12)
Sound Improvisation for Melting Ice - Andre Perim (00:38:21)
End (01:23:21)

I am in the Sea or Sea in me? - Gintas K
Live electroacoustic composition. No any field recordings or any other sound samples where used in the composition.
Conceptually opposite to field recordings

Recorded at Klaipėda Culture Communications Centre (KKKC), Artist Residency presentation.

Bioacoustic Variability - Grace Shannon
Bioacoustics as a means of data collection is a unique and developing field. Soundscape ecology allows for biological research through the application of biophonic sound intake (species identification, biodiversity estimations, etc.), but also presents the increasing intervention of anthropophonic sound and its implications.
"Bioacoustic Variability" examines birdsong recorded in Long Beach and in San Pedro’s White Point Nature Preserve. The reception of birdsong by the human ear has been studied and interpreted scientifically, recreationally, and spiritually. "Bioacoustic Variability" receives and manipulates this sound and the created environment, as human interference disrupts the natural and instinctive communication & processes of its organisms.

You Had Me At WetWallet - Hamdrew Davis
"You Had Me At WetWallet" is an impressionistic collage in sound and video of one subject's departure into daydream, dementia, or psychological withdrawal - or is it enlightenment?

Sound Improvisation for Melting Ice - Andre Perim
The work is based in a video recording of a melting ice made through a digital microscope.
The sound track was made with virtual synthesizers operated by knobs and a prepared piano reprocessed through granular synthesis.

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Video premieres Sun, October 29 at 8 pm
and the home of the [placeholder] - //sense

“Placeholder” denotes a temporary state of unknown. It holds a value that is yet to be input, gathered, and defined. //sense, despite being a Chicago-based collective, houses members from all over the country and the globe. As newcomers, we explore the value and meaning of “home” together as it holds a special place in our hearts. To celebrate our diverse cultural experiences, we devise performance modules that reflect our upbringing and encounters. We explore how our diverse backgrounds and expertise create a harmonious space for us to co-exist simultaneously.

eARThLB by east village caravanserai
Video installation presented during soundpedro2023 MINGLE June 3rd On-site event at Angels Gate Cultural Center.

eARThLB contributing artists responded to a prompt from east village caravanserai*:
“We are pummeled by constant bad news about our earth. Individual responses can seem inadequate. When the future feels uncertain, how do we move forward? What do artivists say in response to these times? We’d like to hear whatever you choose to say, write, paint, record, dance, photograph, or compose to/for/about the fragment of the planet known as Long Beach, CA. We’re asking for work that addresses, describes, converses with, interrogates, celebrates, howls, laughs, screams at, symbolizes or represents our land-sea-air-scape and anything in it.”
*east village caravanserai curates chamber theatre and other performances in small, accessible community spaces in the East Village/Downtown Long Beach area. Bringing together performing artists and audiences through shows that are socio-politically relevant to Long Beach’s communities.

https://www.eastvillagecaravanserai.org/

eARThLB ACE Event contributing artists:
Akari Komura • Alexander McVickar • anthill.on.linden • Bret Harte Elementary School students • Carole Rouin • cindy "cindita" macias • Connie DK Lane • Da Aie Park • Dani Lunn • David Eddington • Institute 4 Labor Generosity Workers & Uniforms • Karena Massengill • Kay Erickson • Kommunitarischerkitschkünstler • mirrored fatality • Ricardo Tomasz • Sheriann Ki Sun Burnham
(Artist bios available on the east village caravanserai page.)

December Bells by Vedran Mehinovic
Audio program presented during soundpedro2023 MINGLE June 3rd On-site event at Angels Gate Cultural Center.

December Bells is an ambient work of nearly two hours, an expansion of an eight-minute kantele (Finnish zither) composition by Pauliina Syrjälä. An instructor at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, her piece Kirkonkellot (Church Bells) is based on a kantele recording from the early 20th century. Finland declared independence from the Russian Empire on December 6, 1917. Parts of my work emulate scores of bells ringing out in celebration all around. The kantele is an instrument synonymous with Finnish identity, its creation attributed to the mythological shaman Väinämöinen, who chanted powerful spells. The densely overlapping textures of December Bells reflect this, along with the traditionally repetitive and interlocking nature of kantele performance, and similar singing styles of the Baltic region. Syrjälä’s work can be heard at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKHAxW_Gp7M.