Sunday, October 26, 2014
October 26 Utility Quilt
Artist Wynde Dyer continues her community quilt project. She worked with a group of 5-11 year olds to design and fabricate pattern quilts from poly tarp. There is more to this story too. Opening at Stumptown Coffee Division 4525 SE Division 4PM-6 Free
Saturday, October 25, 2014
October 25 Spare Box
We have plenty of woods here. Enough to get lost in in a good way. (Lost) In the Woods is an art show on that theme by Shelley Jordon, sound by Kurt Rohde. It opens at the University of Oregon White Stag Building, whitebox.uoregon.edu 70 NW Couch 4PM-7
I'm Against It and Ad Hoc at Home is a punk art show. In Surplus Space, a home sometime art gallery, with stellar shows, Portland style!
I'm not going to rewrite this curious description: "Jodie Cavalier presents a series of sculptures informed by punk fashion and Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons. Stephen Slappe brings us selections from his series of Situationist skate videos. Local acts Consumer and YAH-EEF-AY will perform with audio cassettes, blenders, and the weather to supplement the venn of authenticity, revolt, and appropriation. Thomas Gamble will be offering stick and poke tattoos of the CRASS logo throughout the duration of the evening."
Recommended! Surplus Space is taking a break until January after this, so see it! At Surplus Space www.SurplusSpace.info 3726 NE 7th 6PM-9 Free
I'm Against It and Ad Hoc at Home is a punk art show. In Surplus Space, a home sometime art gallery, with stellar shows, Portland style!
I'm not going to rewrite this curious description: "Jodie Cavalier presents a series of sculptures informed by punk fashion and Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons. Stephen Slappe brings us selections from his series of Situationist skate videos. Local acts Consumer and YAH-EEF-AY will perform with audio cassettes, blenders, and the weather to supplement the venn of authenticity, revolt, and appropriation. Thomas Gamble will be offering stick and poke tattoos of the CRASS logo throughout the duration of the evening."
Recommended! Surplus Space is taking a break until January after this, so see it! At Surplus Space www.SurplusSpace.info 3726 NE 7th 6PM-9 Free
Thursday, October 16, 2014
October 19 Blue Zena Oops Xhurch
Julia Dolan, Ph.D., the Portland Art Museum Minor White Curator Of Photography and Christopher Rauschenberg, Blue Sky Gallery Cofounder, present a talk accompanying the Blue Sky at 40 show. At the Portland Art Museum www.pam.org 1219 SW Park 2PM Members, free; students, seniors $12, else $15
Nee Yu, Sandra Percival, operating as Zena Zezza, opens a light and projection installation with You and I, Horizontal by Anthony McCall and 1857 Project by Laura Heit tonight. It is at the Hallock & McMillan building, Portland's oldest building. At 237 SW Naito Parkway x Oak 2PM-5
Portland filmmaker Matt McCormick has a family story. His grandfather piloted bombers filled with nuclear weapons on continuous attack patterns toward the Soviet Union in the 1960's. His grandfather survived a crash in 1964 of his plane in Maryland. The crash was caused by the tail fin breaking off. It was a known flaw in the Boeing B-52 plane, considered too expensive to fix. Neither of the two bombs detonated. The program was discontinued in 1968 after the fifth bomber crash with nuclear bombs.
Matt is making a film about the event, Buzz One Four, the plane's call sign. He has been able to gather first person materials, including interviews. and he is mounting a small Kickstarter to finish the film.
Tonight he speaks about the program in a small studio and shows some clips of the work in progress. Recommended. Buzz One Four at the Boathouse 822 N River 7:30PM contributions welcome
Ambient experimental music for church. We like. It's Sanctuary Sunday. This evening Mike Erwin, Montgomery Ward and Mori play. Visuals provided by Ritzy Sheens and Michael Green. At Xhurch xhurch.net 4550 NE 20th 7PM-10 Free
Nee Yu, Sandra Percival, operating as Zena Zezza, opens a light and projection installation with You and I, Horizontal by Anthony McCall and 1857 Project by Laura Heit tonight. It is at the Hallock & McMillan building, Portland's oldest building. At 237 SW Naito Parkway x Oak 2PM-5
Portland filmmaker Matt McCormick has a family story. His grandfather piloted bombers filled with nuclear weapons on continuous attack patterns toward the Soviet Union in the 1960's. His grandfather survived a crash in 1964 of his plane in Maryland. The crash was caused by the tail fin breaking off. It was a known flaw in the Boeing B-52 plane, considered too expensive to fix. Neither of the two bombs detonated. The program was discontinued in 1968 after the fifth bomber crash with nuclear bombs.
Matt is making a film about the event, Buzz One Four, the plane's call sign. He has been able to gather first person materials, including interviews. and he is mounting a small Kickstarter to finish the film.
Tonight he speaks about the program in a small studio and shows some clips of the work in progress. Recommended. Buzz One Four at the Boathouse 822 N River 7:30PM contributions welcome
Ambient experimental music for church. We like. It's Sanctuary Sunday. This evening Mike Erwin, Montgomery Ward and Mori play. Visuals provided by Ritzy Sheens and Michael Green. At Xhurch xhurch.net 4550 NE 20th 7PM-10 Free
October 18 Fifty for Forty or Fight +
Blue Sky Gallery started as a clubhouse for photographer friends. They grew up and outgrew the treehouse. It is still a nonprofit, but it's known as one of the leading curators in the world of photography. The commercial galleries watch Blue Sky for what is new. They have put together a retrospective covering 40 years of shows. For several years, a gracious benefactor has been donating a piece of work from each photographer's show to the museum, that helps! That is over 400 shows and 600 photographers. This show is an opportunity to see some of that varied work, curated by the sharpest eyes in Portland.
The Portland Art Museum is the grand dame of the Portland art world. They are about preserving and contextualizing art through the ages. The Schnitzers are the art family in Portland. Arleen Schnitzer operated Portland's early contemporary gallery, the Fountain Gallery. The late Harold Schnitzer brought a passion for art and acted upon it. Over 50 years, the Schnitzers collected deeply in early pre-Han Chinese artifacts to contemporary Northwest work. Their son is carrying on the tradition, especially focused on prints.
Tonight a show of of some of the Schnitzers' collection, A Passionate Pursuit, opens. It is always a treat to see a collection guided by the collector's vision, over years, in one place.
Both shows open today and run through January 11.
At the Portland Art Museum www.pam.org 1219 SW Park
Regular hours and prevailing admission
We used to cover fashion more. Others do it better now. But fashion is art. And it is a Portland creative vector, spanning to mass produced design. Content is a once a year event where designers each decorate a room as an installation. It is always fascinating. Arrive early. Content at the Ace Hotel, 1022 SW Stark 5PM-10 $15-20
The Portland Art Museum is the grand dame of the Portland art world. They are about preserving and contextualizing art through the ages. The Schnitzers are the art family in Portland. Arleen Schnitzer operated Portland's early contemporary gallery, the Fountain Gallery. The late Harold Schnitzer brought a passion for art and acted upon it. Over 50 years, the Schnitzers collected deeply in early pre-Han Chinese artifacts to contemporary Northwest work. Their son is carrying on the tradition, especially focused on prints.
Tonight a show of of some of the Schnitzers' collection, A Passionate Pursuit, opens. It is always a treat to see a collection guided by the collector's vision, over years, in one place.
Both shows open today and run through January 11.
At the Portland Art Museum www.pam.org 1219 SW Park
Regular hours and prevailing admission
We used to cover fashion more. Others do it better now. But fashion is art. And it is a Portland creative vector, spanning to mass produced design. Content is a once a year event where designers each decorate a room as an installation. It is always fascinating. Arrive early. Content at the Ace Hotel, 1022 SW Stark 5PM-10 $15-20
October 17,18,24,25 Adaption +
Dance is expensive to make. It needs a large space, with a foot-friendly floor, heated or cooled, to jump around in for months to make a piece. That piece also needs costumes, sound, lights, and maybe video. Often there are multiple persons.
The idea of Flock is a space for it's member choreographer-dancers to jump around in for months in the making of performances. Adaption is one by Stephanie Lanckton of Flock. It has visuals by Stephen A. Miller, a live soundscape by Lisa DeGrace, costume design by Alenka Loesch and lighting by Daniel Meeker.
On the same bill is Requiem by Meshi Chavez and One Door Closes by Lisa DeGrace + Adrian Hutapea.
At Disjecta, in the shadow of Paul Bunyan www.disjecta.org 8371 N. Interstate Map. Doors 7:30PM, show 8. $12 students/seniors, else $15-20
The Blue Sky retrospective opening tomorrow, opens tonight for members, with a reception in the Miller Room at 5:30PM
The idea of Flock is a space for it's member choreographer-dancers to jump around in for months in the making of performances. Adaption is one by Stephanie Lanckton of Flock. It has visuals by Stephen A. Miller, a live soundscape by Lisa DeGrace, costume design by Alenka Loesch and lighting by Daniel Meeker.
On the same bill is Requiem by Meshi Chavez and One Door Closes by Lisa DeGrace + Adrian Hutapea.
At Disjecta, in the shadow of Paul Bunyan www.disjecta.org 8371 N. Interstate Map. Doors 7:30PM, show 8. $12 students/seniors, else $15-20
The Blue Sky retrospective opening tomorrow, opens tonight for members, with a reception in the Miller Room at 5:30PM
October 17 Wild Wild West
The Western fiction is something built over years of writing and filmmaking. Early short works captured the oral narratives circulating in the US. But at each turn since, like the oral narratives, they were enhanced and exaggerated. Until today in film they have become parodies of themselves - see the film The Quick and The Dead, and there are novels in the same vein, like Robert Coover's Ghost Town. Artist Donald Morgan presents High Noon, contemporary sculptures and paintings inspired in an abstract way by Ghost Town. At Portland's only member of the New Art Dealers Alliance www.newartdealers.org, Fourteen30 Gallery www.fourteen30.com 1501 SW Market Street Map 6PM-8 Free
Tuesday, October 14, 2014
October 14-15 Space Noise
S1 is one of three Portland galleries regularly showing video. And the Cinema Project is one of a handful of experimental film and video programmers in Portland. S1 & the Cinema Project present Makino Takashi from Japan with Space Noise. It reminds the seminal work of Stan Brakhage, updated with live video and ambient music. This is quite a program for little Portland. Recommended.
Cinema Project www.cinemaproject.org at S1, formerly Multiplex, www.s1portland.com 4148 NE Hancock Map 7:30PM $8
Cinema Project www.cinemaproject.org at S1, formerly Multiplex, www.s1portland.com 4148 NE Hancock Map 7:30PM $8
Thursday, October 09, 2014
October 11 Stream Kick Sense
In 1992 Ann Hamilton made Accountings at the Henry in Seattle at age 36. It filled the upstairs gallery with floors of steel tags nailed in an impenetrable fish scale-like pattern, walls smudged by candle wax and soot, a display case of wax heads used in Brazilian rituals and 200 canaries. The next year, she won a MacArthur Fellowship.
She continues to make idea-based minimal work with organic materials. It is all very lyrical.
Hamilton is recipient of a one million dollar public art commission for the city of Seattle. It will make a work on the waterfront at Pier 62/63, possibly powered by the tide.
In the meantime, she opens the common S E N S E this evening. It is a participatory work, with you providing literary passages themed on the senses, visitors assembling the passages into personal journals, readers reading in the gallery, and those readers transcribing their readings into a record.
Some elements are a continuation from the stunning the event of a thread at the Park Avenue Armory, NYC.
The show the common S E N S E opens this evening, and runs until April 26, 2015.
At the Henry Art Museum of the University of Washington www.henryart.org 15th Ave NE & 41st St, Seattle. Wed, Sat, Sun 11AM-4PM, Thurs, Fri 11AM-9PM. Free students/faculty/under 13, $6 seniors, $10
Krystal South is an artist and interactive designer. She combines both, in an online art sale by 11 artists hidden inside a Kickstarter. Each artist has made an edition of 10, priced at $35-$500, and distributed through the Backer Rewards. The Kickstarter ends tonight with a gallery show of the art. It is oversubscribed 3X with 3 days to go.
At Ditch Projects www.ditchprojects.com 303 S. 5th Avenue #165, Springfield, OR Map and Building Map 6PM-9 Free
Deepwhitesound, DB Amorin, Matthew McVickar and Dana Paresa present Stream Room at False Front. Hundreds of samples from the electronic works of 33 composers are randomly recombined on the fly and broadcast wirelessly to hand built receivers with speakers in the gallery. False Front Studio www.falsefrontstudio.com 4518 NE 32nd Map 6PM-9 Free
Daniel Long is a recent PNCA MFA painter. Working in oil, he samples historical painting elements into new work. He opens a show this evening at the Portland Museum of Modern Art inside Mississippi Records www.portlandmuseumofmodernart.com 5202 N AlbinaMap 8PM-10 Free
She continues to make idea-based minimal work with organic materials. It is all very lyrical.
Hamilton is recipient of a one million dollar public art commission for the city of Seattle. It will make a work on the waterfront at Pier 62/63, possibly powered by the tide.
In the meantime, she opens the common S E N S E this evening. It is a participatory work, with you providing literary passages themed on the senses, visitors assembling the passages into personal journals, readers reading in the gallery, and those readers transcribing their readings into a record.
Some elements are a continuation from the stunning the event of a thread at the Park Avenue Armory, NYC.
The show the common S E N S E opens this evening, and runs until April 26, 2015.
At the Henry Art Museum of the University of Washington www.henryart.org 15th Ave NE & 41st St, Seattle. Wed, Sat, Sun 11AM-4PM, Thurs, Fri 11AM-9PM. Free students/faculty/under 13, $6 seniors, $10
Krystal South is an artist and interactive designer. She combines both, in an online art sale by 11 artists hidden inside a Kickstarter. Each artist has made an edition of 10, priced at $35-$500, and distributed through the Backer Rewards. The Kickstarter ends tonight with a gallery show of the art. It is oversubscribed 3X with 3 days to go.
At Ditch Projects www.ditchprojects.com 303 S. 5th Avenue #165, Springfield, OR Map and Building Map 6PM-9 Free
Deepwhitesound, DB Amorin, Matthew McVickar and Dana Paresa present Stream Room at False Front. Hundreds of samples from the electronic works of 33 composers are randomly recombined on the fly and broadcast wirelessly to hand built receivers with speakers in the gallery. False Front Studio www.falsefrontstudio.com 4518 NE 32nd Map 6PM-9 Free
Daniel Long is a recent PNCA MFA painter. Working in oil, he samples historical painting elements into new work. He opens a show this evening at the Portland Museum of Modern Art inside Mississippi Records www.portlandmuseumofmodernart.com 5202 N Albina
October 10 New Nationale Ism
Photographer Delaney Allen has Getting Lost at the new Nationale space on Division. Allen has been with Nationale for some time. At Nationale www.nationale.us 3360 SE Division Map 6PM-8 Free
Tuesday, October 07, 2014
October 9 Design Video Architecture
As part of design week, Artist vs Designer is a panel discussion and shirt silk screening event. Adam Garcia, Damien Gilley, Calvin Ross Carl, and Phillip Stewart speak at 7. 4-7 is interaction, a photo booth and screen printing. Bring something to screen. At One Grand Gallery www.onegrandgallery.com 1000 E Burnside 4PM-9 Free
Après-Upfor is a new evening dark time video programs available through the window from the sidewalk. The first is a 30 minute loop, Becoming is a Secret Process by Rose Dickson. It is a live painting video. Until December 10. At UpFor Gallery www.upforgallery.com 929 NW Flanders 6:30PM Free
Architecture. It is ever changing, slowly. The modern international style, of Mies Van Der Rohe, dominated world architecture, and survives to today. Postmodern architecture and design attempted to break that mold by sampling and combining styles across eras. The Portland Building was the first example in the world. Frankly, I like it. It was designed by Michael Graves who later brought houseware in the postmodernist Memphis style popular in Italy to Target. At the American Institute of Architecture conference post the award of the design to the architect, buttons "I Don't Dig Graves" were in abundance.
Nonetheless, it is one of less than 5 buildings in the region of international architectural significance. (Portland Building, Commonwealth Building, W+K, Mt Angel Abbey Library)
Tonight the Portland Art Museum and Bright lights brings Michael Graves at 80 to speak about his design journey. Graves became disabled from an infection and has devoted himself to designs for enabling mobility. He also speaks on potential future modernizations of the building.
At the Portland Art Museum in the sunken ballroom of the Mark (Masonic Temple). 1211 SW Park 7PM $10
Après-Upfor is a new evening dark time video programs available through the window from the sidewalk. The first is a 30 minute loop, Becoming is a Secret Process by Rose Dickson. It is a live painting video. Until December 10. At UpFor Gallery www.upforgallery.com 929 NW Flanders 6:30PM Free
Architecture. It is ever changing, slowly. The modern international style, of Mies Van Der Rohe, dominated world architecture, and survives to today. Postmodern architecture and design attempted to break that mold by sampling and combining styles across eras. The Portland Building was the first example in the world. Frankly, I like it. It was designed by Michael Graves who later brought houseware in the postmodernist Memphis style popular in Italy to Target. At the American Institute of Architecture conference post the award of the design to the architect, buttons "I Don't Dig Graves" were in abundance.
Nonetheless, it is one of less than 5 buildings in the region of international architectural significance. (Portland Building, Commonwealth Building, W+K, Mt Angel Abbey Library)
Tonight the Portland Art Museum and Bright lights brings Michael Graves at 80 to speak about his design journey. Graves became disabled from an infection and has devoted himself to designs for enabling mobility. He also speaks on potential future modernizations of the building.
At the Portland Art Museum in the sunken ballroom of the Mark (Masonic Temple). 1211 SW Park 7PM $10
October 8 Lumber On
Dan Cameron, Tony Feher and Polly Apfelbaum speak at the Lumber Room this evening. They are a curator and two artists. The artists showed individually in the Spring and a joint show is up now at the Lumber Room. At The Lumber Room lumberroom.com 419 SW 9th, above Liz Leach Map 6PM-8 Free
Sunday, October 05, 2014
October 6 Design Tube
Getting to Know You(Tube) shifts schedule and time to sync with Design Week. At Getting to Know You(Tube) www.gettingtoknowyoutube.com at the Hollywood Theater www.hollywoodtheatre.org 4122 NE Sandy Boulevard. 9:30PM $5
October 5 Humor Design
Paraprosdokians and Rubber Chickens is a group show based on humor and irreverence in the service of art. The artists are: Bruce Conkle, Jonathan Gitelson, Jamie Isenstein, Matt Jacobs, Alicia McDaid, Ralph Pugay, Sara Greenberger Rafferty, Jordan Rathus, Patrick Rock, Ben Sanders and Lindsey White. At the Marylhurst University www.marylhurst.edu/theartgym/ Map 4PM-6 Free
Sometimes we list design events and sometimes not. But design thinking and ethnographic tools are in my repertoire. We are lacking the D-School here, but UO-Portland is attempting to fill the void. As part of Design Week, some of their students and faculty occupy the art gallery. Tonight they have works shown at the Salone Satellite at the Milan Salone Del Mobile during Milan Design Week 2014. At the University of Oregon White Stag Building, whitebox.uoregon.edu 70 NW Couch 5:30PM-8 Free
Sometimes we list design events and sometimes not. But design thinking and ethnographic tools are in my repertoire. We are lacking the D-School here, but UO-Portland is attempting to fill the void. As part of Design Week, some of their students and faculty occupy the art gallery. Tonight they have works shown at the Salone Satellite at the Milan Salone Del Mobile during Milan Design Week 2014. At the University of Oregon White Stag Building, whitebox.uoregon.edu 70 NW Couch 5:30PM-8 Free
Friday, October 03, 2014
October 3 Eastside Art Openings + Wires and Strings
Worksound is back with an excellent group of curators: Modou Dieng, Jason Doizé and Jesse Siegel. Their first show in the old space is Furniture Porn by Mark Takiguchi. At Worksound www.worksoundpdx.com 820 SE Alder Map 6PM-9 Free
Coral Brush Node, a series of five artists operating for a week of 24x7 viewing at Fourteen30 Gallery starts its last cycle with a show by Patrick Rock. There will be a reception this evening. You can come by the weekend open hours or just peer through the window an evening in the next 7 days. At Portland's only member of the New Art Dealers Alliance www.newartdealers.org, Fourteen30 Gallery www.fourteen30.com 1501 SW Market Street Map 11AM-6PM Weekends. 6PM-8 tonight Free
Apple of my Iris is a show by Carly Mandel & Rebecca Peel. Their theme is material consumption and its associations. At S1, formerly Multiplex, www.s1portland.com 4148 NE Hancock Map 6PM-10 Free
Punk seems remote. It does seem to be able to update itself to a degree. But the updates lack what must have been the original spirit.
Don Pyle lived in Toronto, Canada in the 1970's. He brought his film camera to Toronto's punk shows, sneaking in at age 15 from 1977-1979, and using his high school darkroom to develop and print.
He brings a book of images, prints and projected images of that place-time. Music by DJ's Candy and Justin of Dark/Light
At the Portland Museum of Modern Art inside Mississippi Records www.portlandmuseumofmodernart.com 5202 N AlbinaMap 8PM-10 Free
Paula Rebsom has the photographic documentation of a site-specific installation on her family's land, If We Lived Here: Then and Now. The description on the gallery web site explains a moving project. At Pushdot Studio www.pushdotstudio.com 2505 SE 11th Avenue Suite 104 6PM-9 Free
Liv Rainey-Smith has woodcuts on a Halloween theme. At Redux www.reduxpdx.com 811 E Burnside
Snapshot Aesthetic: Domestic and Everyday is a group show. You can see it at Black Box Gallery www.blackboxgallery.com 811 E Burnside, Suite 212 upstairs 5PM-8 Free
The cello range in pitch is like that of the human voice. Beautiful set of overtones we love.
Zoe Keating is a contemporary cellist. She lived in Portland for a time. She was a founding member of the Portland Cello Project and played in many other ensembles. Now she is known for her layered and looped solo work with electronics.
Zoe Keating plays this evening at the Aladdin Theater 3017 SE Milwaukie 8PM $18
Electronic music instruments go back almost as far as electronics. Early versions looked like a physics lab. In the 1960's and 1970's they resembled analog computers. Since then we have gone digital. The music is computed in bits in the embedded processors of Korgs and Yamahas; or computed in the processor and memories of laptops.
But there is a resergence of the "modular (analog) synth" of the 1960's and 1970's.
The documentary I Dream of Wires tells that story and the story of musicians who are passionate about it. Those include Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails), Gary Numan, Vince Clarke (Erasure), Morton Subotnick, Chris Carter (Throbbing Gristle), Daniel Miller, Carl Craig, Flood, Cevin Key (Skinny Puppy), James Holden, Factory Floor, Legowelt, Clark, John Foxx and Bernie Krause, as well as manufacturers and modular industry leaders Doepfer, Modcan and Make Noise.
The Portland showing is sponsored by Control Voltage, a store with modular synths you can play with.
I Dream of Wires one night at the Clinton Street Theater 7PM $8
Coral Brush Node, a series of five artists operating for a week of 24x7 viewing at Fourteen30 Gallery starts its last cycle with a show by Patrick Rock. There will be a reception this evening. You can come by the weekend open hours or just peer through the window an evening in the next 7 days. At Portland's only member of the New Art Dealers Alliance www.newartdealers.org, Fourteen30 Gallery www.fourteen30.com 1501 SW Market Street Map 11AM-6PM Weekends. 6PM-8 tonight Free
Apple of my Iris is a show by Carly Mandel & Rebecca Peel. Their theme is material consumption and its associations. At S1, formerly Multiplex, www.s1portland.com 4148 NE Hancock Map 6PM-10 Free
Punk seems remote. It does seem to be able to update itself to a degree. But the updates lack what must have been the original spirit.
Don Pyle lived in Toronto, Canada in the 1970's. He brought his film camera to Toronto's punk shows, sneaking in at age 15 from 1977-1979, and using his high school darkroom to develop and print.
He brings a book of images, prints and projected images of that place-time. Music by DJ's Candy and Justin of Dark/Light
At the Portland Museum of Modern Art inside Mississippi Records www.portlandmuseumofmodernart.com 5202 N Albina
Paula Rebsom has the photographic documentation of a site-specific installation on her family's land, If We Lived Here: Then and Now. The description on the gallery web site explains a moving project. At Pushdot Studio www.pushdotstudio.com 2505 SE 11th Avenue Suite 104 6PM-9 Free
Liv Rainey-Smith has woodcuts on a Halloween theme. At Redux www.reduxpdx.com 811 E Burnside
Snapshot Aesthetic: Domestic and Everyday is a group show. You can see it at Black Box Gallery www.blackboxgallery.com 811 E Burnside, Suite 212 upstairs 5PM-8 Free
The cello range in pitch is like that of the human voice. Beautiful set of overtones we love.
Zoe Keating is a contemporary cellist. She lived in Portland for a time. She was a founding member of the Portland Cello Project and played in many other ensembles. Now she is known for her layered and looped solo work with electronics.
Zoe Keating plays this evening at the Aladdin Theater 3017 SE Milwaukie 8PM $18
Electronic music instruments go back almost as far as electronics. Early versions looked like a physics lab. In the 1960's and 1970's they resembled analog computers. Since then we have gone digital. The music is computed in bits in the embedded processors of Korgs and Yamahas; or computed in the processor and memories of laptops.
But there is a resergence of the "modular (analog) synth" of the 1960's and 1970's.
The documentary I Dream of Wires tells that story and the story of musicians who are passionate about it. Those include Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails), Gary Numan, Vince Clarke (Erasure), Morton Subotnick, Chris Carter (Throbbing Gristle), Daniel Miller, Carl Craig, Flood, Cevin Key (Skinny Puppy), James Holden, Factory Floor, Legowelt, Clark, John Foxx and Bernie Krause, as well as manufacturers and modular industry leaders Doepfer, Modcan and Make Noise.
The Portland showing is sponsored by Control Voltage, a store with modular synths you can play with.
I Dream of Wires one night at the Clinton Street Theater 7PM $8
Thursday, October 02, 2014
October 2 Fruit of Paradise
The Fin de Cinema is a series of beautiful vintage films with subtitles presented with live sound scores by Portland musicians. Tonight Fanno Creek, Ben Darwish & Coco Columbia and Murmur Ring - Jem from the Ghost Ease have composed a score. The film is The Fruit of Paradise (1970) by Czech new wave filmmaker Vera Chytilova. This NSFW opening sequence depicts Adam and Eve being expelled from Eden. These events are always fascinating. Fin de Cinema at Holocene www.holocene.org 1001 SE Morrison. Doors 8:30PM, film 9 promptly $7
October 2 Westside Art Openings
Critter is a new show by Ralph Pugay. He specializes in ironic, and even slightly disturbing, illustration-style paintings as social commentary. At UpFor Gallery www.upforgallery.com 929 NW Flanders 6PM-9 Free
Anna Fidler has painting collages with elements of her early work. The artist has ranged, successfully, from land-seascapes, to sports portraits to landscape installations. In this show, figures layered of paper cutouts, receding in dimension as they near the eye, are affixed in abstract painted fields, some almost landscapes. Recommended. At Charles Hartman Fine Art www.hartmanfineart.net 134 NW 8th
Storm Tharp is back with paintings ranging in approach and subject. It is not as severe as previous work in the Bacon style. So less bacon in PDX tonight. Recommended. At PDX Contemporary Art www.pdxcontemporaryart.com 925 NW Flanders Map early close 8PM
Carol Yarrow has One Mahogany Left Standing, a photo essay exposed in Nahá, Chiapas, Mexico, 1995-2002. It is a 200 person indigenous village near the Guatemalan border. Also Sage Sohier has photographs of same sex couples made in the 1980s. At Blue Sky Gallery www.blueskygallery.org map 122 NW 8th 6PM-9
Rainy Day With A Chance Of Sun by Yoskay Yamamoto opens tonight at Hellion Gallery www.helliongallery.com through the lobby of the arched brick entry, up the stairs and to the back. Very upper floor Japan-style. 19 NW 5th Suite 208. Map 7PM-10 Free
Tonight you will find contrasting landscapes at the Elizabeth Leach Gallery. Long time Portland painter and printmaker Stephen Hays has luminous colorist pastel landscapes in a dry brush style. Ryan Pierce of Signal Fire has large landscapes, still lifes and illustrations, not of the Northwest, in a flat style. At Elizabeth Leach Gallery www.elizabethleach.com 417 NW 9th Map 6PM-9
PNCA continues SuperTrash, cult film ads, 1930-1990 and the post apocalyptic Borderlander's Outfitter by Abigail Anne Newbold. They open landscapes Reflections on the Columbia River Plateau and Beyond Erotic in the MFA gallery. At PNCA www.pnca.edu 1241 NW Johnson Map
There is no admission to the PNCA MOCC on first Thursday. At the Museum of Contemporary Craft www.museumofcontemporarycraft.org 724 NW Davis
Glyph has Entitled, a group show of roughly 10 inch on a side paintings titled by options picked at random from a hat. All works are under $50. At Glyph Cafe & Arts Space www.glyphpdx.com 804 NW Couch 7PM-9
Everett Lofts are recommended as always. It's easier for you to see them all than for me to write suggestions. Some close as early as 9PM. At the Everett Lofts 625 NW Everett. Bounded by NW Everett, Broadway, Flanders and 6th Map closing ranges from 9PM-10:30ish
Usually we are not interested in art about cats. It's not only jumped the shark, it has jumped the entire ocean. But our interest here is an archaic printing technology from Japan, the Risograph. Artist Jason Sturgill has a show of cat art printed on this more than 25 year old combination of a silk screen printer and copier. At Compound Gallery, Portland's unofficial Japanese embassy www.compoundgallery.com 107 NW 5th 6PM-10
The Diode Art Gallery across from Ground Kontrol is having their rituals as we mentioned last week.
Hand Eye Supply is opening their new location 427 NW Broadway from 6PM-9.
Anna Fidler has painting collages with elements of her early work. The artist has ranged, successfully, from land-seascapes, to sports portraits to landscape installations. In this show, figures layered of paper cutouts, receding in dimension as they near the eye, are affixed in abstract painted fields, some almost landscapes. Recommended. At Charles Hartman Fine Art www.hartmanfineart.net 134 NW 8th
Storm Tharp is back with paintings ranging in approach and subject. It is not as severe as previous work in the Bacon style. So less bacon in PDX tonight. Recommended. At PDX Contemporary Art www.pdxcontemporaryart.com 925 NW Flanders Map early close 8PM
Carol Yarrow has One Mahogany Left Standing, a photo essay exposed in Nahá, Chiapas, Mexico, 1995-2002. It is a 200 person indigenous village near the Guatemalan border. Also Sage Sohier has photographs of same sex couples made in the 1980s. At Blue Sky Gallery www.blueskygallery.org map 122 NW 8th 6PM-9
Rainy Day With A Chance Of Sun by Yoskay Yamamoto opens tonight at Hellion Gallery www.helliongallery.com through the lobby of the arched brick entry, up the stairs and to the back. Very upper floor Japan-style. 19 NW 5th Suite 208. Map 7PM-10 Free
Tonight you will find contrasting landscapes at the Elizabeth Leach Gallery. Long time Portland painter and printmaker Stephen Hays has luminous colorist pastel landscapes in a dry brush style. Ryan Pierce of Signal Fire has large landscapes, still lifes and illustrations, not of the Northwest, in a flat style. At Elizabeth Leach Gallery www.elizabethleach.com 417 NW 9th Map 6PM-9
PNCA continues SuperTrash, cult film ads, 1930-1990 and the post apocalyptic Borderlander's Outfitter by Abigail Anne Newbold. They open landscapes Reflections on the Columbia River Plateau and Beyond Erotic in the MFA gallery. At PNCA www.pnca.edu 1241 NW Johnson Map
There is no admission to the PNCA MOCC on first Thursday. At the Museum of Contemporary Craft www.museumofcontemporarycraft.org 724 NW Davis
Glyph has Entitled, a group show of roughly 10 inch on a side paintings titled by options picked at random from a hat. All works are under $50. At Glyph Cafe & Arts Space www.glyphpdx.com 804 NW Couch 7PM-9
Everett Lofts are recommended as always. It's easier for you to see them all than for me to write suggestions. Some close as early as 9PM. At the Everett Lofts 625 NW Everett. Bounded by NW Everett, Broadway, Flanders and 6th Map closing ranges from 9PM-10:30ish
Usually we are not interested in art about cats. It's not only jumped the shark, it has jumped the entire ocean. But our interest here is an archaic printing technology from Japan, the Risograph. Artist Jason Sturgill has a show of cat art printed on this more than 25 year old combination of a silk screen printer and copier. At Compound Gallery, Portland's unofficial Japanese embassy www.compoundgallery.com 107 NW 5th 6PM-10
The Diode Art Gallery across from Ground Kontrol is having their rituals as we mentioned last week.
Hand Eye Supply is opening their new location 427 NW Broadway from 6PM-9.
Wednesday, October 01, 2014
October 1 Future Music
Music is one of the streams of culture. It is a stream ever flowing, and ever changing. It is possible to wade in and experience it. Or stay out for a while. You can wade in other streams. You can come back and it will still be flowing.
Some other streams of culture include the news, spectator sports, literature, technology, fashion, design. Each has a broadcast structure dedicated to making it easy to wade in.
The aesthetics of each stream are ultimately registered in each individual by the receptors for familiarity and novelty, pleasure and irritation. The familiarity-novelty response is informed by the sum of our past experience. Increasingly that cultural experience will be curated by our friends and less so by broadcast structures. Broadcast structures are difficult to support in the age of infinite reproduction for free.
Another attraction of cultural streams is anticipation. We each predict the future in a stream, and then are pleasured by seeing it come to pass. It is an equivalent neurological response across the cultural streams.
But music is different in a few ways. First, the neurological path for music through primitive brain structures brings animal responses and emotion. Second, the programming of the cortex and paths to it are determined by synaptic branching and paring. Most of that occurs in the late prenatal time and then from infancy to childhood. We are learning language with those same brain structures. So we are programmed to learn music at the same time.
Implanting an electrical interface to the nervous system changes things. Today we have cochlear implants for nerve deafness. In the deaf community parents have to navigate the conflict between a baby receiving and implant for an early start on learning local language verses that same baby not learning deaf culture, and its distinct language. In the novel The Terminal Man, an implant leads to an addictive and ultimately destructive neural pattern. The future of implants changes the programming and metaprogramming in the human biocomputer. That could impact the aesthetics of music, perhaps missing the emotional responses in the primitive brain.
....
Claire Evans @TheUniverse is a musician and futurist. She combines both in a talk today: Science Fiction and Synthesized Sound. The announcement wins the copywriting award for the month:
""Turn on the radio in the year 3000, and what will you hear? When we make first contact with an alien race, will we—as in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind"—communicate through melody? If the future has a sound, what can it possibly be? If science fiction has so far failed to produce convincing future music, it won’t be for lack of trying. It’s just that the problem of future-proofing music is complex, likely impossible. The music of 1,000 years from now will not be composed by, or even for, human ears. It may be strident, seemingly random, mathematical; like the “Musica Universalis” of the ancients, it might not be audible at all. It might be the symphony of pure data. It used to take a needle, a laser, or a magnet to reproduce sound. Now all it takes is code. The age of posthuman art is near; music, like mathematics, may be a universal language—but if we’re too proud to learn its new dialects, we’ll find ourselves silent and friendless in a foreign future.""
...
My belief is that the question should be considered in the context of the above brain science framework. Unfortunately, the brain of the future is unknown. When machines replace parents in rearing infants, we will have different brains. Machines react more quickly. Today they interact much more predictably within a tiny universe of possibilities, compared to humans. They are absent facial microexpression and tone of voice, both extremely complex communication channels learned in infancy and developed onward. We will have to see how ToyTalk and childhood robots change human. Perhaps the future of music will be governed by childhood experiences with machines. Or perhaps we will develop a way to turn on at any time in life the rapid growth of synaptic connections and intuitive learning we experienced as babies without knowing.
...
Claire Evans speaks today at Xhurch xhurch.net 4550 NE 20th 3PM Free
Some other streams of culture include the news, spectator sports, literature, technology, fashion, design. Each has a broadcast structure dedicated to making it easy to wade in.
The aesthetics of each stream are ultimately registered in each individual by the receptors for familiarity and novelty, pleasure and irritation. The familiarity-novelty response is informed by the sum of our past experience. Increasingly that cultural experience will be curated by our friends and less so by broadcast structures. Broadcast structures are difficult to support in the age of infinite reproduction for free.
Another attraction of cultural streams is anticipation. We each predict the future in a stream, and then are pleasured by seeing it come to pass. It is an equivalent neurological response across the cultural streams.
But music is different in a few ways. First, the neurological path for music through primitive brain structures brings animal responses and emotion. Second, the programming of the cortex and paths to it are determined by synaptic branching and paring. Most of that occurs in the late prenatal time and then from infancy to childhood. We are learning language with those same brain structures. So we are programmed to learn music at the same time.
Implanting an electrical interface to the nervous system changes things. Today we have cochlear implants for nerve deafness. In the deaf community parents have to navigate the conflict between a baby receiving and implant for an early start on learning local language verses that same baby not learning deaf culture, and its distinct language. In the novel The Terminal Man, an implant leads to an addictive and ultimately destructive neural pattern. The future of implants changes the programming and metaprogramming in the human biocomputer. That could impact the aesthetics of music, perhaps missing the emotional responses in the primitive brain.
....
Claire Evans @TheUniverse is a musician and futurist. She combines both in a talk today: Science Fiction and Synthesized Sound. The announcement wins the copywriting award for the month:
""Turn on the radio in the year 3000, and what will you hear? When we make first contact with an alien race, will we—as in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind"—communicate through melody? If the future has a sound, what can it possibly be? If science fiction has so far failed to produce convincing future music, it won’t be for lack of trying. It’s just that the problem of future-proofing music is complex, likely impossible. The music of 1,000 years from now will not be composed by, or even for, human ears. It may be strident, seemingly random, mathematical; like the “Musica Universalis” of the ancients, it might not be audible at all. It might be the symphony of pure data. It used to take a needle, a laser, or a magnet to reproduce sound. Now all it takes is code. The age of posthuman art is near; music, like mathematics, may be a universal language—but if we’re too proud to learn its new dialects, we’ll find ourselves silent and friendless in a foreign future.""
...
My belief is that the question should be considered in the context of the above brain science framework. Unfortunately, the brain of the future is unknown. When machines replace parents in rearing infants, we will have different brains. Machines react more quickly. Today they interact much more predictably within a tiny universe of possibilities, compared to humans. They are absent facial microexpression and tone of voice, both extremely complex communication channels learned in infancy and developed onward. We will have to see how ToyTalk and childhood robots change human. Perhaps the future of music will be governed by childhood experiences with machines. Or perhaps we will develop a way to turn on at any time in life the rapid growth of synaptic connections and intuitive learning we experienced as babies without knowing.
...
Claire Evans speaks today at Xhurch xhurch.net 4550 NE 20th 3PM Free
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)