Participating Artists:
Max Alexander: Max Alexander is a composer, performer and musician from Canada, living and working in Chicago. Currently, his work is featured at the Lincoln Park Conservatory in Chicago, as part of the Florasonic program run by the Experimental Sound Studio. This commissioned installation work, "Half-Steps are Okay", will be running continuously until the end of August. In addition, his audiovisual piece, "Empire", will be showing in Seoul, Korea, as a part of an exhibition run by the [prak-sis] contemporary art association.
For the Hyde Park evening, Max will be combining samples of his own audio work, and mixing and remixing it with both conventional and unexpected Devil's Night/All Hallow's Eve sounds. This will be a long-form, performative installation, incorporating video as well.
Ryan Dunn: Instinct Control is a physical intervention with electricity in an attempt to reconsider the sonic object. This performance will further reanimate the instrument, a 40 year old reel to reel tape player. A device built to replay old sound suddenly has a voice of its own—the living dead, antiquated equipment brought finally to its own life through a close encounter with a medium, a seance of past technology. Instrumentalizing the non-instrument, both technological and alive.
Joseph Kramer & Jenny Vallier: Favors (Jenny Vallier: cello and Joseph Kramer: boom box, walkie-talkies, etc.) is an improvised music project that explores extending/connecting through feedback, transmission and interference. Walkie-talkies dispersed around the space are used to playback different sounds from the tape loop that is being fed by the sounds of the cello as well as feedback from the walkie-talkies and boom box and any other sounds that occur in the space.
Mark Beasley: Mark is a recent graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and active member of the chicago arts + new media community. Mark makes software, video, performance, and web art and has participated in exhibitions with organizations like Rhizome.org, Gallery-2 and Links Hall. He is a member of H3X3N, the computer witchcraft club that produces the IX series which has been exhibited internationally. Mark has also lead workshops in python, hardware hacking, micro-controllers, and html/javascript. He is currently a teaching assistant at Marwen, an arts middle/high school for under-served youth and a full-time web developer along with other freelance projects.
