A documentary screening slash musical showcase in commemoration of the legendary banjo-pickin’, oud-playing folk guitarist Sandy Bull. This lineup will surely satiate the soul of any wayfaring traveler…
A candlelight music show in celebration of the crepuscular descension of fall, featuring nebulous electronics combined with classical components and an element of the barely perceptible unknown… hot cider and whiskey will be served, binaural beats will be played live on didgeridoos between sets.
RADAR EYES, an exhibition of hallucinogenic prints curated by Canadian printmaking duo Seripop, Chicago gallerist Reuben Kinkaid, and The Space L.I.C. will open Friday, November 6th, 7pm at Fardom Gallery, 25-17 41st Avenue, Long Island City. Around the corner, a secret space will stash many more prints and a new installation by NYC artist Sakura Maku. Gallery goers will enjoy an exciting dual-opening of hundreds of works evoking altered states, perpetual distortions, and outright hallucinations.
Including works by Le Dernier Cri (Marseilles, France), Xander Marro and Lief Goldberg (Providence, RI), Dutch Illustrator Zeloot, Minneapolis-based Danimal, and Seripop (Montreal), this show offers a mind-expanding aesthetic experience for all.
Luke Ramsey came down for the Portland Zine Symposium this past July to represent the Islands Fold art collective that he started in Pender Island, British Columbia. One day after the fest he was hanging out and participated in a drawing session with local artists: Blaise Larmee, Kinoko (from Seattle), Sean Christensen & Theo Ellsworth. Little did they know, the collaborative jam session would result in a zine of ultimate greatness, Negative Bulge! For the month of November we are very pleased to present original art from the jam session here at Floating World Comics, as well as a selection of new zines from Islands fold.
WHO: Islands Fold, Blaise Larmee, Kinoko, Luke Ramsey, Sean Christensen & Theo Ellsworth
WHAT: Negative Bulge zine release + art exhibit
WHEN: Thursday, Nov. 5th, 6-10pm; exhibit ends Nov. 30th
WHERE: Floating World Comics, 20 NW 5th Ave #101
Islands Fold™ is an independent publisher and artist residency created and operated by Angela Conley and Luke Ramsey. It’s about inviting artists into our home, supporting creative identity, collaborating, promoting health and well being and producing unique art. Established on Pender Island B.C, Canada in the Spring of 2006.
We decided to move from the city to enjoy a simple lifestyle on Pender Island. It’s easy to travel to Pender by ferry from Vancouver or Victoria. Islands Fold collaborates with artists, as well as supporting solo projects. We personally invite artists to our residency. We want to remedy the term “starving artist” by feeding artists whose hunger we admire and respect. In a competitive consumer culture, being an artist is a commitment that some people don’t understand. We are inspired by the people that aren’t always motivated by money, but are motivated by the work itself. As much as Islands Fold needs money to survive, we are about people, not profits. In a world motivated by money and greed, we want to embrace a world of sharing and peace. At Islands Fold, art is a labor of love. We want to create an environment where artists don’t have to concern themselves with daily chores. We want our guests to relax, make art, and eat good food. The most important thing in our home, is to be comfortable, have fun and be creative.
For the first two years, Islands Fold has offered residencies to artists at no charge. Due to rising expenses and no grant funding, we now offer the residencies by donation to any amount an artist feels comfortable with. Our residencies are also sustained from public support by purchasing the art and publications made available online. We are also supported by generous art donations from artists who believe in our cause.
Alchemy, the ancient art of transforming matter, fueled the imagination of scholars, doctors and nobleman for hundreds of years. They believed that a truly worthy alchemist could produce the philosopher’s stone, a legendary substance that would make him wealthy, wise and near immortal. The experiments, books and events that paved the paths of alchemists throughout the ages not only make good stories, but also document a part of early science that is often misunderstood.
This talk will decipher the story of alchemy from its ancient beginnings through its medieval heyday to its eventual demise in the shadow of modern chemistry. Showing some beautiful and symbolic images from rare books, Anke Timmermann will explain how alchemists thought and worked, and why even they often had trouble figuring out what it all means.
Dr. Anke Timmermann is a historian of alchemy and the current Associate Director of the Beckman Center for the History of Chemistry at the Chemical Heritage Foundation. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge. Her research interests include the history of alchemy and medicine in medieval and early modern Europe. This program is part of the Year of Science.
UPDATES:
1. Neal Casal (Ryan Adams and the Cardinals) playing bass and singing harmonies…
2. Jennifer Maerz of SFWeekly reviews the SF gig: “[M]inds were melted, new musical ground covered, and a special sort of concert was cultivated, one that merged the thrill of surprise with the sure bet of solid songwriting chops.”
There’s a musical expedition heading to Northern California the first week of November:
********* The Emerald Triangle Tour 2009 *********
Starring
* Andy Cabic * Farmer Dave Scher * Johnathan Rice * Jonathan Wilson
Living in Los Angeles fairly amazed by the results of the current Green Rush, and knowing the fertile regions of Northern California between San Francisco and Oregon to be bountiful this time of year, Farmer Dave Scher decided an investigation was in order. With the idea of getting to know more about that beautiful part of the state often referred to as The Emerald Triangle, Scher reached out to his musical friends Andy Cabic and the Jo(h)nathans Rice and Wilson about going on a musical trip to check the whole thing out, make new friends, and clear the way for future traveling and playing in the great Northern part of the state…
…. So now, a reality! Please join us for The Emerald Triangle Tour 2009, in which the Gentlemen combine musical forces to groove on Nature, the bountiful harvest, neighbors, family, friends, and friends-to-be, and most importantly, lay down some good sounds up in Northern California. Please pick a town or two and join them. Shoot to the stratosphere…..the sky’s the limit!
The Players
Andy Cabic is a San Franciscan who releases acclaimed records with his group Vetiver. The most recent, “Tight Knit”, is on the Sub Pop label from Seattle.
Johnathan Rice is a California resident by way of Virginia and Scotland who plays, writes, and sings. His self-titled releases “Trouble Is Real”, and “Further North”, are on Warner Records. Mr Rice also plays and sings with Jenny Lewis.
Farmer Dave Scher is from Southern California. He plays steel guitar and organ in the group Beachwood Sparks, and released the All Night Radio record on Sub Pop. His new album “Flash Forward to the Good Times” was released by Kemado Records of New York this year…
Jonathan Wilson is a singer, writer, guitar player, guitar builder, producer, and all-around steezer. His records “Frankie Ray”, and “Gentle Spirit” can be found on Pretty and Black Records…
Musical Links http://www.myspace.com/emeraldtriangletour
(you can also hear the individual artists on iTunes etc.)
……. or just howl at the moon on a good clear night )))))))))))))))))))
((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((( OWWWWWOOOOOooooooo ))))))))))))))))))
Motown had one, so did Stax. Three soul-deep acts and one smoking hot band to back them up. The triple-header of R&B: the soul revue. Once a mainstay of theaters, gymnasiums and VFW halls everywhere, the soul revue ultimately vanished in the late seventies as recorded sound pushed live performance out of the limelight and onto car stereos and refrigerator-sized boom boxes. The performers returned to their day jobs and the world was the poorer for it.
That is, until April 4th, 2009, when your Numero Group mounted the first Eccentric Soul Revue, packing Chicago’s Park West Theater with soul-hungry acolytes, satisfying them and then some with the real thing: a 17-piece band backing The Notations, Renaldo Domino, The Final Solution, Nate Evans, and Syl Johnson, putting on a show that combined 70s slick with revival-meeting fervor.
It was a magical evening, as the past lived and breathed and got on down, right here in the present. Those in attendance went home that night knowing they’d seen something that just wasn’t done anymore. And wanting more. If you live in Columbus, Ohio, New York, Brooklyn, or Washington D.C., the wait and the want is over. The Numero Group is taking this show on the road.
Eccentric Soul Revue hits the East Coast in November with the totally explosive Syl Johnson, the silky smooth Notations, and the man with the voice like Domino sugar, Renaldo Domino, plus special guests, a slide show, and an autograph line.
There is absolutely nothing else like The Eccentric Soul Revue. A ticket is a time machine. Be there.
Montague Phantom Brain Exchange #21
Wednesday, October 28th, 9pm Five Bucks!
at the Rendezvous
78 3rd St
Turners Falls, MA 01376
Sord
Erin Schneider
video by Torsten Zenas Burns + Darrin Martin
lecture on OULIPO by Laura Duetsch
DJ Scott Seward
Hello! Please forgive our badly-needed, two month pause, but Phantom Brains are back with this stack of wild cards, greasy with the excitement of french fries. I implore you to read on:
free103point9 radio presents Tony Martin’s new site-specific installation “Light Pendulum” with live music by Michelle Nagai as part of their radio festival 2009, which features “radio installation, performance, theater, walks, and a transmitter building workshop, with live video web streams:”
Tony Martin is a founder of art works using light, and has created seminal new media works since the 1960’s. Light Pendulum is a new work that is controlled by site-specific environmental conditions including light, sound, and motion. Light Pendulum functions both as a stand-alone kinetic sculpture as well as a temporal instrument used in a performance-based setting. Light Pendulum is comprised of a six-inch diameter glass pendulum suspended with nylon line from the installation space ceiling. An LED pin-light is installed at the top of the line. The pendulum’s motion is caused by the earth’s rotation and conditions of air movement. A large parabolic mirrored dish is installed directly underneath the pendulum. Receptors and sensors are positioned at the center of the dish. These receptors function as photocells, photovoltaic cells, and other signal and current producing and regulating components.
Michelle Nagai utilizes sound, physicality and concept to create site-specific performances, installations, radio broadcasts, dances, walks and other interactions that address the human state in relationship to its setting. These works and activities explore the exchange of perception between performer and audience/viewer. Nagai recognizes transmission, reception and “limbo” as continuously shifting, highly interactive states of being. She engages these states in her working process in order to open up the field of perception and action beyond that which she is herself capable of comprehending, making or doing.
Soundscape by Michelle Nagai w/ Projections by Ursula Scherrer:
Saturday, October 24th -- Wine & cheese at 8pm, performance beginning at 9pm Ontological-Hysteric Theaterat St. Mark’s Church
131 E. 10th St. / New York, NY 10013 Free admission!
The CTM presents a new interrogation of power dynamics. Existing at a technological crossroads where torture, recreation, magic, and self-liberation merge together, Witches’ Cradles (2009) are an interactive public installation based on a contemporary re-envisioning of a medieval torture device.
“During the witchcraft persecutions in Europe, Inquisitors are said to have sometimes put an accused witch in a bag, which was strung up over the limb of a tree and set swinging. When witches’ learnt about this punishment they experimented with it themselves and found that the sensory deprivation or confusion of senses induced hallucinatory experiences. A similar swinging motion has long been used by shamans and dervishes and is sometimes known as ‘dervish-dangling’.”
- Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology
Devised initially for interrogation and torture, the witches’ cradle was eventually reclaimed by its potential victims for flights of fancy and inward journeys to altered states of consciousness. Since then, the past 100 years alone have shown us an array of antecedents that cast both shadows and light on the witches’ cradle, ranging from backyard tire swings to mob lynchings; from New Age sensory deprivation tanks to the haunting images from Guantanamo Bay. Even Houdini’s famed illusion, Metamorphosis (in which he freed himself from a locked and tied canvas sack), promised “self-liberation” and “change in 3 seconds.”
The Center for Tactical Magic’s re-envisioning of the witches’ cradle plays on these historical notes while suggesting a present-day desire to conjure positive transformation. Each cradle consists of a large 5-pointed star designed to simultaneously evoke its magical origins, imperial state power, and a cosmic source of light amidst darkness. After sitting in the center pentagon, the points of the star close overhead as the cradle is hoisted off the ground, allowing the participant to swing gently in the darkened center of the collapsed star. Like a black hole, a holding cell, or a metaphysical amusement ride, the Witches’ Cradles distort time and space. It is at this event horizon that the Witches’ Cradles create a place where one can begin to realize an altered state and contemplate the next course of action.
The Witches’ Cradles can be experienced at the Shift Festival of electronic arts and new media in Basel, Switzerland running from Oct 22 – 25, along with our collection of contemporary Wands. This year’s theme for Shift? “Magic. Tech-Evocations and Assumptions of Paranormal Realities”… Enough said.
