2009 Outer Ear Festival of Sound
Experimental Sound Studio announces its annual festival of sonic arts, including performances, installations, and broadcasts. Outer Ear the only comprehensive sonic arts festival in the Chicago region.
25 Acres of Coins: Sound installation by students from the Sound Department of the School of the Art Institute
Wednesday, November 4 - November 25
Opening reception: Thursday, November 5, 4:30pm–6pm.
Sullivan Galleries entrance foyer, SAIC 33 S. State St. map
Exhibition hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 11am-6pm
Free
Melissa St. Pierre: Prepared Piano Performance and Workshop
Sunday, November 8
Performance: 2pm, Workshop: 4pm-6pm
Workshop: 4-6pm: Prepared piano workshop, for pianists, composers, musicians, and experimenters interested in altering the piano’s innards. Presented in partnership with Links Hall.
Experimental Sound Studio
5925 N. Ravenswood
Suggested donation for concert $10, all proceeds benefit ESS as part of its Sunday Solo performance series. Workshop registration: $30, $25 for students and ESS members. Advance registration recommended. To purchase workshop tickets, visit:
Reactor and Countdown: two sound installations by MW Burns
Monday, November 9 – Wednesday, December 9
Opening reception: Friday, November 6, 6pm.
Burns’ uncanny installations take advantage of inaccessible locations, such as locked closets, to tease the listener and call attention to our innate curiosity and desire for inclusion
Chicago Cultural Center
77 E. Randolph St.
Free
Gesualdo Translations/The Chicago Version: Alessandro Bosetti in collaboration with students from the Sound Department at the School of the Art Institute:
Tuesday, November 10, 7pm
Bosetti and his collaborators will record people throughout Chicago singing along to renaissance madrigals by the Neapolitan composer Gesualdo da Venosa. The resulting recordings will be transformed into a polyphonic electro-acoustic performance that superimposes languages and histories.
Claudia Cassidy Theater, Chicago Cultural Center
77 E. Randolph Street
Free
Variable Area: Hearing and Seeing Sound, 1966–78
Thursday, November 12, 6pm
Curated by film scholar Michelle Puetz, this program presents films that investigate the visual and aural possibilities of 16mm optical audio, as sounds perform images and images become sonic scores. Works by Peter Kubelka, Chris Langdon, Robert Russett, Paul Sharits, Barry Spinello, and a live accompaniment by musicians Art Lange, Guillermo Gregorio, and Brian Labycz to Richard Lerman’s Sections for Screen Performers and Audience (1974).
Gene Siskel Film Center
164 N. State St
$9 general admission, $5 Film Center members, $4 AIC staff, students and faculty
Co-presented with Conversations at the Edge, Department of Film Video and New Media at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Brett Ian Balogh: Chora
Friday, November 13 - Sunday, December 13
Opening reception Friday, November 13, 6-9pm.
Chora is a computer-controlled installation incorporating video projection and multi-channel audio. Inspired by the Ring of Fire in the Pacific Ocean, an area of great geologic instability, Chora establishes an immersive environment of video and sound constantly and unpredictably transformed by the computer’s algorithms.
Audible Gallery at ESS
5925 N. Ravenswood
Gallery hours: Saturdays and Sundays 1pm-5pm
Closed November 26-29
Free
Tremendous Ferntuity: four-channel sound installation by Jeff Kowalkowski.Sunday, December 6, 2009 – Tuesday, March 31, 2010Opening reception: Sunday, December 6, 3-5pm
Tremendous Ferntuity combines electronically processed voice and instrument recordings into a calmly ambiguous, peaceful environment within the Fern Room, intended as a meditation on good luck in life.
Fern Room, Lincoln Park Conservatory2491 N. Stockton Drive. Exhibition hours: daily 9am-5pm. Free
MW Burns is a sound installation artist in Chicago who creates pieces for galleries, museums and public spaces. . He has exhibited widely in the US, with Chicago venues including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago Cultural Center, and the Museum of Contemporary Photography.
Melissa St. Pierre is a pianist and composer based in Pittsburgh specializing in prepared piano repertoire and exploration. She has performed and recorded prepared piano pieces by John Cage and other composers, and collaborates with numerous composers, musicians and ensembles, including the groups Technical Drawings and Gangwish.
Alessandro Bosetti is a composer and sound artist born in Milan, Italy in 1973, currently residing in Berlin and Baltimore. He works across the boundaries of sound anthropology and composition, investigating the musicality of speech, unusual aspects of spoken communication, translation, and misunderstanding in the creation of live performances, radio works and published recordings.
Michelle Puetz is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Chicago where she is working on a dissertation on experimental cinema and sound in the 1960s and 70s. She teaches part-time in the Department of Film Video and New Media at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and is the director of programming at the Chicago Film Archives.
Art Lange has produced more than two dozen recordings for artists like Matthew Shipp, Ellery Eskelin, Ran Blake and Guillermo Gregorio, and he has directed ensembles in the music of Cornelius Cardew and Anthony Braxton. His writings on music have been published across the U.S., England and Europe. He teaches at Columbia College, Chicago.
Brian Labycz is an improviser Chicago primarily performing with electronics. He draws from a range of sources including analog synthesizers, acoustic instruments, digital manipulations, field recordings, and self-made devices to produce and explore various expressive forms.
Guillermo Gregorio is a composer, improviser, and visual artist in Chicago. Trained in architecture and music, he was associated with the Madi movement in Argentina in the 60s, and the spirit of experimentation across forms continues. He is especially noted for his compositions that combine improvisation and composed elements through graphic notation.
Brett Ian Balogh is an artist in Chicago whose work incorporates numerous technologies, both new and old, drawing on his education in both the sciences and the fine arts. He has performed and exhibited at various venues in Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and elsewhere.
Jeff Kowalkowski is a composer, musician, and educator in Chicago. He received his doctorate in composition from Northwestern University and currently teaches part-time at DePaul University. His chamber music works have been performed internationally, and he has engaged in numerous collaborations with musicians, artists, performers and students. Presented as part of the ESS Florasonic sound installation series.
Presenting partners: The School of the Art Institute of Chicago: Sound Department and Department of Film Video and New Media, The Gene Siskel Film Center, The Poetry Center of Chicago, The Italian Cultural Institute, The Chicago Park District, The Chicago Cultural Center, MB Financial Bank
