TONIGHT (Mar 6) @ 6pmFREE FILMS The Films of John and James WhitneyYantra, 1963Lapis, 1967Permutations, 1968Experiments in Motion Graphics, 1968 Larry Cuba - Two Space 1979 James and John Whitney Between 1950 and 1955, James laboured to construct a truly astounding masterpiece, Yantra. The film was produced entirely by hand. By punching grid patterns in 5” by 7” cards with a pin, James was able to paint through these pinholes onto other 5” x 7” cards, to create images of rich complexity and give the finished work a very dynamic and flowing motion, but the film was not completed yet. It was first released as a silent film. A short excerpt from an early version of Yantra was shown at one of the historic Vortex Concerts in San Francisco’s Morrison planetarium in 1959. Soon after, the film acquired its soundtrack, an excerpt from Henk Badings’ “Cain and Abel”. Analogue computer equipment developed by brother John, allowed James to complete Lapis (1966) in two years, when it might have taken seven years otherwise. James drew dot patterns again for this film, but the camera was positioned using computer control, allowing each image to be overlaid from multiple angles. In this piece, smaller circles oscillate in and out in an array of colors resembling a kaleidoscope while being accompanied by Indian sitar music. The patterns become hypnotic and trance inducing. Two Space (1979)8 minutes16mm, B/W Description Two dimensional patterns, like the tile patterns of Islamic temples, are generated by performing a set of symmetry operations (translations, rotations, and reflections) upon a basic figure or tile. Two Space consists of twelve such patterns produced using each of nine different animating figures (12 x 9 = 108 total). Rendered in stark black and white, the patterns produce optical illusions of figure-ground reversal and afterimages of color. Gamelan music from the classical tradition of Java adds to the mesmerizing effect. Reviews “An exquisite, lyrical computer-animated film. Truly, Larry Cuba has developed fine art from this highly technical medium. The hypnotic movement of white dot patterns on inky black creates a sense of spiritual beauty as it leaves some fascinating optical afterimages.” —-Lize Bechtold, Filmex World Animation Survey Program Festival Awards Marin County National Film Competition, San Rafael,CA (1980)Baltimore International Film Festival, Baltimore,Md (1980), 1st Place, Experimental CategoryAtlanta Film Festival, High Museum of Art, Atlanta,GA (1980)Sinking Creek Film Festival, Nashville,TN (1980)Athens International Film Festival, Athens,OH (1980), Golden Athena, Best AnimationAnn Arbor Film Festival, Ann Arbor,MI (1980)

TONIGHT (Mar 6) @ 6pm
FREE FILMS

The Films of John and James Whitney
Yantra, 1963
Lapis, 1967
Permutations, 1968
Experiments in Motion Graphics, 1968

Larry Cuba - Two Space 1979

James and John Whitney

Between 1950 and 1955, James laboured to construct a truly astounding masterpiece, Yantra. The film was produced entirely by hand. By punching grid patterns in 5” by 7” cards with a pin, James was able to paint through these pinholes onto other 5” x 7” cards, to create images of rich complexity and give the finished work a very dynamic and flowing motion, but the film was not completed yet. It was first released as a silent film.

A short excerpt from an early version of Yantra was shown at one of the historic Vortex Concerts in San Francisco’s Morrison planetarium in 1959. Soon after, the film acquired its soundtrack, an excerpt from Henk Badings’ “Cain and Abel”.

Analogue computer equipment developed by brother John, allowed James to complete Lapis (1966) in two years, when it might have taken seven years otherwise. James drew dot patterns again for this film, but the camera was positioned using computer control, allowing each image to be overlaid from multiple angles. In this piece, smaller circles oscillate in and out in an array of colors resembling a kaleidoscope while being accompanied by Indian sitar music. The patterns become hypnotic and trance inducing.

Two Space

(1979)
8 minutes
16mm, B/W

Description

Two dimensional patterns, like the tile patterns of Islamic temples, are generated by performing a set of symmetry operations (translations, rotations, and reflections) upon a basic figure or tile.

Two Space consists of twelve such patterns produced using each of nine different animating figures (12 x 9 = 108 total). Rendered in stark black and white, the patterns produce optical illusions of figure-ground reversal and afterimages of color. Gamelan music from the classical tradition of Java adds to the mesmerizing effect.

Reviews

“An exquisite, lyrical computer-animated film. Truly, Larry Cuba has developed fine art from this highly technical medium. The hypnotic movement of white dot patterns on inky black creates a sense of spiritual beauty as it leaves some fascinating optical afterimages.”

—-Lize Bechtold, Filmex World Animation Survey Program

Festival Awards

Marin County National Film Competition, San Rafael,CA (1980)
Baltimore International Film Festival, Baltimore,Md (1980), 1st Place, Experimental Category
Atlanta Film Festival, High Museum of Art, Atlanta,GA (1980)
Sinking Creek Film Festival, Nashville,TN (1980)
Athens International Film Festival, Athens,OH (1980), Golden Athena, Best Animation
Ann Arbor Film Festival, Ann Arbor,MI (1980)

Friday, 3/5/10Doors 8pm, Show 8:30pm sharp, $6Los Solos Series presents…..SAMITA SINHA (NYC) Voice/soundAYAKO KATAOKA (Balto) Movement/SoundJENNY GRAF (Balto) Soundhttp://baltimoreperformance.com/lossolos SAMITA SINHA (NYC)Trained in classical Hindustani vocal music, composer/ performer Samita Sinha uses the range of her voice together with electronics and multilingual text in solo performance and multichannel vocal pieces. Besides her solo work, Sinha has a duo project with Marc Cary called ANATOMY (electronic/ Hindustani/ jazz), uses her voice as an improvising instrument in jazz ensembles (in Marc Cary’s FOCUS Trio, Sunny Jain Collective, and Eternal Now), and has toured internationally as a vocalist with the late performance poet Sekou Sundiata’s the 51st (dream) state. In addition to her international performance career, Sinha has been awarded grants from the Urban Artist Initiative and Queens Council on the Arts, a Fulbright Scholarship to study music in India, and has been a composer-in-residence and two-time juror at Millay Colony on the Arts. She has created music for film (Prashant Bhargava’s “Backwaters”) and video installation (Jaishri Abichandani’s “3 Muses”). Her debut CD with her group Kaash (Sunny Jain, Jesse Neuman, Dan Fabricatore), entitled Seep, was named a Top Pick of 2006 in All About Jazz and appeared in Billboard’s “Top 5 Hear and Now.” www.samitasinha.com AYAKO KATAOKA (BALTIMORE)Ayako Kataoka is a transdisciplinary artist originally from Tokyo. Born into a family of priests and artists, she grew up immersed in an atmosphere of shaka drawings, chant depicted in Japanese calligraphy, and the milieu of traditional temples. Realized in sound, video, installation, and dance performances, her works are often embodied with her heritage dealing with the concept of bringing invisible to visible. Her selected works have been performed and exhibited at spaces including; Tokyo Dance Video Festival, San Francisco International Arts Festival, and High Zero Festival. Kataoka holds MFA from Mills College, Oakland, CA, where she also worked as a technical assistant at the Center for Contemporary Music Center (former San Francisco Tape Music Center). She currently resides in Baltimore, MD. http://saisui.wordpress.com JENNY GRÄF (BALTIMORE)J. Gräf, a dynamic improvisor and stalwart of the Baltimore freek music scene, creates vivid, compelling soundworlds using intuitive/primitive homebrewed electronics, guitar and voice. J. Gräf is one-half of the noise duos Harrius (with Chiara Giovando, two LP’s on Ehse Records) and Metalux (with MV Carbon, recordings on Hanson, Load and 5RC/Kill Rock Stars, etc). She is also known for her interactive social interventions such as The Guitars Project, in which she worked with a group older women with Alzheimer’s to produce music using electric guitars, Threshold, a piece performed at last year’s High Zero event in which the audience triggered sounds by ordering food, and her Rock Carving Oraclestra, which uses psychic channeling through stone to generate readings for selected audience members. Her recent releases include Proud Flesh, a movie soundtrack to her Western film collaboration with Chiara Giovando (ehserecords.com), a split 7? with Zaimph as well as a split Metalux/K.K. Rampage.

Friday, 3/5/10
Doors 8pm, Show 8:30pm sharp, $6

Los Solos Series presents…..
SAMITA SINHA (NYC) Voice/sound
AYAKO KATAOKA (Balto) Movement/Sound
JENNY GRAF (Balto) Sound

http://baltimoreperformance.com/lossolos


SAMITA SINHA (NYC)

Trained in classical Hindustani vocal music, composer/ performer Samita Sinha uses the range of her voice together with electronics and multilingual text in solo performance and multichannel vocal pieces. Besides her solo work, Sinha has a duo project with Marc Cary called ANATOMY (electronic/ Hindustani/ jazz), uses her voice as an improvising instrument in jazz ensembles (in Marc Cary’s FOCUS Trio, Sunny Jain Collective, and Eternal Now), and has toured internationally as a vocalist with the late performance poet Sekou Sundiata’s the 51st (dream) state. In addition to her international performance career, Sinha has been awarded grants from the Urban Artist Initiative and Queens Council on the Arts, a Fulbright Scholarship to study music in India, and has been a composer-in-residence and two-time juror at Millay Colony on the Arts. She has created music for film (Prashant Bhargava’s “Backwaters”) and video installation (Jaishri Abichandani’s “3 Muses”). Her debut CD with her group Kaash (Sunny Jain, Jesse Neuman, Dan Fabricatore), entitled Seep, was named a Top Pick of 2006 in All About Jazz and appeared in Billboard’s “Top 5 Hear and Now.” www.samitasinha.com 

AYAKO KATAOKA (BALTIMORE)

Ayako Kataoka is a transdisciplinary artist originally from Tokyo. Born into a family of priests and artists, she grew up immersed in an atmosphere of shaka drawings, chant depicted in Japanese calligraphy, and the milieu of traditional temples. Realized in sound, video, installation, and dance performances, her works are often embodied with her heritage dealing with the concept of bringing invisible to visible. Her selected works have been performed and exhibited at spaces including; Tokyo Dance Video Festival, San Francisco International Arts Festival, and High Zero Festival. Kataoka holds MFA from Mills College, Oakland, CA, where she also worked as a technical assistant at the Center for Contemporary Music Center (former San Francisco Tape Music Center). She currently resides in Baltimore, MD. http://saisui.wordpress.com

JENNY GRÄF (BALTIMORE)

J. Gräf, a dynamic improvisor and stalwart of the Baltimore freek music scene, creates vivid, compelling soundworlds using intuitive/primitive homebrewed electronics, guitar and voice. J. Gräf is one-half of the noise duos Harrius (with Chiara Giovando, two LP’s on Ehse Records) and Metalux (with MV Carbon, recordings on Hanson, Load and 5RC/Kill Rock Stars, etc). She is also known for her interactive social interventions such as The Guitars Project, in which she worked with a group older women with Alzheimer’s to produce music using electric guitars, Threshold, a piece performed at last year’s High Zero event in which the audience triggered sounds by ordering food, and her Rock Carving Oraclestra, which uses psychic channeling through stone to generate readings for selected audience members. Her recent releases include Proud Flesh, a movie soundtrack to her Western film collaboration with Chiara Giovando (ehserecords.com), a split 7? with Zaimph as well as a split Metalux/K.K. Rampage.

Saturday, Feb 27 BALTIMORE ELECTRONIC MUSIC WINTERFESTJoseph Meyer “Jerohme Spye”Jeff Bagato with Mercury Fools the AlchemistHal Schmulowitz & Logan Mitchell SrDave Vosh & Frank VanamanThe Duc D’Angelos Quartet Hello to all. This Electronic Music/Experimental Music/Electro-Acoustic Music mini festival event, herein known as the Baltimore Electronic Music 2010 Winterfest, is being sponsored by members of The Baltimore SDIY Group & will be a really nice musical endeavor, so we are really looking forward to this evening. Please come out & join us for a really fantastic evening of knob twisting, pitch bending, wiring mazes, sound shaping & visual explosions that will coincide with an absolutely awesome musical voyage into another galaxy of sound alterations. Happy Bleeps & Bloops and we hope to see you there. INFO ON THE PERFORMERS: The Duc D’Angelos Quartet is decor music, graffiti art, musical libertarianism, free jazz, disco, or an electro-acoustic improvisation ensemble from Baltimore/DC. Frank Vanaman can usually be found playing popular tunes of the 1920s and 1930s —his presence here is something of a mystery, even to him.  Dave Vosh ( “safe 2” ) has been a regular performer of electro-noise music in d.c. / balto. since 2005 doing both solo work and various collaborations.

Saturday, Feb 27

BALTIMORE ELECTRONIC MUSIC WINTERFEST
Joseph Meyer “Jerohme Spye”
Jeff Bagato with Mercury Fools the Alchemist
Hal Schmulowitz & Logan Mitchell Sr
Dave Vosh & Frank Vanaman
The Duc D’Angelos Quartet

Hello to all. This Electronic Music/Experimental Music/Electro-Acoustic Music mini festival event, herein known as the Baltimore Electronic Music 2010 Winterfest, is being sponsored by members of The Baltimore SDIY Group & will be a really nice musical endeavor, so we are really looking forward to this evening. Please come out & join us for a really fantastic evening of knob twisting, pitch bending, wiring mazes, sound shaping & visual explosions that will coincide with an absolutely awesome musical voyage into another galaxy of sound alterations. Happy Bleeps & Bloops and we hope to see you there.

INFO ON THE PERFORMERS:

The Duc D’Angelos Quartet is decor music, graffiti art, musical libertarianism, free jazz, disco, or an electro-acoustic improvisation ensemble from Baltimore/DC.

Frank Vanaman can usually be found playing popular tunes of the 1920s and 1930s —his presence here is something of a mystery, even to him.  Dave Vosh ( “safe 2” ) has been a regular performer of electro-noise music in d.c. / balto. since 2005 doing both solo work and various collaborations.

Thurs, Feb 25 ZBIGNIEW KARKOWSKIMike Haleta (ex. wzt hearts)Ian NagoskiShaun Flynn + Cex DuoViolet (Jeff Surak) Zbigniew Karkowski was born in 1958 in Krakow, Poland. He studied composition at the State College of Music in Gothenburg, Sweden, aesthetics of modern music at the University of Gothenburg’s Department of Musicology, and computer music at the Chalmers University of Technology. After completing his studies in Sweden, he studied sonology for a year at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Den Haag, Netherlands. Zbigniew Karkowski has studied with composers Iannis Xenakis, Pierre Boulez, Olivier Messiaen, and Georges Aperghis and has produced numerous works in the fields of both acoustic and electronic music including chamber works, pieces for large orchestra and opera. He is also a founding member of the electroacoustic music performance trio Sensorband and has worked with notable underground icons, Merzbow, Pita (Peter Rehberg), Kasper Toeplitz, Francisco Lopez, Daniel Menche and Hafler Trio.

Thurs, Feb 25

ZBIGNIEW KARKOWSKI
Mike Haleta (ex. wzt hearts)
Ian Nagoski
Shaun Flynn + Cex Duo
Violet (Jeff Surak)

Zbigniew Karkowski was born in 1958 in Krakow, Poland. He studied composition at the State College of Music in Gothenburg, Sweden, aesthetics of modern music at the University of Gothenburg’s Department of Musicology, and computer music at the Chalmers University of Technology. After completing his studies in Sweden, he studied sonology for a year at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Den Haag, Netherlands. Zbigniew Karkowski has studied with composers Iannis Xenakis, Pierre Boulez, Olivier Messiaen, and Georges Aperghis and has produced numerous works in the fields of both acoustic and electronic music including chamber works, pieces for large orchestra and opera. He is also a founding member of the electroacoustic music performance trio Sensorband and has worked with notable underground icons, Merzbow, Pita (Peter Rehberg), Kasper Toeplitz, Francisco Lopez, Daniel Menche and Hafler Trio.

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