Recombinant Media Labs SF (in collaboration with Gray Area Foundation For the Arts) is excited to announce +DIALOG, a symposium series inviting local and global artists, scholars and polymaths to present and discuss their work in an intimate environment.

In a time when the information we consume is unprecedentedly estranged from its origins, +DIALOG will provide a forum to commune, collate and derive fresh context direct from the source.

“A Natural History of Media”

Media technologies have become the last best hope for a dated modernist march into the future only because they are imagined to have no nature. In fact, nature has gone in and out of circuit with modern communications technologies since their inception; natural radio was heard two decades before radio was invented; and communications technologies have never merely been about communications.

To present these ideas and field your questions, Recombinant Media Labs and Gray Area Foundation for the Arts welcomeDouglas Kahn. Douglas Kahn is a historical theoretician of experimental arts and music; is the author of Noise, Water, Meat: A History of Sound in the Arts; and has three new books forthcoming on experimental music, the arts and early computing, and electromagnetism and the arts. He is a Guggenheim Fellow on the historical discovery of natural radio and is Professor of Science and Technology Studies at University of California at Davis.

“Electric”

Kahn’s presentation of “A Natural History of Media” is paired with a presentation of “Electric,” a new project by Chris Kubick, which explores the raw sonic edges and subtle mythologies of the basic source material underlying electronic music: electricity itself. Chris Kubick is an artist, composer, and sound designer tracing the boundaries between sense and non-sense, signal and noise, representation and formlessness. His work has been seen and heard in venues such as Whitney Museum and The New Museum (New York), MOCA and the Getty Center (L.A.), and many others.

The event will take place at 7:00pm on Friday, May 28, 2010 at Gray Area Foundation For the Arts, 55 Taylor St. San Francisco. Recommended $5-10 donation, however no-one will be turned away for lack of funds.

Schedule:
7:00 – 7:30pm reception
7:30 – 9:00pm presentations
9:00 – 9:30pm Open Q & A
9:30 – 10:30pm Networking and drinks

Press inquiries, general questions and suggestions are welcome.

This Saturday at Gray Area, False Profit, LLC presents Alchemy, an evening of interactive art and speakers from a wide swath of Bay Area denizens.

Alchemy is an annual San Francisco event, packed with interactive art installations built to connect and amaze you. Participation highly encouraged — but we know you won’t be able to resist picking up that joystick, paintbrush, or microphone. See the flyer and press release below for more information.

For investors, some of the more visible outbursts of imagination will come on May 1 at Gray Area Foundation For The Arts (GAFFTA), where Alchemy will take place. Activities from zoetrope-building to ice cream making will take place alongside an interactive hyphae video floor, puppet theater, an immersive diorama, strobe flowers, and demonstrations from a wide range of experts in exotic disciplines.

WHEN: Saturday May 1, 8pm-2am
WHERE: GAFFTA, 55 Taylor Street, San Francisco
HOW: $15 at the door
WHY: Because you’re tired of those same-old jello-mold art gallery evenings and want to have FUN with art instead!
RSVP: on the facebook page

Schedule of Speakers

9PM – MetaMind Evolution by Andreas Stadler, software engineer and inventor, presents his work on neuro-feedback EEG mind-machines. He explores their applications to meditation, lucid dreaming, and brain training, as well as creative uses in music and art. After the talk, you’re invited to don the MetaMind headset and software, displaying beautiful visualizations from multiple channels of your very own brainwave data. (http://meta-mind.de/)

10PM – In Your Mind’s Eye by Dr. Tristan Ursell, Stanford University. You are a highly evolved creature, bred to perceive that which keeps you alive best, not what represents reality best. Learn about why you see the colors you do, and how your brain distorts the world around us.

11PM – John Bela is a founder of the design collective REBAR, creators of the global PARK(ing) Day event, Civic Center Victory Garden, Panhandle Bandshell, and other transformations of public space. He is a producer of creative ideas and a maker of things. John will present the works of Rebar, and how its many pursuits remix the ordinary, repurpose the ubiquitous and restructure the fabric of the urban environment. (http://www.rebargroup.org)

12AM – cutsupposepossesssuck by M. Ryan Noble, redefines social roles for artists through collaborative and therapeutic art processes, covering a wide range of media and experimental performances that fuse archetypal traditions with contemporary experience. A discussion of cultural engagement, sensory integration, and sub/un/hyperconsciousness as a means to create a metaphysical art experience leads into an experimental performance. Noble becomes a living sculpture in the space, guiding and collaborating with participants to develop the piece. (http://www.imagici.org)

1AM – Matt Bell is an inventor, artist, and entrepreneur who has done a wide variety of projects including gesture-based interactive displays, intricate laser-cut sculpture, and, most recently, floating art for the Ephemerisle festival. He’ll walk you through his multiprojector no-computer-necessary video feedback system that generates fractals live, allowing you and your friends to manipulate the parameters and output.

Artists and Installations

- Tyson Ayers’ Sound Cave Roadshow
- Strobe Flower Garden by Shawn Lani and PJ Reptilehouse
- Ice Cream Lab by Langton Labs
- Group A – Telephone Booth and TXT ME MOVE ME
- LoveTechSF’s Electronic Jam Lounge
- The Bone Conductor by Jean Rintoul
- Head Room by Brent Bishop
- Hyphae Dancefloor by Mary Franck and Michael Broxton
- Cheeky and Practice - interactive video installations by Scott Murray
- Galaxy Conduit by Rich DDT
- Zoetrope-Making with Tim Anderson
- Mini-Masher by Moldover
- Finger Puppet Photo Booth & Salon
- Alchemyville Post Office

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Washington, DC — Officials from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) today announced that no regulations will be placed on the so-called Outlandish Ideas (OI) market. This move is seen as a victory for both capitalists and artists preparing for False Profit, LLC’s fourth annual Alchemy event on May 1.

“We’re pleased that the commission sees the wisdom in letting us take our batshit-crazy ideas as far as possible,” said False Profit staff economist Rosco Petracula, speaking through a prismatic tube from a tiny sacred galaxy unfolding inside the mind of an obscure minor deity. “After all, hasn’t this sort of reasoning driven every major economic advancement in history?”

Two years ago, the public learned an acronym previously only known to quantitative financial analysts: CDS (Credit Default Swap). These financial instruments, built on bets around subprime mortgages, led to the massive collapse of credit markets and sent the global economy into a tailspin. In hindsight, the way these types of investments pretended to do away with risk seem absurd.

Today, we know that risk is unavoidable and absurdity inevitable. False Profit’s Alchemy event, now cleared by the SEC, is expected to further provoke wild creativity in the OI markets. No idea is too outlandish to be unleashed. While some fear increases in spontaneous interaction and artistic expression, many are welcoming the preposterous unpredictability.

Reacting to the SEC statement, Mary Pranckster, Director of the Gonzo Tactics Institute said, “The primary reason we saw a meltdown in ‘08 was actually low insanity levels. Sure, at the time everyone thought things were crazy, but let me tell you: You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

One of the first composers to start exploring the possibilities of the K-Bow system is Richard Boulanger at the Berklee College of Music. Boulanger has been involved in computer music composition for many years, and has a long history with alternative controllers — he has premiered his original interactive works at the Kennedy Center, and appeared on stage performing his Radio Baton and MIDI PowerGlove Concerto with the Krakow and Moscow Symphonies. In this video you can see two string performers with K-Bow, as well as some of the K-Apps software projected onto the big screen.

Mondays and Wednesdays June 7 – June 23, 2010

At Southern Exposure and Kunst-Stoff

Participants make sounds and improvise together, in a series of structured exercises and games. There is some running around and yelling. Parts of the class are very noisy and chaotic; parts are very calm and quiet. The exercises are all vocal – no instruments. No experience is necessary.

While musicians and performers are welcome to this class, non-musicians are even more welcome. The classes are based on the idea of improvised music as a participatory form – as something enjoyable and interesting for people to do together, rather than as a means to the end of performance.

Misha Glouberman, the instructor, has taught the classes for several years in Toronto, where they have been described as “legendary” (MusicWorks Magazine) “a cross between an asylum and the best party in the world” (Eye Weekly) and “a very, very good time” (music critic Carl Wilson).

This is the first time these classes are being offered in San Francisco.

Presented in partnership with Southern Exposure Gallery, as part of Extended Play, a series of weekly live performances and workshops. (soex.org/Exhibit/84.html)

A longer announcement about this class is at: schooloflearning.org/sf2010/

For more information or to sign up, email:improvise@mglouberman.com

This Thursday is the next edition of the Recombinant Media Labs +dialog symposia series, presented at the Gray Area Foundation for the Arts. This month we will be exploring sustainable models of cultural production within organizations and festivals, and will be joined by several leading voices in entities known for their artistic incubation.

Alain Mongeau of MUTEK, Marian Goodell of Burning Man, Naut Humon of Recombinant Media Labs, and Mathias Holzmann of Palomar5 will be lead in discussion by Mathew Dryhurst. As we enter into both a new economy and a new technological reality with the means of production distributed to a wide audience, focus and foundation of arts organizations must change to properly catalyze and nurture artistic works and communities. We’ll be discussing ways that some of these organizations have already managed to be agile enough to survive in this complex environment.

When: Thursday, April 15th 2010 at 7:00pm
Where: Gray Area Foundation For the Arts, 55 Taylor St. San Francisco
Recommended $5-10 donation, however no-one will be turned away for lack of funds.
Seating is limited, and on a first come first serve basis.

Recombinant Media Labs is proud to present the third installment of its monthly +dialog symposium series.

In the aftermath of the economic meltdown, arts and innovation play a pivotal role in reinterpreting and revolutionizing the spaces where we live, work and play. Whether it be in re-branding business practice or empowering community development, creative thought is an indispensable ingredient to reclaiming and recoding our collective futures.

This discussion will focus on new and sustainable models for creative economies, and the importance of nurturing creative impulse to developing new models, new tools and new behaviors. What are the challenges we will face in this new dawn of creative enterprise? What roles can we play as individuals and communities to support these efforts?

Invited to this discussion is Alain Mongeau, founder and Artistic Director of Montreal’s MUTEK festival. MUTEK is a non-profit organization dedicated to the dissemination and development of digital creativity in sound, music, and audio-visual art. For 11 years, Mutek has worked to challenge and redefine notions of our communities and greater culture, paving the way for numerous artists, festivals, labels, and other relevant support nodes. Earlier this month, MUTEK was the proud recipient of the distinguished Grand Prix du Conseil des Arts de Montréal, the highest honor bestowed on an arts organization in Montreal.

He will be joined in conversation by:

Marian Goodell, Director of Business and Communications for Burning Man. Amongst other accomplishments, Goodell worked with Burning Man participants in 1997 to create a Regional Network supporting their local communities, inspiring civic participation, and engaging people through Burning Man’s ethics and values. As of 2009, the Regional Network includes over 160 individuals in 125 locations worldwide.

Naut Humon, founder of Recombinant Media Labs, former Director of A&R at Asphodel Records and AV curator for select portions of the annual ARS Electronica Festival in Austria where he also helped coordinate their Digital Musics category for ten years.

Mathias Holzmann, resident artist at Gray Area Foundation For the Arts and founder of Berlin’s nomadic Palomar5, a non profit initiative that explores new spaces for innovation and new formats for people to cooperate and make real change.

The panel will be moderated by Mathew Dryhurst (Recombinant Media Labs).

The event will take place at 7:00pm on Thursday, April 15th 2010 at Gray Area Foundation For the Arts, 55 Taylor St. San Francisco. Recommended $5-10 donation, however no-one will be turned away for lack of funds.

Press inquiries, general questions and suggestions are welcome at mat [åt] rml-sf [dot] org

Schedule:
7:00 – 7:30pm reception
7:30 – 8:30pm panel discussion
8:30 – 9:00pm Open Q & A
9:00 – 10:00pm Networking and drinks

This Saturday at the Gray Area Foundation for the Arts, I’ll be moderating a discussion of algorithm and its evolution within procedural, rule-based creative works.

Join us for five presentations that represent diverse perspectives from dance, mathematics, literature, engineering, and knitting. The discussion will cover the use of the algorithm in all phases of artistic endeavor: from creation, to analysis, to the algorithm being the product itself. Topics will cover recent developments of the algorithm in artistic works, the aesthetic impact of algorithms, and the practical tradeoffs between control and chaos inherent in their use.

We’ll be covering a lot of ground on this evening, and trying to drill down to some of the core issues when dealing with algorithms and art… the ways in which human expression can be amplified through computers, issues of ownership, what constitutes art, and what algorithms can say about us.

55 Taylor St.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
7PM-10PM
Suggested $5-10 donation, however no-one will be turned away for lack of funds.

Schedule:
7PM-7:30PM — Informal Reception
7:30PM — Welcome
7:35PM — Andrew W. Schmeder + Mathematics
7:50PM — Christian Nagler + Literature
8:05PM — Terre Unité Parker + Dance
8:20PM — Break
8:30PM — Rachel Beth Egenhoef + Knitting
8:50PM — Ian Smith-Heisters + Engineering
9:10PM — Open Discussion + Q&A
9:30PM — Closing + Thank you
9:30PM – 10PM — Social Mixer

Presenters for the evening include:

Andrew (Andy) W. Schmeder
http://andy.schmeder.net/

Andy is a research scientist and inventor working on new technologies for human-computer interaction with applications in the arts and sciences. His expertise includes high-bandwidth gesture sensing interfaces, audio control protocols, many-channel array audio systems and the theory of auditory and visual sensory perception. Andy is a staff member at UC Berkeley where he works with the research group at the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT). He received the BA in Mathematics from UC Berkeley in 2002 and has more than 15 years of professional experience in computer programming, electronics design and research. He has co-authored one US and international patent and 19 technical publications appearing at conferences worldwide. He is also co-inventor of a new medical device for computer-adaptive screening and diagnosis of color vision anomalies including genetic deficiencies and tetrachromatic hyper-sensitivity.

Christian Nagler

Christian Nagler works as a writer/teacher in San Francisco. Recent work can be found in forthcoming issues of the journals Encyclopedia and Paul Revere’s Horse. He has been a resident at Millay and the Anderson Center, and has received a fellowship from the Wallace Foundation. He directs the Colima Project at San Francisco State University, a social practice project focused on immigration issues. He is currently working on a novel, a book of essays, and a series of performance texts.

Terre Unité Parker
www.terreparker.com

Terre Unité Parker is an experimental dance artist and company member with Anna Halprin. Terre directs the Open Experiments Ensemble- an interdisciplinary performance collective. She founded the collaborative experimental performance training- Experiments in the Environment Lab. Using Lawrence and Anna Halprin’s RSVP scoring process, Terre directs improvisational scores that integrate emotion with physicality, offer multiple layers of meaning for the audience’s imagination, and re-invoke performance as a site for magic. Terre’s dance photography collaborations imagine the dancer as part of the animate landscape.

Rachel Beth Egenhoefer
www.rachelbeth.net

Rachel Beth Egenhoefer considers her Commodore 64 Computer and Fischer Price Loom to be defining objects of her childhood. She is an artist, designer, writer, and educator. Her work explores the intersections between textiles, technology, and the body on historical, constructional and conceptual levels, and often incorporates tactile elements such as candy, knitting, and machines to represent intangible computer codes and conceptual spaces. Rachel Beth received her BFA from the Fiber department with a concentration in Digital Video from the Maryland Institute College of Art. She was an MFA fellow at the University of California, San Diego where she also was a graduate researcher at UCSD’s Center for Research and Computing in the Arts (CRCA). Egenhoefer’s artistic work has been exhibited both locally and internationally in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, London, Beijing, Madrid, and more. Her work has been included in major exhibitions such as the Options 2002 Biennial in Washington DC, the 2003 Boston Cyber Arts Festival, ISEA 2004 in Tallinn Estonia, La Noche en Blanco in Madrid, and at The Corcoran Gallery of Art, The Institute for Contemporary Art (ICA) London, The Banff Centre for the Arts, Lighthouse Brighton in the UK, and many others. Egenhoefer is currently an Assistant Professor in Design in the Department of Art + Architecture at the University of San Francisco.

Ian Smith-Heisters
http://idiosyncra.tc/

Ian Smith-Heisters works as a consultant providing technology support to artists and media companies. He received a degree in Dance and Computer Science from Marlboro College in 2005, and has since endeavored to make his dances more logical and his computers better at shaking “it”. He has worked with Camille Utterback, The Merce Cunnginham Dance Foundation, Other Minds, Apple Inc., The Sundance Institute, and Howcast.com. He is also active as a dancer, having trained with Merce Cunngingham, Anna Halprin, Akira Kasai, Eiko Otake, Shinichi and Dana Iova-Koga, and Sherwood Chen. Ian performs with Anna Halprin’s Sea Ranch Collective, and Terre Unité Parker’s Experiments in the Environment Ensemble.

The first installment of the Recombinant Media Labs SF +DIALOG Symposium series, featuring Max Mathews, Aaron Koblin, and Daniel Massey, was a huge success last Friday. All of the artists gave fascinating presentations and engaged in stimulating dialog on the interconnections between their works, viewed by a fantastic audience. We aren’t stopping there.

For our second chapter this Friday, we are fortunate to welcome London based cultural theorist, electronic musician and label owner Steve Goodman (aka Kode9) to present and discuss his first book Sonic Warfare: Sound, Affect, and the Ecology of Fear (MIT Press, 2009).

Location:
Gray Area Foundation for the Arts
55 Taylor Street
Friday, March 26th 7pm – 9pm
Recommended $5-10 donation, however no-one will be turned away for lack of funds.

Recombinant Media Labs SF (in collaboration with Gray Area Foundation For the Arts) is excited to announce +DIALOG, a symposium series inviting local and global artists, scholars and polymaths to present and discuss their work in an intimate environment.

In a time when the information we consume is unprecedentedly estranged from its origins, +DIALOG will provide a forum to commune, collate and derive fresh context direct from the source.

A flag bearer of the Dubstep movement, Steve Goodman founded Hyperdub Records in 2004, releasing critically acclaimed records by artists such as Burial, Zomby and The Bug as well as his own productions and collaborations.

Holding a Ph.D in Philosophy from the University of Warwick, Steve is a member of the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit (CCRU) and practicing academic, lecturing in Music Culture at the University of East London.

For this occasion Steve will be joined in conversation by San Francisco based kindred spirit Erik Davis, whose work is regularly referenced in Sonic Warfare.

Erik Davis is the author of The Visionary State: A Journey through California’s Spiritual Landscape, the cult classic TechGnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Information Age, and a critical volume on Led Zeppelin’s fourth album. He also hosts the net radio show Expanding Mind. A frequent speaker at universities and festivals alike, Davis has contributed articles and essays to scores of books and publications, and posts regularly at www.techgnosis.com.

The event will take place at 7:30pm on Friday, March 26th 2010 at Gray Area Foundation For the Arts, 55 Taylor St. San Francisco. Recommended $5-10 donation, however no-one will be turned away for lack of funds.

Press inquiries, general questions and suggestions are welcome at mat [åt] rml-sf [dot] org

Schedule:

7:00 – 7:30pm reception
7:30 – 8:00pm Steve Goodman presentation
8:00 – 8:30pm Discussion with Steve Goodman & Erik Davis
8:30 – 9:00pm Open Q & A, closing.

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Welcome.

I'm Barry Threw. I develop cultural projects globally.

Here I write from the trenches about emerging aesthetics, cultural ecology, interactive media, and immersive environments.

Notable organizations I have helped incubate include Keith McMillen Instruments, Recombinant Media Labs, and the Gray Area Foundation for the Arts.

I also make music - soundscapes which suspend time and suggest space.

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barry threw is at home in San Francisco.

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