Tony Martin: The Variable Place

Tony Martin arrived to San Francisco in 1962, promptly forging creative alliances and lifetime friendships with “new music” people Morton Subotnick, Pauline Oliveros, and Ramon Sender. When the San Francisco Tape Music Center moved to its location at 321 Divisadero St., Martin was invited by co-directors Sender and Subotnick to become the Visual Director. With special attention paid to working in the tape music medium, as well as performing regularly, they joined with Mills Center for Contemporary Music in ’67. During the SFTMC days Martin was responsible for numerous visual compositions, including Terry Riley’s In C performance, as well as Sender’s Desert Ambulance. Martin was deeply engaged in experimenting with light via overhead and slide projectors, mixing paint, oil, water, and objects to build his light compositions. His following grew as a culture of psychedelia pervaded the 1960s and his light shows became popular amongst bands such as Jefferson Airplane and Grateful Dead. During this time he began to build “interactions” by engineering entire environments using sensors and mirrors. By the late ’60s he returned to New York City where he continued his focus for these types of installations; time and time again synthesizing his technological skills with painting as a moving image. A painter at heart, he continued with consideration of his experience working with his viewer-activated sculptures, as well as his devotion to the medium of light — maintaining a thread that binds all aspects of his work. His latest piece entitled Proximity Switched Installation (2012) is a clear culmination of a lifetime of experimentation/production. A video demonstration of this installation will be available to view online at the time of the books release and includes musical accompaniment by Compound Eye (Spring Press).

The Variable Place is the first book of its kind to tie together over 50 years of Tony Martin’s work. It includes an in-depth interview with Martin by Will Cameron, Albert Herter and the editors. As well as a special introduction by long-time friend/collaborator Pauline Oliveros. Available as a limited edition release of 350, 104 pp, full-color, 8” x 10”, perfect bound.

Grab it HERE

Tony Martin’s Proximity Switched Installation from AB-SENS PRESS

Barn Owl – Void Redux

Barn Owl’s new one,  V will be out  April 16th via Thrill Jockey.

UNISOUND

For four days, which are concurrent with the Printed Matter Art Book Fair (Thursday January 31st – Sunday February 3rd) Public Fiction will be transformed by artist/musicians Robert Barber/The Urxed and Chris Duncan into a sound sculpture that will function as a platform for sound makers from the Los Angeles and Bay Areas to perform in, on and/or interact with.
Donation at the door. No one turned away for lack of funds.

Schedule (in no particular order)

THURSDAY 7PM -11PM
Infinite Body
DIVA
Matthew Sullivan
Pod Blotz
the Urxed

FRIDAY 7PM -12AM
Secret Circuit (LA)
High Places (LA)
Zachary James Watkins (Oakland)
Anenon (LA)
Anthony Iamurri/Chris Duncan (Oakland/SF)
John Davis/Paul Clipson (Oakland)

SATURDAY 5PM-12AM (Starts EARLY!)
Lucky Dragons (LA)
Rene Hell (LA)
Danny Paul Grody (SF)
White Rainbow (LA/PDX)
Robert Crouch (LA)
Tana Sprague (Oakland)
Laura Steenberge (Oakland)
The Sun (Oakland)

SUNDAY Afternoon 1PM -6PM
Brendan Fowler (LA)
Sneaky Snake (LA)
Dean Spunt (LA
Collin Mckelvey (Oakland)
Randy Randall (LA)

The entire 4 days of sound will be archived by the wonderful
DUBLAB.COM

Brought to you by:
PUBLIC FICTION: http://publicfiction.org/
LAND AND SEA: http://landandseelandandsea.blogspot.com/
THE URXED/ROBERT BARBER
With generous support from DUBLAB http://www.Dublab.com/

Wednedsay, January 23, 2013
8:30 PM
The Lab
$6 – $15 Sliding Scale

MANDELBROT & SKYY (LA/NY)
MATHEW DRYHURST (SF)
BRANDON NICKELL (SF)
PAUL CLIPSON (SF)

The Lab

Charles Curtis at The Lab, San Francisco
Sunday, February 10, 2013, 7:30pm

In a two-part concert, cellist Charles Curtis will present solo works created for and with him by Éliane Radigue, Alvin Lucier and Alison Knowles. Radigue’s Naldjorlak (2005) is a nearly hour-long, continuous exploration of the acoustical properties of the cello, centered around a tuning of the cello to its own intrinsic resonance. All of the strings are brought into alignment with the cello’s “wolf tone”; the entire corpus of the cello is engaged to elicit a complex, closely related spectrum of harmonics and resonances. Lucier’s Slices for Cello and Pre-recorded Orchestra (2011) sets the solo cello against a sustained chromatic tone cluster in 52 orchestral instruments, arrayed as a Supercollider patch. By outlining the cluster in various melodic orderings, the solo cello erases and re-inscribes the orchestral cluster in a slowly unfolding process. Alison Knowles’ Rice and Beans for Charles Curtis (2008) is a graphic score made of hand made rice paper, beans, lentils and bits of fabric and string. Curtis interprets this work of visual art in a performance analogous to the making of the score, working over the “score” of the instrument in several passes, seeking out unsuspected resonances by tapping, rubbing and stroking the instrument with bare hands.

Éliane Radigue (born 1932) is one of the pioneers of electronic music and music of long duration. Naldjorlak is her very first work for an acoustic instrument.

Alvin Lucier (born 1931) is an American experimental composer who directly engages the physical properties of sound in space. Works of his such as “I am sitting in a room” and “Music for Solo Performer” are landmarks of late twentieth-century art.

Alison Knowles (born 1933) is a first generation member of Fluxus and an internationally acclaimed visual artist, poet and musician. Her work elaborates John Cage’s ideas of indeterminacy in rigorous and surprising new applications.

Your Victorian Breasts
three:four records,
Feb 5 2013 gatefold 2xLP
curated by Maxime Guitton

INFO
LISTEN
PRE-ORDER

—

A1- A R P : Phase IV (excerpt) (5:42)
A2- Ignatz: Do Not Wake Me (4:00)
A3- Filipe Felizardo: Where the Oyster remains shut; and the Mole pisses at the sun, extinguishing its Light (4:44)
A4- Arlt: Tu m’as encore crevé un cheval (4:21)
A5- William Tyler: A Portrait of Sarah (6:09)

B1- Robert Hampson: Retour à la chaleur (6:55)
B2- Alastair Galbraith: New Heart of Darkness (2:37)
B3- Date Palms: Dust Bowl Theme (demo) (3:03)
B4- Roger Tellier-Craig: Transit (4:10)
B5- Black To Comm: Nord (5:03)

C1- Eric Chenaux: Na Te Mislim (6:35)
C2- Syracuse Ear: Earth of Vitreous (4:11)
C3- Hamilton Yarns: What Comes (5:40)
C4- Corridors: Broken Ellipses (5:06)
C5- Pigeons: Mésanges (3:56)

D1- Alvarius B: Goodbaby Goodbye (2:56)
D2- Circuit des Yeux: Despair Came Knocking (Instrumental) (3:55)
D3- Mendrugo: Estrella Fugaz (3:34)
D4- Raajmahal: My Boy is a Good Child, Sleep (8:44)
D5- Supreme Dicks: 4 Come In (for Gaëlle) (3:07)

Shapeshifters Cinema
John Davis (projection) & Joshua Churchill (music)

Sunday, January 13 – 8pm, free

Temescal Art Center
511 48th St.
Oakland, CA 94609 (48th and Telegraph)

KQED write-up here.

Pre-order ‘Punk Authority’ over at Mexican Summer.

Pete Swanson
Dreamboat (Golden Retriever & Ilyas Ahmed)
(Scott) Goodwin
Concrete Floor

8:30pm, Wednesday, January 2nd
$6, 21+

Holocene
1001 Southeast Morrison Street
Portland, OR 97214
(503) 239-7639