From September 25 to October 1, 2016 ISSUE Project Room presents After 9 Evenings: A 50th Anniversary Celebration, a dynamic series of performances, talks, screenings, and workshops to mark the 50th anniversary of 9 Evenings: Theatre & Engineering (1966).
Pioneering experimental composer Morton Subotnick premieres a new collaboration with Berlin-based video artist, Lillevan. Their light and sound duet combines analog recordings, electronic patches, and live performance on a hybrid Buchla 200e/Ableton “instrument” with live video animation. The duo of composer and turntable artist Marina Rosenfeld and analog synth innovator Ben Vida reprise their improvisational collaboration first presented during Vida’s 2013 ISSUE residency.
Morton Subotnick is one of the pioneers in the development of electronic music and an innovator in works involving instruments and other media, including interactive computer music systems. His landmark record Silver Apples of the Moon (1966-67), commissioned by Nonesuch Records, marked the first time an original large-scale composition had been created specifically for the disc medium – a conscious acknowledgment that the home stereo system constituted a present-day form of chamber music. It has become a modern classic and was recently entered into the National Register of Recorded Works at the Library of Congress. Only 300 recordings throughout the entire history of recorded music have been chosen.
Lillevan is an animation, video and media artist who is perhaps best known as a founding member of the visual/music group Rechenzentrum / Data Center (1997-2008). He has performed and collaborated with many artists from a wide array of genres, and has worked with Morton Subotnick since 2010.
Marina Rosenfeld is a New York-based artist and composer. Her work has been widely presented, including by the Museum of Modern Art, the Park Avenue Armory, the Guggenheim Museum, the Whitney, Liverpool and PERFORMA biennials, and festivals including Borealis, Wien Modern, Holland, Ultima and Vancouver New Music, among many others. Rosenfeld has also performed as a turntablist since the late '90s, working with an ever-expanding palette of hand-crafted dub plates, alongside collaborators including Christian Marclay, Warrior Queen, Ralph Lemon, Merce Cunningham Dance Company and many others. In October she will premiere a new work for a hybrid ensemble of military band members and civilian experimental musicians as part of the Biennale de Montreal.
Ben Vida lives and works in New York. In the mid-1990s he co-founded the group Town and Country and has since worked as a solo artist with releases on such labels as PAN, Alku, Shelter Press, Future Audio Graphics and Kranky. Recent exhibitions include [Smile on.] . . . [Pause.] . . . [Smile off.], Lisa Cooley, New York (2016); Slipping Control (West), 356 Mission, Los Angeles, California (2015). His work has been presented extensively throughout N. America, Japan, Australia and Europe at such institutions as the Guggenheim, New York; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; The Institute of Contemporary Art, London; Audio Visual Arts, New York; Leap Gallery, Berlin; The Artist’s Institute, New York; the Sydney Opera House; Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna; Cricoteka Museum, Kraków, Poland and the Royal Festival Hall, London.
