As part of "The Sonic Unconscious" festival, ISSUE presents Yolande Harris's Scorescapes, a program including the pieces Tuning In / Spacing Out, a collaboration with Edward Shanken, Fishing for Sound, and S.W.A.M.P., with Kato Hideki, Jim Pugliese, & William Lang.
Yolande Harris's Tuning in and Spacing Out: the Art and Science of the Presentness of Sound is a collaborative lecture/performance that explores sound and space as modes of understanding environmental phenomena. Edward Shanken and Yolande Harris draw on artistic sources ranging from Alvin Lucier and La Monte Young to Pauline Oliveros and David Dunn and on scientific research from Jim Crutchfield (complexity) and Michel André (marine bioacoustics). Blending text, sound and video, they weave together the mythic significance of marine mammals, the interconnectedness of the sea and outer-space, and the relationship between ultrasound, insects, and global climate change.
Fishing for Sound creates a sea of spatial connections between phenomena underwater, in the mind, and from outer-space, weaving sounds from marine environments, psychotherapy and sonified navigation satellites. Common to each of these is a mass of background noise - of environment, memory and information - where listening is like fishing for sounds.
A third version of S.W.A.M.P. (Some Wayward Attempts at Monitoring Prawns) (after Diapason Gallery, NYC 2009, and Mazzoli Gallery, Berlin 2010), explores the edges between field recording and acoustic improvisation. In combination with Field, environmental and underwater sounds, from biological to anthropogenic, lead to a state of mind that builds on the daydream and the surreal. With Kato Hideki (electric bass), Jim Pugliese (drums) & William Lang (trombone)
Yolande Harris (UK) uses her performances, installations and instruments to investigate how we use sound to relate to our surroundings, both architectural and ecological. Her current research/practice considers the musical potential of sound worlds outside the human hearing range, through underwater bioacoustics and the sonification of data.
Edward A. Shanken (US) writes and teaches about the entwinement of art, science and technology, with a focus on interdisciplinary practices involving new media. He edited and wrote the introduction to a collection of essays by Roy Ascott, Telematic Embrace: Visionary Theories of Art, Technology and Consciousness (University of California Press, 2003, reprinted 2007). His critically praised survey, Art and Electronic Media, was published by Phaidon Press in 2009, reprinted 2010.
Kato Hideki (Kato:family name; Hideki: given) is a Japanese-born composer/bassist/multi-instrumentalist, who lives in NYC. He is the co-founder of Death Ambient with Ikue Mori & Fred Frith. His other groups as a leader are: Green Zone with Otomo Yoshihide & Uemura Masahiro; OMNI wtih Nakamura Toshimaru & Akiyama Tetsuji; Plastic Spoon with Karen Mantler, Doug Wieselman & Shahzad Ismaily. His compositions include: solo bass piece Turbulent Zone, Mystic Ship of Life, (commissioned by the Kitchen, NYC) and Tremolo of Joy for his quartet with Charles Burnham, Briggan Krauss & Calvin Weston. Besides his own projects, he has worked with / for Eyvind Kang, Andy Gonzalez, Yuka Honda, Zeena Parkins, Marc Ribot, John King, Bruce Springsteen & John Zorn among many others. Besides his own projects, Kato collaborates with Nicolas Collins, James Fei, Christian Marclay & Ursula Scherrer. He is also a member of analog synthesizer collective, Analogos.
Originally from Long Island, trombonist William Lang is an active performer, improviser, and teacher in New York City and Boston. He can be found playing in all setting and styles, from the avant-garde and classical to salsa and indie chamber pop. He has given unaccompanied trombone recitals throughout the United States, played concertos with large ensembles, and recorded with such artists as Philip Glass and Jónsi (of Sigur Rós.) Intensely passionate for chamber music, he regularly performs alongside his groundbreaking ensembles loadbang (an original and unique group of musicians interested in cutting edge music) and the Guidonian Hand (a trombone quartet dedicated to breaking boundaries within the brass community.) He is also a member of the Boston Microtonal Society, where he explores the definition of pitch and technique, working alongside like-minded composers.
Jim Pugliese is a drummer, percussionist and composer. As a freelance percussionist he is in much demand and has performed with The New York Philharmonic Horizon Series (guest artist), New York City Ballet and soloist or performer on numerous new music and jazz festivals in Europe, Japan and the USA.He studied percussion with Raymond Des Roches and by the age of eighteen he had recorded the music of Edgar Varese and Charles Wuorinen for Nonsuch Records. He continued performing and or recording new music with John Cage, Lukas Foss, Kent Nagano and Philip Glass and has improvised recorded and toured with many of downtowns most prominent composer/improvisers including John Zorn, Marc Ribot, Zeena Parkins, Elliot Sharp, Bobby Previte and Anthony Coleman. Jim’s latest projects are inspired by his recent association and work with Nii Tettey Tetteh, master musician from Ghana, with Milford Graves, learning drumming and healing through the heartbeat and his study of the spiritual songs of the Mbira Dzavadzimu from Zimbabwe. His latest CD "Live @ Issue Project Room NYC" was listed as "Best New Release of 2008" in "All About Jazz NY".
