Thursday, May 29th at 8pm, ISSUE Project Room is proud to present a release event for Bored Giant Engine Sputter, the latest EP by Axine M, out this May via anno records. The evening will feature a live set by Axine M reworking tracks from the EP, and a new work by choreographer Amelia Heintzelman with dramaturgical support by Tess Michaelson, that explores states of turbulence and arousal. Alongside collaborators Dorothy Carlos and Clara Kim, using scores for music and dancing based in speculative physiology, the ensemble triangulates through moments of intimacy, conflict, and collapse.
Recent 2024 ISSUE Artist-In-Residence Axine M will be accompanied by dancers Heintzelman and Kim, embodying the paranoia and alienation generated by techno-authoritarian forces which are the subject of Axine M’s electronic compositions. Bored Giant Engine Sputter is a frenzied, kinetic meditation on the reality that each of us exists as a data node; generating information to fuel a system of power too vast to comprehend.
Dorothy Carlos is an experimental cellist and composer working in improvised performance and multi-channel sound in New York City and Chicago. Her work utilizes extended techniques and digital manipulation, merging free improvisation and computer music. She is interested in digital techniques as an opportunity to construct alternate realities. Solo performances have been presented internationally by e-flux, Experimental Sound Studio Chicago, Big Ears Festival, default, Center for New Music and Associated Technologies (CNMAT) at UC Berkeley, Chicago Jazz String Summit, and Bemis Center. Dorothy has been featured as a collaborator on projects presented at the Swiss Institute (New York), Night Gallery (Los Angeles), Artists Space (New York), Performance Space (New York), Untitled Art Fair (Miami), Gaudeamus Festival (Utrecht, NL), Emerging Change Festival (Berlin), and the Fall River Museum of Contemporary Art. Her work has been featured by The Wire, New York Times, Artforum, Bandcamp, and The Quietus, and released digitally with 29 Speedway, D.O.T. Audio Arts, and American Dreams. Dorothy holds a Bachelor’s degree from NYU where she studied classical cello and anthropology and an MFA in sound from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Amelia Heintzelman is a dancer, choreographer, and teacher. Most recently, her work has been supported by Center for Performance Research, Draftwork at Danspace Project, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Movement Research at the Judson Church, Pageant, Snug Harbor, and UCross Foundation. She is on teaching faculty at Movement Research and Pageant, and rarely/sometimes teaches Comedy Pilates. She is interested in tension without drama, speculative physiology, and humiliation.
Clara Kim is a dancer and writer based in Brooklyn, NY. She has performed at Movement Research at Judson Church, Kaleidoscope, Tiger Strikes Asteroid, and Pageant. She holds a BA from Smith College in Philosophy with a minor in Neuroscience.
Axine M is the moniker of music artist Maxine de las Pozas. The Ancient Greek Axenos, or "inhospitable place," is a name for the Black Sea before nautical technology was advanced enough to safely traverse the water. Axine M is a vessel for musical inquiries and creative impulses across multiple genres and sentiments, carving out a space for itself against the grain of the dystopian imaginary. A recent self-released tape, USUSUSESESERERER (pronounced "user"), is a songwriterly exploration of interpersonal relationships under late-capitalism. Axine has published tapes with Summer Isle and Embalming Lately, a label she co-founded. As a DJ, Axine has mixed for c-, BIZAARBAZAAR, DUST, Hong Kong Community Radio, and The Lot Radio, among others. Maxine holds a master's degree in Music Technology from NYU Steinhardt, where she focused on the design of novel music controllers for live performance. Versions of her thesis were published in the proceedings of New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME 2020) and International Computer Music Conference (ICMC 2021). As Axine M, she was a 2024 ISSUE Project Room Artist-In-Residence. Maxine was an active participant and sound engineer at Chaos Computer, in Brooklyn. She works as a Sound Engineer and Technician.
Tess Michaelson is a writer, dramaturg, and multidisciplinary artist based in New York who works at the intersection of text and performance. Her writing has appeared in motor dance journal, the Brooklyn Rail, Cost of Paper, and Chicago Review, among other publications. Tess studied English and Aesthetics at Stanford University and earned her MFA in nonfiction writing from Columbia University. She is currently at work on an improvisational novel.
