Friday, March 11th, ISSUE presents pioneering experimental composer Morton Subotnick premiering the final version of “As I Live & Breath” a duet of image and sound augmented with the live visual work of Berlin-based video artist, Lillevan. Subotnick has described the piece as “a fitting title as, at 88, it may be my last appearance on the road.” The performance opens with new work from musician, instrument builder, DJ and 2017 ISSUE Artist-In-Residence Antenes (Lori Napoleon) and will take place at The Playhouse Theater at Abrons Arts Center in the Lower East Side as part of the @Abrons Series.
Morton Subotnick & Lillevan’s light and sound duet combines analog recordings, electronic patches, and live performance on a hybrid Buchla 200e/Ableton “instrument” with live video animation. Morton Subotnick states, “'As I Live & Breathe' features live and sampled vocalizing along with some of my most advanced electronic performance techniques. At last, some Buchla modules are now digital plugins and Ableton Live has evolved into a form that will allow me to create a technological environment that I never expected, in my lifetime, to experience. It starts with my breath, moves through a vocalising cadenza of vocal gestures and ends with a tender and simple use of gentle rhythms and melodic fragments."
Antenes (Lori Napoleon) returns to ISSUE to present a new iteration of her ongoing exploration of material from the NOKIA Bell Labs Archives—a research process that has run parallel to her practice of appropriating antique and/or otherwise obsolete objects in ways that reference and extend their original functionality. Further refining, processing, and spatializing this material, Napoleon combines synthesis with binaural recordings of Bell Labs artifacts from telecommunications history paired with microscopic sounds produced by personal objects from her life (shells, wires, rocks, old watches, etc.) recorded within the famed The Murray Hill anechoic chamber, the world's oldest wedge-based anechoic chamber built in 1940. She also uses hand-made equipment built during her residency, including a switchboard that electronically controls 90's flip phone motors Napoleon salvaged—creating organically unfolding rhythms, drones and resonances within these items, including a replica of the first liquid transmission telephone.
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.
In the early 60s, Subotnick taught at Mills College and with Ramon Sender, co-founded the San Francisco Tape Music Center. During this period he collaborated with Anna Halprin in two works (the 3 legged stool and Parades and Changes) and was music director of the Actors Workshop. It was also during this period that Subotnick worked with Don Buchla on what may have been the first analog synthesizer (now at the Library of Congress). In 1966 Subotnick was instrumental in getting a Rockefeller Grant to join the Tape Center with the Mills Chamber Players (at Mills College with performers Nate Rubin, violin; Bonnie Hampton, cello; Naomi Sparrow, piano and Subotnick, clarinet). The grant required that the Tape Center relocate to a host institution that became Mills College. Subotnick, however, did not stay with the move, but went to NY with the Actor’s Workshop to become the first music director of the Lincoln Center Rep Company in the Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center. He became an artist in residence at the newly formed Tisch School of the Arts at NYU. The School of the Arts provided him with a studio and a Buchla Synthesizer. During this period he helped develop and became artistic director of the Electric Circus and the Electric Ear. This was also the time of the creation of Silver Apples of the Moon, The Wild Bull and Touch. In 1969, Subotnick was invited to be part of a team of artists to move to Los Angeles to plan a new school of the arts. With Mel Powell as Dean, and Subotnick as Associate Dean, and a team of four other pairs of artists, he carved out a new path of music education and created the now famous California Institute of the Arts. Subotnick remained Associate Dean of the music school for four years and then, resigning as Associate Dean, became the head of the composition program where, a few years later, he created a new media program that introduced interactive technology and multimedia into the curriculum.
Subotnick has toured extensively throughout the U.S. and Europe as a lecturer and composer/performer. Among Subotnick’s awards are a Guggenheim Fellowship, Rockefeller Grants (3), Meet the Composer (2), American Academy of Arts and Letters Composer Award, Brandies Award, Deutcher Akademisher Austauschdienst Kunsterprogramm (DAAD), Composer in Residence in Berlin, Lifetime Achievement Award (SEAMUS at Dartmouth), ASCAP: John Cage Award, ACO: Lifetime Achievement, Honorary Doctorate from the California Institute of the Arts. Subotnick last performed at ISSUE Project Room, in collaboration with Lillevan, as part of ISSUE's 2016 After 9 Evenings, a celebration marking the 50th anniversary of 9 Evenings: Theatre & Engineering (1966).
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.
Musician, instrument builder, and DJ, Antenes (Lori Napoleon) resides in New York with her collection of self-made sequencers and synthesizers using repurposed vintage telecommunications equipment. The artist draws musical influence from the curious and ephemeral sound-world of outdated telephone and telegraph networking systems, finding parallels between both atmospheric and mechanical aberrations inherent in the materials and various forms of synthesis. Her productions integrate sounds reminiscent of pulsing analog relay switching systems, errant radio transmissions, cross-continental echo, signature drones and message interferences between wires.
A devoted practitioner of crossing between disciplines, Antenes has held residencies for electronic arts at Worm (Rotterdam), ISSUE Project Room (NYC) NOKIA Bell Labs (Murray Hill, NJ), Harvestworks (NYC) and Signal Culture (Owego NY) and has appeared at numerous interdisciplinary events including the New York Electronic Arts Festival, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory’s “Intersections” exhibition (Batavia, IL), Open House London’s Sonic Visitations, and Trinity College’s Science Gallery (Dublin). Inspired by the Buchla 100 modular system, her synth work is featured in the 2013 film I Dream of Wires: The Modular Synthesizer Documentary, as well as in several master’s theses including Mills College, Fashion Institute of Technology and Clemson University. She also leads hands-on DIY synth workshops, having recently lectured at CalArts, Oberlin, SAIC, ReWire Festival, MoogFest, and UC-Boulder’s music departments, along with Monthly Music Hackathon, Dame Electric at Pioneer Works and Women’s Synth Workshop at the Kitchen (NYC). She has been featured in articles and podcasts including The Creators Project, ClockTower Radio, and writer Steven Johnson’s Wonderland Podcast (alongside Brian Eno, Alex Ross and Caroline Shaw). She also keeps busy behind the decks of underground events globally, including The Bunker New York, De School Amsterdam, Tresor Berlin, Corsica Studios London, Rural Festival Japan and more. Antenes has releases on L.I.E.S., Silent Season, and The Bunker New York (as Antemeridian).
