ISSUE Project Room celebrates the 20th Anniversary of its Artists-In-Residence (AIR) program throughout 2026 with performances by current residents and returning alumni. This anniversary season highlights AIRs whose work reflects the ongoing evolution of a much broader community of experimental artists who have helped shape ISSUE for over twenty years.
Thursday, November 19th at 8pm, 2026 Artist-In-Residence and luthier Webb Crawford presents that passed away, this also may. For their culminating residency commission at ISSUE’s 22 Boerum Pl. theater, Crawford and collaborator Emma Mistele will play the organistrum in trio with Sam Boston performing on his self-built electric duochord with wheel.
Organistrum are roughly 11th-century ancestors of the modern hurdy-gurdy. The name organistrum is an amalgamation of the organum of polyphonic plainchant and the category of devices widely referred to as instrumentum—instruments of measurement and music. Organon refers to a set of principles for use in scientific or philosophical investigation, “an instrument for acquiring knowledge”. The old English organe is an “implement, tool for making or doing; musical instrument; organ of sense, organ of the body,” from the Proto Indo-European werg-ano, “that with which one works.”
One player of the organistrum cranks a rosined wheel, which activates the strings. A second player affects the pitches played by stopping those strings. A two-person organ, a heart pumping blood for multiples, a negotiation of physicality and of sound.
Instruments collapse meaning. The violins are the organs of the symphony orchestra. The bellows are the lungs of an organ.
Building the organistrum was made possible via the Community Giveback Membership at Makerspace NYC in Sunset Park. Thanks to Annette, Scott and Diamond for your advice, patience, guidance, kindness, and immense generosity. This instrument would not exist without your support.
Webb Crawford is a guitarist, banjoist, improviser and instrument-builder whose work considers relationships between maker, instrument, and player, traditional design conventions, and established performance practices. As a luthier, Crawford focuses on modern reconstructions of historical stringed instruments, recontextualizations of those instruments within experimental music, and the exchange dynamics of multi-player sound objects. In 2017, they worked with MASS MoCA to restore instruments built by composer and luthier Gunnar Schonbeck, and later created replicas of Schonbeck’s “triangular cellos” for Bennington College. Crawford has led and participated in instrument-building workshops at The Cooper Union, Connecticut College, the Bennington Museum, and Carnegie Hall (with Bash the Trash), and has worked for ten years as a guitar repair technician.
Emma Mistele is from New Jersey and plays piano, organ, and electronic instruments. She is interested in performance of extreme duration, and she has been creating notation for groups of improvisers.
Sam Boston is from Connecticut. He builds sounding objects: instruments, tools, and sometimes sculptures. Through a commitment to strictly reduced forms, his work reveals the elusive resonant characteristics of the material in question.
Respect your RSVP
ISSUE encourages a culture of respect around free arts programming–by honoring your RSVP, you recognize ISSUE’s ongoing efforts to cultivate new work by emerging artists. RSVPing for free events does not guarantee entry in limited capacity environments, and ISSUE encourages audiences to arrive on-time. If you can no longer attend this free event, please contact operations@issueprojectroom.org to let us know. Thank you for respecting the reservation.
