Julia Santoli: "spirit is matter" / "the prisoners are becoming ambient"

Thursday, April 12th, Julia Santoli opens her 2018 ISSUE residency with the premiere of two new works within her “Siren Sore” cycle: a mutant project of myriad form manifesting as visual project, recording album, and live performance through genre-crossing collaborations.

Santoli describes the work(s) as retaining the narrative accessibility of song structures, but melding with the physical import of a site-specific sonic approach. Through studying the transmission of body through voice, the “siren” emerges as a voice beyond the locus of capture or control -- an avenger of bodies transgressed.

The evening premieres two new works within a sculptural landscape: “spirit is matter” with saxophonist Tamio Shiraishi, and “the prisoners are becoming ambient” with electronic artist and PTP label-head Geng.

Julia Santoli is a Brooklyn-based artist and experimental musician. Creating immersive and precarious environments with voice, feedback, electronics, and installation, her work deals with intergenerational hauntings and reclamation through the body. She has presented solo and collaborative works at Queens Museum, Flux Factory, ISSUE Project Room, New York Live Arts, Judson Memorial Church, LUMP, Disjecta, Widow Jane Mine cave, GRACE Exhibition Space, Panoply Performance Laboratory; as well as presented and taught workshops during a 5-month residency in Spinnerei, Leipzig, DE.

Geng is a New York City-borne and currently-residing sound artist and founder of PTP (formerly, Purple Tape Pedigree), a collective, plus imprint, acting as “purveyors of weaponized media.” With roots in the city's underground hip hop and then experimental electronic/metal/punk communities since the mid-90's, his sonic narrative typically spills forth a cocktail of these influences, with a focus on meditative confrontation of traumatic histories, sleep paralysis, aquaphobia, and the communication bridge between self-actualized identity and spirit. In a live setting, one may be challenged by disembodied vocals piercing through a collage of field recordings, ASMR tape loops, and walls of distorted dread from various hardware – once reviewed as a “brutal ritual … drawn from dystopian nightmares … this is metal machine music meant for catharsis, not escapism” by Washington City Paper. Geng's recorded, public catalog spans back to 2004 with production for Harlem's rap super crew, The Diplomats aka Dipset, on Diplomatic Immunity II. Since then, he's contributed to albums by revolutionary poet/sound artist Moor Mother, free jazz/drone quartet Diamond Terrifier Cipher, and NY hardcore band CRUSHED. He was also commissioned to score an ad campaign by Taiwanese technical wear brand, Guerrilla Group. 2018 sees the release of his debut album as his new King Vision Ultra alias, entitled Pain Of Mind, on Ascetic House. Geng has been a featured performer at MoMA PS1 (Sunday Session collaboration with Matana Roberts and Black Quantum Futurism and Warm-Up, 2017), Woods Project II (Vermont, 2017), Corpus Mixtape (Knockdown Center, 2016), 3HD Festival (Berlin, 2016), Forward Festival (D.C., 2016), Boiler Room (in collaboration with Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste, Saint Vitus, 2016), and has been a guest speaker/performer on radio for NY Art Book Fair (MoMA PS1, 2017), NTS Radio (London, 2015-2017), Rinse FM (London, 2017), RBMA Radio (2015-2016), and many more.

A founding member of the legendary noise unit Fushitsusha, saxophonist Tamio Shiraishi has had a storied career performing alongside some of the most significant contemporary musicians. In the USA, he has performed with Crash Worship, No Neck Blues Band and many more. He currently performs in subway stations after midnight.