OptoSonic Tea @ Diapason NYC

OptoSonic Tea is a new regular series of meetings dedicated to the convergence of live visuals with live sound which focuses on the visual component. These presentation-and-discussion meetings aim to explore different forms of live visuals (live video, live film, live slide projection and their variations and combinations) and the different ways they can come into interaction with live audio. Each evening features two different live visual artists or groups of artists who each perform a set with the live sound artists of their choice. The presentations are followed by an informal discussion about the artists' practices over a cup of green tea. A third artist, from previous generations of visualists or related fields, is invited specifically to participate in this discussion so as to create a dialogue between current and past practices and provide different perspectives on the present and the future.

Organized by Katherine Liberovskaya and Ursula Scherrer

About the artists :

Bradley Eros : An artist working in myriad media : experimental film & video, collage, photography, performance, sound, text, expanded cinema & installation. Also a maverick curator, designer, researcher & investigator. Concepts include : ephemeral cinema, mediamystics, subterranean science, erotic psyche, poetic accidents, cinema povera. Exhibited at 2004 Whitney Biennial & The American Century, The New York Film Festival, London Film Festival, MoMA, Pacific Film Archives, Warhol Museum, Arsenal in Berlin, Lightcone in Paris ; works with the New York Filmmakers' Cooperative, Anthology Film Archives & directs the Roberta Beck Mercurial Cinema.

o.blaat (Keiko Uenishi)

Based in Brooklyn, New York, sound artivist and core member of SHARE ( http://share.dj), o.blaat (Keiko Uenishi) is known for her sound works formed through experiments in restructuring and analyzing one's relationship with sounds, through kinesthetic response as well as aural cognition. She performed at various venues including : The Kitchen, Whitney Museum of American Art, P.S.1, White Columns, Chelsea Art Museum, Rhizome.org, Lincoln Center, MIT (Boston), Cornell Univercity, Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, Tate Britain, Sydney Opera House, ZKM, Konfrontationen 2006 Festival, ClubTransmediale Festival, Vienna Konzerthaus, Kunstradio, LU, Zoobizarre, STEIM, Netmage 06 Festival, Interferenze Festival. She has also created installations 'Aboard : Fillip2' (Fortescue Gallery, London), and 'J'ai un
secret merveilleux : Midas' (Citysonic 2006, Mons, Belgium).

She was a recipient for Harvestworks' Artist-In-Residence 2004, and Van Lier Foundation/Harvestworks' fellowship in 2000-2001. Uenishi is currently an artist-in-residence at Brooklyn College (CUNY) Center for Computer Music for 2006-2007. Upcoming residency is to take place in Nodar, Portugal in October, 2007.
More info at http://obla.at and http://myspace.com/oblaat (firefox only)

musique plastique : This presentation will alternate 2 live ephemeral cinema performances using piezoelectric-generated electronic sound - with 2 studio-produced high definition and digital video versions of similar processes & materials, using hand-manipulated celluloid film strips & colored plastic gels with external lenses and filters, to create a "pyrographic chemystery" of metaphors & abstractions.

As an artist, Andrew Lampert primarily focuses on projector-based pieces, film/video portraits, participatory productions and private performances. VARIETIES OF SLOW, a multi-hour 3-screen performance, PIANO AND STRING QUARTET, PIANO AND STRING QUARTET, a sound piece, and OKKYUNG DUET, a film performance with cellist Okkyung Lee, were included in the 2006 Whitney Biennial. GROWTH OPPORTUNITIES, a
performance piece originally staged in 2000, was revived in 2005 at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. His work has been presented and performed at the New York Film Festival, the Lux Centre, The Rotterdam International Film Festival, the Images Festival and galleries/institutions in the US, Mexico, Canada, UK, Holland, France and Russia. As an Archivist and Programmer, Lampert works at Anthology Film Archives where he is responsible for the day-to-day maintenance and preservation of the collection.

Alan Licht : A New York based musician and writer, Alan Licht has released four albums of pieces for solo and multiple guitars, the latest being A New York Minute (XI). He currently co-directs Text of Light with Sonic Youth's Lee Ranaldo, a music group in which they and others improvise with experimental films screening behind them, and is
a member of Rob Mazurek's group Mandarin Movie. He's also recorded and performed as an improvisor with : Rashied Ali, Jim O'Rourke, Christian Marclay, Thurston Moore, Arto Lindsay, John Zorn, Zeena Parkins, Ikue Mori, Derek Bailey, Charles Curtis, Loren Mazzacane Connors, Nihilist Spasm Band, Oren Ambarchi, Ken Vandermark, Peter Brotzmann, Keith Rowe, Marina Rosenfeld, Raz Mesinai, Tetuzi Akiyama, Aki Onda, Jandek, Michael Snow, Keiji Haino, DJ Olive, Fennesz, and DJ Spooky. A founding
member of the indie rock bands Love Child & Run On, he's also performed with Tom Verlaine, Brokeback, Papa M, the Styrenes, Royal Trux & Plush.

Sound installations include "Today I Am A Fountain Pen", Studio Five Beekman, NYC (1998), "Country Geese, City Geese" and "Twilight of the Idols" Diapason, NYC (2003) and "The Downsizing of Don Dokken", part of 'Constrictions' exhibition at Pierogi 2000, Brooklyn (1996). A frequent contributor to the WIRE, Modern Painters, Time Out NY, Art Review, Premiere, and Film Comment, his first book, An Emotional Memoir of Martha Quinn, was published by Drag City Press in 2001.

Lary Seven continues to expand his live-performance repertoire to include experimental music utilizing custom-built electro-acoustic devices. Recent live performances include Barbican (London 2000) and Fonotactik (Vienna 2002).

New York-based collaborative Directart Productions Ltd. works in a variety of disciplines. These include music, film, video, live performance, radio and visual art. Directart has been the vehicle for numerous creative projects by its principals, Lary Seven and Fabio Roberti, for more than twenty years.

Foremost among its many endeavors is Plastikville Studios, Directart's music-production resource. Plastikville was formed in the early eighties and is an ongoing interest for musicians from around the world.

Directart has also curated film and 3-D slide screenings both locally and internationally. In 1991, Directart collaborated with VRcades on "The Knowledge Bazaar," with their sound and 3-D slide tableaux, at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York. And a collaboration with the internationalist KBZ-200 group included film, slide and live performances in Berlin ('93), Munich ('94) and Brighton ('94). _