[spectre] OptoSonic Tea @ Diapason NYC - Sunday, March 7th, 5pm

[Katherine Liberovskaya]

Sunday March 7th
5 pm

OptoSonic Tea

Live sets by:

- Dan Conrad (chromaccord) with Jorge Martins (live sound)
- George O. Stadnik (photon guitar) with James Ross (live sound)

Invited respondent/moderator:

- Eric Rosenzveig

Suggested donation:
$ 7

Diapason
882 Third Avenue, between 32nd and 33rd Streets, 10th floor
BROOKLYN (Sunset Park)
(718) 499-5070
www.diapasongallery.org
directions: D, N or R train to 36th Street in Brooklyn


OptoSonic Tea is a 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

OptoSonic Tea is partly funded by the Experimental Television Center.
The Experimental Television Center¹s Presentation Funds program is
supported by the New York State Council on the Arts.


About the artists:

Dan Conrad lives in Baltimore. In recent years he has been making
³light paintings², configurations of automatic color-changing light
behind a translucent screen. A collection of these works can be seen
at www.chromaccord.net <http://www.chromaccord.net> .
Conrad¹s statement for the Optosonic Tea:
My interest in color sequencing began in 1968 when I read Josef
Albers¹ Interaction of Color. In 1971 in San Francisco I built a color
sculpture/light machine that changed color using multiple dimmers that
were manipulated during a performance. This instrument evolved into
the chromaccord color instrument built in 1999. I have performed the
chromaccord with a variety of musicians, and silently.
Compared to other senses, visual perception has remarkable latency
properties that function in space and time. The chromaccord juxtaposes
two or more areas of mutable color. At any moment lateral neural
responses in the retina create simultaneous contrasts that are
characteristic of each color juxtaposition. As colors are altered,
afterimage effects cause sequential contrasts that are characteristic
of the particular color change. The chromaccord is designed to elicit
these visual latency effects, and it relies almost entirely on them
for its expression.

Jorge Martins, who was born in Portugal, has been living in Baltimore
for three years, where he is active with several forms of music, from
improvisation to composition. He describes his approach to performing
with Dan Conrad on chromaccord as follows:
I will play electric guitar in the style of Lizard Music, the music of
a fat lizard in the summer lying on a hot stone, motionless listening.
I listen and play after I listen. Listening usually takes me longer
than playing. Lizard Music is chord-based without chord progression,
away from constant sound.

George O. Stadnik, Lumia Artist. "The science of light inspires my
art. My curiosity, discovery, imagination, creativity and discipline
transform the cool formulas and calculations of optical physics into a
temporal reality of color, motion and emotion. My Lumia artworks are
the result of experiments and inspirations across a wide range of
media. My formal art education includes a BFA in Experimental Studios
from Syracuse University in 1972. From 1976 through 1984, I built a
Lumiagraphtm Studio in Worcester, MA. The studio was comprised of a
10' x 12' x 8' light-tight room - a sort of camera obscura. In it, I
created still image compositions using discarded industrial optics -
dichroic glass, lenses, diffraction gratings, liquids with optical
properties. A variety of light sources - tungsten, halogen, laser and
even sunlight and moonlight were used. With these simple elements, I
created large format Lumia compositions that were recorded as direct,
one of a kind, still images onto large sheets of CibaChrometm film.
Lumiagraphstm were exhibited in Boston, New York and London. Today,
they can be found in private and corporate collections around the
world. My original inspiration for this lifetime of work was a Lumia
composition, created by Thomas Wilfred called Opus 158, which I saw as
an art student in 1968, at MOMA in New York City.The Visual Music of
Digital Lumia and Synaesthesia - Digital Lumia owes its very existence
to pure inspiration from seeing the work of the 20th Century artist
Thomas Wilfred, who invented the art form of Lumia. Mr. Wilfred
performed his compositions in Clavilux concerts and exhibited animated
versions of his light sculptures, called Clavilux Juniors throughout
the United States and Europe. His compositions were silent. They were
intended to be experienced as visual music. Mr. Wilfred intended that
his audiences interpret the imagery synaesthetically - what the eye
saw in the composition, triggered the mind to create the complementary
or contrasting sound, flavor, texture or feelings; there were no
narratives, although Wilfred's pieces could evoke fantastic
landscapes, futuristic cities, elegant gardens or the most primitive,
primal moments. My work builds on this tradition and brings it into a
contemporary cultural context to inspire and stimulate each viewer¹s
imagination to discover and create their own visions, stories and
emotions within themselves. Digital Lumia is created using optical
simulation algorithms and software to construct virtual optical
machines. The elements within each machine are adjusted over time so
that a visual sequence of changes in color, refraction, reflection and
shadow is composed. The resulting sequence is tested with key frames,
it is then rendered in one of several resolution and file formats for
output and display. Digital Lumia Compositions are available as high
resolution DVDs (movies), or high resolution, archival LightJet prints
(still images)."
 For more information about the Art of Digital Lumia - contact:
stadnik at erols.com <mailto:stadnik at erols.com>  or visit:
http://www.photonlightguitars.com

James Ross is a guitarist and composer living in Brooklyn, NY.
Originally from the Pittsburgh, Pa., area, Mr. Ross has studied guitar
at the University of Pittsburgh and the Mannes College of Music. He
has written music for orchestral and chamber ensembles, electronic
works, as well as solo music for the guitar and the zhongruan (a type
of Chinese lute). His album ³Three Pieces,² a combination of
environmental sounds, guitars, flutes, voices and electronic drones,
can be heard at http://www.archive.org/details/nnm004
<http://www.archive.org/details/nnm004> . He is currently studying
North Indian classical music and composition with La Monte Young and
Marian Zazeela.
Visit http://www.facebook.com/jrossmusic
<http://www.facebook.com/jrossmusic> for updates on new recordings,
performances and links to more music.

Eric Rosenzveig is an artist who's collaborative work with Willy
LeMaitre straddled the line between sound and image - performed media
in the mid-'90's, then autonomous systems at the end of the decade and
finally encompassing consumer electronics as artworks.  He currently
runs the Center for Audio-Visual Studies Department at FAMU, the
National Film School in Prague, CZ.


for more information about OptoSonic Tea please visit:
http://www.diapasongallery.org/optosonic.html