[spectre] MiniOptoSonic Tea @ Diapason NYC - Monday, February 16th, 8pm

[Katherine Liberovskaya]

Monday February 16th
8 pm

MiniOptoSonic Tea

Live sets by:
- Peter Shapiro (live visuals) / Glass Bees (live sound)
- Joshue Ott (live visuals) / Ezekiel Honig (live sound)

Suggested donation:
$ 7

Diapason
882 Third Avenue, between 32nd and 33rd Streets, 10th floor
BROOKLYN (Sunset Park)
(718) 499-5070
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.


About the artists:

Peter Shapiro has been making "video" since the mid seventies. Spawned as a
video artist from the State University of New York, and the Experimental TV
Center in Binghamton... While ensconced in frame buffering, colorizing and
waveform generators, his focus, from porta-pak to camcorder, was always
documenting the world around him. Interested in the behavior of people, as
well as nature and changing environments. His visual work and collaborations
have included projections on the UN, showing at MOCA L.A., the BBC,
Collective Unconscious, Avalon on Catalina Isle, Lincoln Center, Warhol
Museum, Tonic, Share, IPR, Monkeytown, NUI Barcelona, ABC No Rio, Museum of
Natural History, the Chelsea Art Museum, Phill and Katherine's house, clubs
parties and undergrounds around the world.
http://www.petershapiro.com

The Glass Bees is Chris Williams, Jason Das, and Andrea Williams. Using
electronics, guitar, keyboards, acoustic percussion, computer processed
field recordings, and other found objects, the Glass Bees assemble delicate
soundscapes from colliding abstract loops, ambient noise, and sudden
inspirations. Started as an improvisational studio and web project in 2006,
the Glass Bees have posted dozens of tracks as an ongoing podcast at
http://www.glassbees.com. In 2008, they released their first CD, titled Tops
Crops Snaps Hots, which sequenced highlights from this series into a
continuous 63-minute mix. The Glass Bees have performed as part of the
EyeWash video-audio series at Monkeytown, and their music has been featured
in short documentaries by filmmaker Nerina Penzhorn on artists Chico
McMurtrie and Mary Lynch.

New York-based multidisciplinary artist Joshue Ott creates cinematic visual
improvisations, often performed live and projected in large scale. Working
from hand-drawn forms which he then manipulates with superDraw, a software
instrument of his own design, Ott composes evolving images that
resideÊsomewhere between minimalism, psychedelia, and Cagean chance. He
performs frequently with musicians, sympathetically translating sound to
vision to yield immersive multi sensory experiences that are at once
immediate and synergistic. Ott's work has recently been featured
inÊexhibitions at Mutek 2008,San Francisco International Film Festival 2008,
Yuri's Night Bay Area 2008, Paris's Le Cube, the Playgrounds Audiovisual Art
Festival in the Netherlands (2007), and the 2006 Ars Electronica Animation
Festival. He has performed at Live Cinema Nights: Silver Lake Film Festival,
in Los Angeles; as part of the Boston Cyber Arts Festival; and at venues
throughout New York City, including Carnegie Hall, the Knitting Factory, Le
Poisson Rouge, and the Stone.
http://intervalstudios.com/

A New York City native, and founder/label manager for the Anticipate and
Microcosm labels, Ezekiel Honig concentrates on his idiosyncratic brand of
emotively warm electronic-acoustic music. Using the loop as more of a tool
than a rule, Honig paints outside the lines, nestling into a comfortable
space between techno, ambient and house - using them as reference points
from which to stray, rather than as steadfast frameworks. Drawing on the
rich history of musique concrete, Honig looks to incorporate a material
nature into his music by imbuing it with a host of field
recording/found-sound sources in the search for a balance between digital
software innovation and the physicality of the world around us. His music is
one of contrast and contradiction, combining minimal, abstract tendencies
with a core of timeless harmonics - pairing inviting, fuzzy chords with
clunky and dirty "mishaps."
http://www.ezekielhonig.com/


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