EMPAC fall 2016 season
In September Mabel Kwan will be at EMPAC to perform a piece. On two pianos. At the same time.
The slate for the upcoming fall season at EMPAC is out. And, as usual, it includes all sorts of unusual, challenging, or experimental performances. A condensed schedule is after the jump.
Also at the venue this fall, a new tool for performances. Blurbage:
A hallmark of the fall 2016 season is the unveiling of EMPAC's recently constructed wave-field array. Consisting of 496 independently controllable loudspeakers, this audio system is one of the most precise in the world, and capable of creating a 3D "holophonic" sound environment. More immersive than ordinary surround sound, "wave field synthesis" allows composers to place sounds in specific spatial locations around the audience and will figure heavily into future EMPAC electronic music programming.
An installation opening later this month, as well as a performance in early September, will make use of the new system
OK, onto that schedule...
All blurbage via EMPAC. The links have more detail and ticket info.
June 1-December 31: SubBassProtoTon - Johannes Goebel
"First invented in 1986 and recently reconstructed for artist-in-residence Tarek Atoui's spring-season-closing performance WITHIN, the SubBassProtoTon is a walk-in bass generator that allows visitors to physically experience frequencies that are too low for audible perception and to interactively explore sound when it reaches the range of hearing."
August 22-September 2: 108 Troubles - Rob Hamilton
"For the wave field array's inaugural performance, Rensselaer Professor Rob Hamilton will create a running installation (Aug. 22--Sept. 2) and performance (on Sept. 2) to explore and demonstrate advanced concepts of spatialized sound."
September 1: Patricia L Boyd and Anne Boyer
"San Francisco-based artist Patricia L Boyd presents a new video work, commissioned by EMPAC. The project is grounded in Boyd's research into what she calls "the protocol of production-as-exhaustion," which acknowledges the debt (of time, vitality, and labor) that must be paid to capitalism by every living body, as well as the internal economics of self-preservation that a body must undertake to honor this debt. ... As a counterpoint to the screening, Boyd has commissioned a new piece of writing from poet Anne Boyer, which will be read in person at the event."
September 2: 108 Troubles - Rob Hamilton
Music/sound performance mentioned above.
September 22: Mabel Kwan "Performing on two pianos simultaneously, Mabel Kwan takes on Trois Hommages, the virtuosic opus of contemporary composer Georg Friedrich Haas.
September 29: One can make out the surface only by placing any dark-colored object on the ground - Hannah Rickards
"[A] performance that uses navigational techniques to choreograph the interaction of a moving camera with two performers."
October 6: Lapalux
"London-based artist Lapalux (AKA Stuart Howard) is a rising star of electronic music."
October 13: Return of the Electric Love (Take II) - Ephraim Asili
"Hudson-based artist Ephraim Asili will screen and discusses his recent film Return of the Electric Love (Take II) and other films that are influential to his work. Return of the Electric Love (Take II) is an optically printed 35mm film made from found footage of Kung Fu movies."
October 27: Hypercube - Charles Atlas
"Artist Charles Atlas introduces a program of films that were influential in the development of his work-in-progress 3D video and performance work, Tesseract, which will be premiered at EMPAC in January 2017 in collaboration with choreographers Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener."
October 29: Vijay Iyer and Craig Taborn
"Two of the most progressive voices in American jazz piano join forces for a performance that blurs the line between composition and improvisation."
November 4: Jlin + Qrion
"While their personal geographies and artistic methods place them worlds apart, Jlin and Qrion each create dance music perfectly suited to the contemporary moment, when regional flavors and the tension between sampled material and self-composed sounds are finding common other-worldly ground."
November 10: The Unreliable Narrator - Martine Syms
"Los Angeles-based artist Martine Syms is in residence at EMPAC to develop scenarios for a new feature-length film project to be shot using a 360-degree camera rig. For this event, Syms will introduce several recent videos, alongside a discussion of moving images that have been influential to her work."
December 1: Magic Electronics - Laure Prouvost
"Magic Electronics is a 2014 work by French artist Laure Prouvost, in which she installed moving lights and synched audio into a gallery in order to animate and narrate her exhibition of objects. In doing so, she transformed the static exhibition into a stage. ... Magic Electronics will figure as the center of an evening-long conversation between Prouvost and EMPAC curator Victoria Brooks during which the pair will screen and discuss a selection of Prouvost's work, taking the audience on a journey from the pre-recorded and situated to the live and one-off."
December 9: Ipsa Dixit - Kate Soper
"Ipsa Dixit is an evening-length work of theatrical chamber music by American composer Kate Soper. "
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Comments
EMPAC is a $250 Million dollar state of the art boondoggle. Perhaps if there were at least a few slightly more accessible offerings, attendance might increase, bringing in a speck of revenue to justify its existence on the RPI campus. Currently, it's a black hole, down which money flows like water just to keep the building open and staffed.
... said -R. on Aug 10, 2016 at 9:59 AM | link
Just as R says. Biggest waste of a good venue in our area. In 8 years of existence EMPAC has had just 1 concert of general interest, which was Bela Flecks Africa Project that sold out in minutes. The other bookings (from what I've heard) are empty.
WANTED: Program Director!
... said Bill on Aug 10, 2016 at 1:32 PM | link