Subtropics 2018 Marathon

The SUBTROPICS MARATHON on June 16 will include the following performances.

IMPROVISATIONS (2018) | 50m
by the Modular Synthesizer Ensemble
led by Gino Robair

On Saturday, June 16, at 5 p.m., Audiotheque’s composer-in-residence Gino Robair, a veteran of recordings with Tom Waits, John Zorn, and Nina Hagen, will open the Subtropics Marathon and lead the Modular Synthesizer Ensemble in Improvisations. This 50-minute performance explores the use of strategies, concepts, and hand cues (conduction) based on Gino’s own work, as well as the work of John Zorn, Butch Morris, ROVA Sax Quartet, Anthony Braxton and Frank Zappa.

CONSTRUCTIVE/DESTRUCTIVE INTERFERENCE (2017) | 10m
by The Creative Destruction™
(Tim Archambault and CYJO)

Since the beginning of the Korean War on June 25, 1950 the U.S. Army Far East Command and Republic of South Korea began radio broadcasts across the 38th parallel as a psychological deterrent to the North Korean forces which still continues to this day. Constructive / Destructive Interference utilizes sound art to highlight historical usage of musical propaganda from the beginning of the Korean War to the present.

THE BANK (VICTIMLESS CRIME) | 25m
from “Perfect Lives,” a television opera by Robert Ashley

Raoul de Noget (No-zhay), a singer, and his friend, Buddy, “The World’s Greatest Piano Player,” have come to a small town in the Midwest to entertain at The Perfect Lives Lounge. For some reason, unexplained, they have fallen in with two people from the town, Isolde (“nearing 30 and not yet spoken for”) and her brother, “D,” just out of high school and known as “The Captain of the Football Team” (his parents call him Donnie), to commit the perfect crime, a metaphor for something philosophical: in this case, to remove a sizable amount of money from The Bank for one day (one day only) and “let the whole world know that it was missing.”

UNTITLED (2018) | 10m
by Jose Ignacio Hernandez Sanchez

Computer music for multichannel audio system with live performance.

OUR SOFT SELVES (2018) | 10m
by jamJam Strawberry

THE INERTIALS present an ‘immersive’ multi-media performance, Our Soft Selves, featuring Subtropics’ international, dropbox darlings, jamJam Strawberry, in only their third-time-ever, live performance since being founded by Sony Mao (Parts unknown) and Sawako Kato (Tokyo) and premiered at Subtropics in 2005. The current lineup includes Sony Mao, art operative from the Beta Bodega Coalition, whose work has appeared on the iconic Frankfurt record labels Mille Plateaux and Ritornell; Beijing sound artist Dreamy Sun; and Emile Milgrim, one-half of Archival Feedback. Also on the lineup are Dimitry Chamy; Freddy Jouwayed; Mokibaby; Rat Bastard; Sony Mao. Purchase the old-school, House of Wax-style, designer 3-D glasses available to enhance the optical environment created by The Inertials & company.

TOCATICO-TOCATÁ
Carles Santos

This screening honors the visionary composer from Cataluña who passed away December 4, 2017, before his scheduled appearance at Subtropics 25 (2020).

SECOND HAND (2018) | 10m
by Federico Bonacossa
Federico Bonacossa guitar, objects, and electronics – Lazaro Godoy, dance

Second Hand is a series of etudes for guitar, dancer, and various objects and electronic devices. The pieces are created by attempting to “permanize” and perform live highly spontaneous gestures and improvisation captured via recording devises. Imperfections will distort the original information, generating a slightly different translation each time.

RERUNS (2018) | 10m
by Carlos Dominguez

Reruns is a piece that combines homemade synth circuits with an audiovisual feedback process to produce sequences of square wave pulses. Influences include post-prime-time television and channel switches. This year’s Subtropics Marathon marks the live-audience premiere for Reruns. It may exhibit bright flashing lights.

EKTARA (2017) | 5m
for ektara and electronics
by David Dean Mendoza

Ektara was composed at a summer workshop at CCRMA and premiered at Stanford University. The Ektara is a one-­string instrument from India and I will be using Pure Data for sonic manipulation as well as performing the instrument.

NEW PIECE (2018) | 5m
for morin khuur and electronics
by David Dean Mendoza

This new piece for the Mongolian morin khuur is something I’ve been meaning to do for the past five years and this spring I am going to push myself to do it. I will most likely be using Pure Data for the live electronics part. This performance will be the premiere and I will be performing the piece.

CONTACT BABYLONIA CONTACT AMAZONIA (2018) | 10m
by Barron Sherer and Richard Vergez

Artists Barron Sherer and Richard Vergez work in all manners of analog media manipulation. Their new expanded cinema missive features dual-film projections, contact microphones and live soundscaping. Silent home movies from two continents/two decades are conflated, as are projector mechanics rhythms with probing and exploring mic placement. This is a Subtropics Marathon world premiere.

CUP PIECE (2018) | 10m
by Jorge Gomez Abrante

This is a score in open instrumentation concerned with harmony and difference of repetition, in particular, with all-interval tetrachords and their rare trait called the complement union property. The form is the looping chord progression of all-interval tetrachords. With each repetition they change intonation/duration/timbre.

DS-COMM (2018) | 10m
by CUDDLER

DS-Comm is a live improvisational performance of three artists: Omar Angulo manipulating collected shortwave satellite data transmissions, field recordings and induction coil microphone recordings and Ed Matus using frequency generators, live sample manipulation and percussive textures. The two create a free-flowing atmospheric piece while visual artist Tony Lugo uses a video feedback program he created designed to destroy video in real time.

ACOUSTIC DRIVEN ELECTRONICS (2018) | 10m
by Frank “rat bastard” Falestra

This performance uses solenoid and contact mic acoustic properties that will control electronic pulses and tones.

ACOUSTIC (2018) | 10m
a piece for trumpet, double bass and pedals by Stuart King

CROSS-WALK (2016) | 4:22
a film by Judy Robertson

Cross-walk is a shortanimated video which circumscribes and deconstructs the sights, sounds, and imaginative underpinnings of a busy intersection. Through the traditional 20th-century cel-animation technique of frame-by-frame hand-illustration, a pedestrian’s dream is brought to life.