For our April event at Canessa Gallery we're excited to present an evening of obscure electronics featuring Alex Abalos, John Vance from Minneapolis, and Google Mobile Orchestra (Daniel Iglesia and Curtis Ullerich).
Alex Abalos
Alex Abalos is a bay area based musician that has been releasing music and DIY instruments under the moniker Puzzle/Pu22L3. Over the last 18 years he has contributed to various sound arts ranging from sound instillations in various art galleries at home and abroad (Kumaning Public rRadio, Asian Smithsonian with Ctrl Alt D collective, 1am sf, Arc Studios sf, Bindlestiff studios, etc.), to sound system culture (alongside the 5lowershop collective), to education (with youth in Tenderloin neighborhood of SF) to personal music projects ranging from free jazz (with the Edomites) up into electro acoustic compositions (with secret sidewalk). All in all, he's an artist first, educator second and all around a good ally and family member for whatever your project calls for. He has a deep-rooted love for intersecting education, critical thinking of current social landscapes and artistic expression. He takes all these forms of light and consistently focus' all in one direction creating a musical/sound akin to a Balisong Blade. With a sharp mind and arsenal of DIY modulars and synths, he brings a weaponized state of mind to any project that welcomes
https://theedomites.bandcamp.com/
https://secretsidewalk.bandcamp.com/
https://pu22l3.bandcamp.com/
Google Mobile Orchestra
The Google Mobile Orchestra (Daniel Iglesia and Curtis Ullerich) is a mobility-based electronic ensemble dedicated to new modes of real-time performance. It creates and performs its own custom performance systems, in addition to commissioning and adapting electronic ensemble works by other composers. Works incorporate mobile sensors, tactile controllers, shared network control, wearables, live video for 3D glasses, and more.
This performance will feature two networked multimedia platforms developed by the group. It will also feature a mobile version of Paula Matthusen's canonical electronics ensemble work "Lathyrus".
www.googlemobileorchestra.com
John Vance
John Vance started his formal musical education as early as primary school, cycling through various instruments in a band setting: clarinet, viola, lower brass and eventually the piano as a chief compositional tool to capture ideas. This continued throughout high school and eventually undergraduate studies at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Not satisfied with the composition program offered he switched his focus to a broader investigation of the Arts including early digital video, large-scale sculpture, and experimental theater among other areas. He returned to musical activities by picking up a guitar synth and exploring the emerging world of working with MIDI and computer-assisted compositional tools.
The chief vehicles for most of his current artistic output are under the umbrellas of The Eclectic Ensemble, Cock ESP, improvisational anti-group WRONG, generative audio/video synthesis as Trigger Alert, collaborations with several filmmakers and various solo entities. Known primarily to use guitar and free electronics as instruments John also programs various modular synthesizers, samplers, music software and deconstructs found instruments / dead media. He runs the recording labels E.F Tapes and SunShip Records (with Emil Hagstrom) and has appeared on hundreds of releases and collaborations.
His current focus exploring imperfection/glitch and generative Art in particular combines several passions in that performance, programming and interactive aspects converge while also conveying a spiritually disruptive message in the public space with local communities in their own spaces. The ability to develop unique improvisational language in the context of constructing ready-made sound generators and also apply these to specific performance environments provides compositional opportunities that resonate with his interests in the dynamic between performer and audience, community and individual, public and personal.
http://www.freenoise.org/rexor/
Cost: $5-15