Saturday 3 May 2014
OTO Projects and Electra have invited Maria Chavez to curate a weekend of events at Cafe OTO evolving from questions of mutual support, drawing together in London a diverse network of sound artists and musicians.
The weekend presents two days of performance, installation and film, exploring the work of these seven, individually and together. Conceived by Maria Chavez on the occasion of her European tour with Audrey Chen, the event will include their current collaborative live work; MV Carbon's debut London performance, as well as a programme of her short films; a new performance installation by Heather Leigh; a studio visit with Kaffe Matthews as well as her Duo With Hammerheads, a composition using shark synthesizer; a new installation work by Lia Mazzari; Andrea Zarza will play records and show images from her sound archival collection; and a culminating ensemble performance including all seven in various formations. The title references the seven qualities one should look for in a friend, according to the Mitta Sutta.
MV Carbon is an interdisciplinary artist and composer recognized for her autonomous approach to music and performance. Using video, sculptural sound objects, cello, hand-built circuitry, and reactive media in her performances,recordings, and installations, she creates provocative situations with the intention of submerging the spectator in a space that is detached from normality. Her work explores expectation, empowerment, magic, fetish, imagination, and interpretation, by way of questioning the associations made with imagery in the context of contemporary visual culture. Experiential situations are a significant component to her work as she embraces the immediacy of the situation at hand. Her intention is to objectify emotions through music, costume, manipulation of objects, and imagery, to investigate the multifaceted layers of perception. MV Carbon is currently based in Brooklyn, NY.
Born in Lima, Peru and based in NYC, Maria Chávez is best known as an abstract turntablist, sound artist and DJ. Coincidence, chance & failures are themes that unite her book objects, sound sculptures, installations & other works with her improvised solo turntable performance practice. Her latest album, “Maria Chavez PLAYS Stefan Goldmann’s Ghost hemiola” was nominated for a Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik in Jan. of 2020.
Currently, Maria is on the cover of the textbook on the History of Experimental & Electronic music by Routledge Publishing, was a David Tudor and Robert Rauschenberg Arts Fellow and a Research Fellow for Goldsmith's Sound Practice Research Department (2015-17). Her large scale sound & multi-media installations along with other works have been shown at the Getty Museum, the JUDD Foundation, Documenta 14 in Kassel, Germanyand HeK (Haus der elektronischen Künste Basel) amongst many other institutions around the world. She is currently an artist in residence with EMPAC (The Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center) until 2022 and will present a new sound installation for BRIC Arts "Latin Abstract" painting exhibition from Jan. - May 2021. She is on a medical sabbatical due to receiving brain surgery in Feb. 2019 and will return to performing for the public in 2022-23. She appreciates everyone's patience and compassion during this difficult time.
www.mariachavez.org
www.mariachavez.org
mariachavez.bandcamp.com
soundcloud.com/maria-chavez
www.instagram.com/chavezsayz/
twitter.com/Chavezsayz
www.facebook.com/MariaChavezSound
thecreativeindependent.com/people/sound-artist-maria-chavez-on-memory-trauma-and-imagining-a-new-world/
Audrey Chen is a Chinese-American musician who was born into a family of material scientists, doctors and engineers, outside of Chicago in 1976. Parting ways with the family convention, she turned to the cello at age 8 and voice at 11. After years of classical and conservatory training in both instruments, with a resulting specialization in early and new music, she parted ways again in 2003 to begin new negotiations with sound in order to discover a more individually honest aesthetic. Now, using the cello, voice and analog electronics, Chen’s work delves deeply into her own version of narrative and non-linear storytelling. A large component of her music is improvised and her approach to this is extremely personal and visceral. Her playing explores the combination and layering of a homemade analog synthesizer, preparations and traditional and extended techniques in both the voice and cello. She works to join these elements into a singular ecstatic personal language. Over the past decade, her predominant focus has been her solo work with the cello, voice and electronics, but she has more recently begun to shift back towards the exploration of the voice as a primary instrument. Among musicians, she has worked with Phil Minton, Tetuzi Akiyama, Toshimaru Nakamura, Ko Ishikawa, Tomomi Adachi, Matana Roberts, Elliott Sharp, Aki Onda, Phill Niblock, Frederic Blondy, Jerome Noetinger, C. Spencer Yeh, Nate Wooley, Mats Gustafsson, Mazen Kerbaj, Michael Zerang, Tatsuya Nakatani, Le Quan Ninh, Joe Mcphee, Susan Alcorn, Michele Doneda, Paolo Angeli, Dylan Nyoukis, Id M Theft Able, plus many more. Recent projects, aside from performing solo, include her voice only duo with London based artist, Phil Minton and a collaborative project with German conceptual artist, John Bock. Two new album releases in 2013 include, a quartet LP with Nate Wooley, C. Spencer Yeh and Todd Carter on Monotype (Warsaw), and a duo record with Phil Minton on Subrosa (Brussels).
