Our May 2016 Frequency Fridays show features improvisational musician Bonnie Jones (MD), experimental electronic musician Lisa Miralia (OH), experimental percussionist Tim Brnes (CMH), and experimental electronic music trio Circuitry Room (OH), whose performance will be accompanied by video works by Columbus filmmakers Matt and Nicolette Swift. Date: Friday, My 6 2016. Location: It Looks Like It’s Open (13 E. Tulane Rd., 43202). Admission: $10, $15 for 2. Doors open 8pm. BYOB, all ages. Our Frequency Fridays 2015-2016 season is supported by a grant from the Greater Columbus Arts Council.
About the performers:
Bonnie Jones is a Korean-American writer, improvising musician, and performer working primarily with electronic music and text. Born in 1977 in South Korea, she was raised on a dairy farm in New Jersey and currently resides in Baltimore, Maryland. Bonnie creates improvised and composed text-sound performances that explore the fluidity and function of electronic noise (field recordings, circuit bending) and text (poetry, found, spoken, visual). She is interested in how people perceive, “read,” and interact with these sounds and texts given our current technological moment. Jones has received commissions from the London ICA and has presented her work in the US, Europe, and Asia and collaborates frequently with writers and musicians. She received her MFA at the Milton Avery School of the Arts at Bard College.
Lisa Miralia has been a promoter and performer in the NE Ohio freeform and experimental sound communities since 2003. She composes for and performs in a number of projects both solo (as Baat) and in collaboration with others involving electro-acoustic improv, experimental electronics, noise, drone, and dark ambient sound, and has released several recordings and contributed to multiple collaboration and compilation releases. She will celebrate her 9th anniversary of hosting the Mysterious Black Box radio show on WCSB 89.3fm this year, and was featured in the City/Ruins documentary about the NE Ohio noise and industrial music scenes. Lisa lives in Lakewood, and is grateful for open-minded neighbors who don’t mind the strange musical and anti-musical sounds emanating from her abode.
Tim Barnes is an internationally-known percussionist, electronic musician, and recording producer/engineer who has played and recorded with Sonic Youth, Wilco, Body/Head, Jim O’Rourke, Silver Jews, Neil Michael Hagerty and the Howling Hex, The Tower Recordings, The For Carnation, and MV+EE, as well as being featured in countless multiple other settings, from jazz-influenced free-improvisation to full-on rock n’ roll. He is the Artistic Director of Dreamland, and also runs the newly-revived Quakebasket record label (best known for its mid-1990s archival releases of solo work by Angus MacLise, poet and original drummer for the Velvet Underground). A California native, Tim moved to Louisville, Kentucky in 2007 from his longtime musical base, New York City.
Circuitry Room is a think tank for audio exploration. The founding members are Andrew Izold, Jeff Chenault and Dan Rockwell. They have been playing together on and off since 1989. Their combination of old-school electronics and high tech digital applications culminate into a wall of sound that is beyond categorization. Based in Ohio, Circuitry Room seek out new forms of expression while maintaining a dark mischievous edge. Their sound is constantly changing and evolving while their “live” sonic improvisations provide a unique and challenging listening experience.
About artists Matt and Nicolette Swift:
Matt Swift is an all-around visual artist living in Columbus, Ohio. His work is not limited to any one medium or mode including photography, painting, video, digital compositions, mixed media and anything else that may be a source of inspiration. With an education in Art History, Film and Media Studies, and Library Science, the majority of his work stems from a deep connection to the historical avant-garde and experimental movements of all art forms. Juxtaposition of styles to find new abstract connections is where most of his work begins. Every piece is scientifically and creatively an experiment with a hypothesis that is tested and either is proven or disproven. What engagement occurs when you mix meditation and action painting to create a wall scroll combining the styles of Jackson Pollock and Zen Buddhist painters? What about the combination of purist structuralist cinematic techniques with the motivations of Norman McLaren’s frame by frame hand etched animations inspired by music? The end result encompasses a documentation of the experiment fit for a postmodern world, updating and educating about the styles of old through the lens of the plethora of information that is at the fingertips of our ever shrinking but also expanding digital world.
Since high school, Columbus video artist Nicolette Swift has been capturing life and creating videos. In 2005 she graduated from The Ohio State University with a double major in Art History and Film and Media Studies. While in her undergrad she discovered a love for working with archival materials. She obtained a Master’s of Library and Information Science with a focus in multi-media access from Kent State University in 2007. Since then she has worked with many individuals as well as The Ohio State University and The West Ohio Conference of the United Methodist Church to create promotional and educational videos and materials. With the help of her husband and the support of OSU’s Film Studies Program she co-founded The Columbus Moving Image Art Review, which has been holding quarterly hour-long screenings for a year. Currently, her personal projects include avant garde video essays that incorporate found, archival, and cultural materials and turns them into a new video.