Double Vision: Hysteresis

A couple of weekends ago, I attended the premier of Hysteresis, a performance described as “70 minutes of non-stop, innovative dance, sound, lights, and costumes informed by a residency at the Museumsquartier in Vienna, Austria.” It was a production of Double Vision, a group known for performances combining dance, music and technology, and took place at Dance Mission Theater here in San Francisco.


[Photo courtesy of Double Vision. Click to see larger version.]

Hysteresis explored the theme of “being alien or observing that which is alien to oneself.” However, for me the performance did not feel alien at all. Indeed, each of the artists’ approach to alien-ness via dance, music, choreography and lighting ended up creating something that felt familiar for me and comforting in its sparseness. The choreography had a feel of individuals going about their business in a city environment, sometimes moving about in wildly different directions, sometimes very static. The lighting had a very geometric and architectural feel. The dancers’ costumes also had an architectural or industrial quality and consisted of simple tunics stitched together from geometric gray and black swatches of cloth and black leggings.

The music held together these elements with industrial and percussive sounds punctuated by references to popular music idioms, as one might hear passing buildings and cars in between traffic and construction. It started with short percussive notes, mostly struck metal and block. At first the sounds were very sparse but later on they formed into complex polyrhythms, sometimes with more standard percussion instruments like kick drums and snare drums mixed in. The sparse texture was interrupted by other sections of music, such as short samples from big-band music, classical (or classically inspired) string music, and passages that sounded like show tunes or brass bands. It was not clear these were found musical objects or composed from sratch. Towards the climax of there piece, there were more sounds that one might consider more “electronic”, such as noise, synthesizer sweeps and sub-bass tones. However, even as the idioms and timbres changed and the music became quite dense, the sparse rhythmic texture from the beginning of the piece kept going, like machinery of a city that never stops. Or almost never stops – there were a few moments where it cut out entirely, and the silence was quite startling.


[Photo courtesy of Double Vision. Click to see larger version.]

The often sparse texture of the music allowed one to focus more on not only the movements of the dancers, but also the sounds they made in terms of the movement of their bodies and breathing. After one particularly loud section everything fell silent, the dancers moved off stage, and one rectangular patch of light kept flickering. This light seemed to be of particular significance (it was the only one that cast a rectangular shape) and appeared occasionally throughout the piece.

The final section began with what sounded like machine or car sounds and moved towards what sounded like an elegant party with piano music, and the faded to silence. It was a strange ending after the very industrial sound throughout the rest of the piece, but it provided an interesting contrast.

Choreography for the piece was by Pauline Jennings, music by Sean Clute, lighting design by Ben Coolik, and costume design by Andrea Campbell.

CatSynth pic: synthesizer.som (EmmeSynth)

Submitted by vlern via facebook:

I had a feeling that this looked…familiar. Well, turns out I was correct, we originally posted it back in 2007 under the title “EmmeSynth”. (That was nearly three years ago, wow!). From the original post:

Emmeline exploring Jordan Rudess’ Synthesizers.com system, getting prepped for Dream Theater’s upcoming world tour.

Weekend Cat Blogging and Photo Hunt: Addiction

The theme of this weekend’s Photo Hunt is addiction, which leads to the obligatory catnip photo for Weekend Cat Blogging:

Of course, Luna’s real addiction seems to be grass:

Not only does she enjoy her little pot of grass, but will also immediately find blades growing out of flower pots on our patio (something I wish she would not do).

Lest we pick on cats entirely, we at CatSynth have many other “addictions”:

This is perhaps still my favorite red-wine photo from the archives.

Here are some colorful cocktails, which also symbolize our “addiction” to color and geometry:

Sometimes the visual aspect is better than the taste.

We at CatSynth are certainly addicted to our environment, our life in the city, the visual stimulation, our home, music, playing with cats. In truth, one needs only to browse the pages of this site or visit our photo gallery to witness images of “addiction.” Blogging itself is an addictive activity, and indeed must be in order to be successful.

Weekend Cat Blogging #255 is hosted by Pam at sidewalk shoes.

Photo Hunt 210 is hosted as always by tnchick. This week’s theme is addiction.

The Carnival of the Cats will be up this Sunday, hosted by Kashim, Othello and Salome

And the friday ark is at the modulator.

CatSynth video: Korg DS 10 Improvisation: Tiger Slides

If you haven’t already seen our “Earth Day wildcats” post from this weekend, please check it out. Meanwhile, here is another big cat, with accompaniment on a Korg DS-10. From peasant2general on YouTube, via matrixsynth:

“A small improvisation using only a Korg DS-10, no external effects, only edited out the boring parts 😉

Sorry, but I forgot to also record it on video, so I put up a simple slide with tigers, just because c: Enjoy!

PS: sorry for the lack of bass end, trust me the DS-10 does have some nice bass!”

resonant world: John Cage and Morris Graves

This past Sunday I attended resonant world: an afternoon of music by John Cage for the exibit The Visionary Art of Morris Graves at the Meridian Gallery here in San Francisco.

Morris Graves was an influential artist in the 20th century, based primarily in the Pacific Northwest. The exhibition features about 50 works spread over several decades of his career and two floors of the gallery. Many of his works, which were mostly on paper, had a very simple quality, but often with some recognizable object or concept at its core. I was particularly drawn to a few of his works, including Minnow, Irish Animal, Waning Moon and Roadside Plants and Machine Age Noise. Graves’ work is often described as having Asian and mystical influences, which were apparent in Minnow and many others, but in works like Irish Animal a noticed a humorous quality, something approaching graphic art.

John Cage became a longtime friend and admirer of Graves after the two met in 1935. He described Graves’ work as “Invitations”, or invitationals to attend to the ordinary details that are “ordinarily ignored”. Although the pieces in the program were not directly a response to Graves’ art, they do fit the spare nature of some of his works, and the focus on simple details, as well as the space of the gallery in which those works were presented.

[Raskin, Greenlief and Adams.  Photo by Michael Zelner.  Click to enlarge.]

The first piece, Atlas Eclipticalis featured the saxophone trio of Philip Greenlief, Jon Raskin and Steve Adams. The title refers to the path of the Sun through the constellations of the zodiac, which Cage used as a source for the score of the piece, using tracing paper to determine the placement of dots and then adding a five-line music staff. The trio’s performance was derived entirely from this score. The result was a very sparse musical texture, with large areas of silence punctuated by individual isolated notes from each of the saxophones. There were also moments where the performers played together, forming interesting beating patterns as the simultaneous tones interacted with the room as well as perfect octaves and minor chords that were a bit startling (but quite effective) within the context of the whole piece.

Atlas Eclipaticalis was followed by a performance of Three for “three players having a variety of recorders.” Conveniently, we happened to have three players who each had a variety of recorders, the Three Trapped Tigers (David Barnett and Tom Bickley with special guest Judy Linsenberg). The recorders ranged in size from the familiar C soprano recorders and alto and tenor sizes seen in renaissance ensembles, to very “modernist” F contra-bass recorders composed of wooden rectangular sections with black buttons and levers – I am guessing these were Paetzold recorders.

[Three Trapped Tigers (Bickley, Lindsenberg, Barnett). Click image to enlarge.]

The piece unfolded as a series of chords – the timing of individual notes was left up to the performers – with frequent pauses and changes of instruments. The large number of recorders and frequent changes suggested a solo pipe organ performance as much as a wind ensemble.

[David Cowen reading.  Photo by Michael Zelner.  Click to enlarge.]

Throughout the afternoon, simultaneous to an in between the musical performances, there was a reading of Series RE: Morris Graves, a “long poem derived by John Cage from his own recollections, conversations with Graves and friends” and other sources as described in the program notes. The poem was read by Dave Cowen. I did follow the recommendation to explore the space during the musical performances, including viewing the artwork with the music resonating down the stairs from the floor above, and pausing at partitioned area where the reading occurred. (Note: in the above photo featuring Cowen’s reading, one can also see Graves’ Roadside Plants and Machine Age Noise.)

[Fischer and Binkley enjoying tea and snacks. Click to enlarge.]

The final performance featured selections from Cage’s Song Books (Solos for Voice 3-92) interpreted by members of the Cornelius Cardew Choir. The songs derive from a variety of written sources, with some using graphical-score notation (a current favorite technique of mine) or text-based instructions. From these scores, performs are free to interpret and improvise their actual performances. Some of the songs were purely vocal and melodic, others were more theatrical, while others combined electronics with other elements. Among the moments that stood out were Tom Bickley and Brad Fischer enjoying tea, Sarah Rose Stiles pouring a cognac into a glass with contact microphones, projection of slides “relevant to Thoreau” behind a theatrical performance, a graphical score directing the pressing of keys on an amplified manual typewriter (performed by Eric Theise), and the use of the text from that typewriter in another song. There was also a large orange stuffed fish on a table.

[Sarah Rose Stiles.  Photo by Michael Zelner.]

[Sandra Yolles, Marianne McDonald, Brad Fischer and Tom Bickley.  Projection of “drawings related to Thoreau”. Click to enlarge.]

CatSynth video: Questo gatto è un genio

Submitted by Bethany Kxfjghkfhg via facebook:

“E’ troppo soooo cute ! A parte il fatto che è un felino e oltretutto un cucciolo, e da qui tutti gli infiniti pregi di questi esseri,ma poi dico : lo vedete ? E’ superbo ! Effetti completamente dopanti !”

Of course, it’s easy to sound good when you only lie on the black keys 🙂

Weekend Cat Blogging: Endangered Wild Cats

Every year on or around earth day (or “erf day”), we at CatSynth dedicate our Weekend Cat Blogging to some of the world’s endangered wild cat species. We look to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species as our primary source for species that are “endangered” or “vulnerable”. There are several cat species on this list from many parts of the world, and we present a few of them here.

This year, we focus on South America (for reasons beyond the scope of this article). The Andean region is home to some rather intriguing cats that we have discussed in the past. Perhaps the most intriguing and most endangered remains the gato andino, or Andean Mountain Cat. The Andean mountain cat lives in rocky areas at high elevations of the Andean region of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile and Perú. It is quite small, but has a very distinctive large tail. There is now an organization dedicated to studying and protecting the Andean cat, Alianza Gato Andino. There you can find more about the cat, see photos and also see more of the Andean landscape it inhabits. I am drawn to the starkly beautiful dry landscape, and perhaps will have a chance to visit someday.

In reading about the Andean cat, I also learned about the Pampas Cat. The Pampas cat also lives in western South America, but is not considered nearly as threatened a species. As one can see from this photograph, it bears a resemblance to domestic cats, though with perhaps more squat body shape.

The Guiña, or Kodkod, is a wildcat native to Chile (and parts of Argentina). It is also relatively small, with a thick fur coat and spotted markings.

It is currently listed as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List, and until recently little was known about it. A project was undertaken in Chile to learn more about these cats.

We round out our South American cats with the Oncilla. It looks quite like a domestic cat with wild the coat and markings of a wild cat. In addition to habitat pressures, it has been trapped in the past for the fur trade.

We next go to southeast Asia where several of the worlds most endangered cats live. The very unusual looking Borneo Bay Cat lives only on the island of Borneo. It is quite rare, and little is known about this cat, but it was classified as “endangered” in 2005 primarily due to habitat loss.

The Flat Headed Cat, also from Indonesia, is not one I would immediately recognize as a cat. It lives in the forests of Indonesia on multiple islands, usually near water. Sightings of this car are rare, and it is classified as “endangered.”

Another endangered cat of southeast Asia (and India) is the Fishing Cat. It has an interesting face with a distinctive flat nose and small ears. As the name suggests, it is quite adapted to hunting and eating fish. As such, it is dependent on wetlands and fishing stocks, and is now also classified by IUCN as “endangered.”

Perhaps the most endangered species of cat remains the Iberian Lynx. It is listed as “critically endangered”, with an IUCN survey suggesting between 84 and 143 adults left in two breeding populations in Spain. Conservation efforts are currently focused on supporting these breeding populations. You can read more about the Iberian Lynx in our first “Earth Day Weekend Cat Blogging” article.

If we include large cats as well, there is the even rarer Amur Leopard of northeastern Asia. A census in 2007 counted only about 20 adults remaining. We conclude with this video of the Amur Leopard:

Weekend Cat Blogging #254 is being hosted by Salome at Paulchens FoodBlog?!

The Carnival of the Cats will be up this Sunday at When Cats Attack.

And the Friday Ark is at the modulator.