Earthly Observatory
https://www.saic.edu/saic-galleries/exhibitions
August 31–December 3
SAIC Galleries, 33 E. Washington
Earthly Observatory explores how we sense, portray, and engage our deep planetary entanglements. Through crafted visions, close listening, and histories of conquest and protest, the exhibition examines the contested relations of ecology to economy, aesthetics to ethics that dominate our experience at one moment, and evades awareness in the next. Drawn from diverse practices across art, design, and the natural sciences, the works invite us to question the ways that we - as one among many earthlings - create our understanding of a manifold world.
Featuring: Allora & Calzadilla+Ted Chiang, Jonas N.T. Becker, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Kelly Church, Xavier Cortada, Rena Detrixhe, Paul Dickinson, Mark Dion, Jeannette Ehlers, Terry Evans, Assaf Evron, The Field Museum Center for Meteoritics and Polar Studies, Terike Haapoja, Paul Harfleet, Isao Hashimoto, Hock E Aye Vi Edgar Heap of Birds, Amanda Hess & Shane O’Neill, Katie Kingery-Page, Tim Lamey, SAIC's ARC Land Acknowledgment Subcommittee, Meredith Leich, Norman W. Long, Peggy Macnamara, Nandipha Mntambo, Cherish Parrish, Claire Pentecost, Ken Rinaldo, Zoé Strecker, Cole Swanson, Anaïs Tondeur, Walter Tschinkel, Erin Wiersma
Earthly Observatory is curated by SAIC faculty members Andrew S. Yang and Giovanni Aloi with Department of Exhibitions Director Hannah Barco and Graduate Curatorial Assistants Sophie Buchmueller (Dual MA 2022), and Sydney Gush (MFA 2022), Parinda Mai (MFA 2022). Exhibitions at the SAIC Galleries are supported in part by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency.
Making Kin
https://emilyl21.sg-host.com/exhibitions/
Making Kin is an online art exhibition exploring the visual dimensions of kinship in a more-than-human world. With work from 24 artists from around the world, Making Kin is in conversation with the themes—Planet, Place, Partners, Persons, Practice—that are central to the Center for Humans and Nature’s five-volume book series, Kinship: Belonging in a World of Relations. The participating artists illuminate the deep connections between humans and nature while inviting us to consider how kinship practices and ethics can expand our sense of identity, as well as deepen our care and respect for other-than-human kin.
Making Kin is part of the Center for Humans and Nature’s Kinship Project, which includes a five-volume book series, podcast, and ongoing events.
Norman W. Long – BLACK BROWN GRAY GREEN
https://hausumountain.bandcamp.com/album/black-brown-gray-green
To be released on CD, cassette, and digitally on 09/10/21. Clear black tape with white imprints. CD packaged in a mini-LP jacket. Artwork by HausMo Max.
On BLACK BROWN GRAY GREEN, Norman W. Long presents dense collages that highlight the pure textural qualities of the environmental sound he captures: insects and birds chirping, the distant hum of machinery, the resonance of the open space around him, the muted burble of a hydrophone submerged in water. Long manipulates and processes his field recordings with a semi-modular analog synth and effects units, transforming familiar sounds into abstracted dollops of pointillist synthesis, abrasive volleys of noise, and stochastic grooves made up of elliptical percussive bursts. While some of his sessions flow through diverse narratives marked by regular introductions of contrasting tones, rhythmic figures, and mix-consuming washes of texture, other pieces draw their power from presenting the natural environment without any obvious human manipulation, beyond the subtle murmur of his electronic processing somewhere in the background. The balance between Long’s active recontextualization of his field recordings and his decisions to let them breathe in their unmodulated forms casts BLACK BROWN GRAY GREEN as a meditation on the relationship between humanity and the forces of nature present in post-industrial urban environments within Chicago’s Black and Brown communities.
TATSUYA NAKATANI: SOLO & DUOS W/ CRISTAL SABBAGH, MOLLY JONES, NORMAN LONG
Wednesday, September 15, 2021
8:30 PM 11:10 PM
Tatsuya Nakatani plays solo & in duo w/ Cristal Sabbagh, Molly Jones, & Norman Long
Tatsuya Nakatani is an avant-garde percussionist, composer, and artist of sound. Active internationally since the 1990’s; Nakatani has released over 80 recordings and tours extensively, performing over 150 concerts a year. His primary focus is his solo work and his large ensemble project, the Nakatani Gong Orchestra. With his activity in the new music, improvisation and experimental music scenes, Nakatani has a long history of collaboration. He teaches master classes and lectures at universities and music conservatories around the world. Originally from Japan, he makes his home in the desert town of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico.
Nakatani creates his distinctive music centered around his adapted bowed gong, supported by an array of drums, cymbals, and singing bowls. In consort with his hand carved Kobo Bows, it is an instrument he has spent decades developing. Nakatani approaches his orchestral project (NGO) as an arrangement of formations of vibrations, incorporated in shimmering layers of silence and texture. Within this contemporary work, one can still recognize the dramatic pacing, formal elegance and space (ma) felt in traditional Japanese music.
Big Marsh Park
Inside Out & About PODCAST
https://open.spotify.com/episode/1Qa1wAuO4SOqclNE94U9kF?si=WRVSy-IXQb67MG--Ycrsxg&dl_branch=1
Hosted by Friends’ Executive Director Margaret Frisbie, this episode includes interviews with Stephen Bell, park supervisor for Big Marsh Park, who discusses the history and restoration efforts at Big Marsh as well as upcoming plans. Chicago sound artist, designer and composer Norman Long, also discusses sound art production using field recording, electro-acoustic composition and dub technique within the larger context of landscape.
CHICAGO ARCHITECTURE BIENNIAL
DATE
18 Sep, 2021
HOURS
Sat6:00 - 7:00pm
Chicago Cultural Center
78 East Washington Street, Chicago, IL
REGISTER
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/performance-norman-w-long-tickets-167673137869
About this event
Sound artist, Norman W. Long, shares portions of newly collected soundscapes mixed with live electronics. This performance introduces field recordings taken on his walks through Big Marsh Park on the southeast side of Chicago in and Marian R. Byrnes Park, one of the largest natural areas in Chicago. Through expressive space and textures of noise, experience the artist's blending of nature and community’s ambient sounds. Attendees are invited to fully immerse themselves in the sounds as they consider the surroundings of these parks as places for gathering, listening, and reflection.
Event will take place in the Claudia Cassidy Theater, 2nd floor, at the Chicago Cultural Center.
Please note that face masks are required in the Chicago Cultural Center.
This program is supported by Xfinity.
WASHINGTON PARK SOUNDWALK WITH NORMAN LONG
DATE
19 Sep, 2021
HOURS
Sun2:00 - 3:00pm
Arts + Public Life at the University of Chicago
301 E Garfield Boulevard Chicago, IL 60637
REGISTER
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/washington-park-soundwalk-with-norman-long-tickets-166564858977
A guided exploration using listening skills. We will listen to how Washington Park/Neighborhood sounds, as we are moving through it.We will be listening for changes, interactions, conditions, weather, traffic, animals, insects, people, vehicles and other factors in what makes Washington park and the community what it is. The walk is held in silence but we can interact with our environment non-verbally.
Meet in front of the Arts + Public Life Gallery for the tour.
Comments