[HvEXAS] Ben Frost | Thurs Feb 07, 7:30PM | EMPAC, Troy, NY

PERFORMANCE
Ben Frost
Thursday, February 7, 2013, 7:30 PM
EMPAC Studio 1 – Goodman
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY

$18 (discounted tickets available)

http://empac.rpi.edu/events/2013/spring/ben-frost

Ben Frost's music is not just heard; it's felt. Influenced by classical minimalism as well as punk rock and metal, he creates monolithic sounds that command attention through their visceral intensity. Keenly aware of listeners' thresholds, Frost exploits every extreme of pitch and volume as he pushes the sound of electric guitars, drums, and laptops out from a wall of speakers and amps. As the music unfolds, overlapping layers and elongated structural forms emerge from within the encompassing sonic space.
 
For this performance, Frost gives an exclusive preview of material that is being developed for his next studio album.

The music of Ben Frost is about contrast; influenced as much by Classical Minimalism as by Punk Rock and Metal, Frost's throbbing guitar-based textures emerge from nothing and slowly coalesce into huge, forbidding forms that often eschew conventional structures in favor of the inevitable unfoldings of vast mechanical systems.
 
On albums like Steel Wound, released on the Room40 label in 2003 (Pitchfork: "An exemplary ambient experience"), Theory of Machines on Bedroom Community in 2007 (Boomkat: "The Future of electronic music…") and 2009's BY THE THROAT (NME: "a hollow, unforgiving, brutal yet utterly beautiful record, full of deep intricacies that won't let you go.") Frost's music is more than a cerebral exercise and has an undeniable visceral presence, felt as much as heard. His compositions are created with an acute awareness of the listener and their comfort thresholds, exploiting every extreme of pitch and volume. His notorious, building-shaking performances at international festivals including Montreal's famed MUTEK combine amplified electronics with the furious thrashing of live guitars. Frost himself has been described as "one of the most interesting and groundbreaking producers in the world today." (Boomkat). His music's intense physicality has filled gallery spaces and driven contemporary dance productions by Chunky Move, the Icelandic Dance Company, and the acclaimed choreographers Erna Ómarsdottír and Wayne McGregor. http://www.ethermachines.com/

Tickets are $18 general admission; $13 non-Rensselaer students, seniors, and Rensselaer faculty + staff; and $6 Rensselaer students (must provide ID for discounted tickets).
 
Evelyn's Café will open at 6:30 PM with a full menu of meals, snacks, and beverages as well as a selection of wines. Service continues after the performance. Parking is available in the Rensselaer parking lot on College Avenue.
 

More information can be found on the EMPAC website: empac.rpi.edu. Questions? Call the EMPAC Box Office: 518.276.3921.

EMPAC 2012-2013 presentations, residencies, and commissions are made possible by continuous support from the Jaffe Fund for Experimental Media and Performing Arts. Additional project support by the National Endowment for the Arts; the National Dance Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; the New York State Council for the Arts; Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation with support from the National Endowment for the Arts; Arts Council Norway, Fond for Lyd og Bilde, and Fond for Utøvende Kunstner.

Photo by Bjarni Grímsson.

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The Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC)
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
110 8th Street
Troy, NY, 12180

[HvEXAS] CREW / Eric Joris: HeadSwap | Sat Jan 26, 7 PM | EMPAC, Troy, NY

PERFORMANCE

CREW / Eric Joris: HeadSwap
Saturday, January 26, 2013, 7 PM
EMPAC Studio 1 – Goodman
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY

FREE - reservations recommended

http://empac.rpi.edu/events/2013/spring/headswap

CREW, a Belgian-based multidisciplinary team of artists and researchers will present the artistic and research outcome of their three-week EMPAC residency at HeadSwap.
 
CREW's performances create personalized immersive environments for the audience that challenge common notions of (tele)presence, spectatorship, and narration. HeadSwap takes the next step in immersive performance. Participants can navigate and choose their individual point of view within omni-directional footage from Japan and New York City, while "swapping their heads" and simultaneously seeing what another person chooses to see.

CREW is a Belgian-based arts collective operating on the border of art and science. For more then a decade, founder Eric Joris and CREW have created performances on the edge of theater, film, and new media. With video goggles and interactive technology, the company explores a unique medium that puts the spectator at the heart of the experience.
 
CREW has created a unique position for itself in the field of performing and hybrid arts through experimental productions such as Icarus (2001), Philoctetes (2002), Crash (2004-2005), U_Raging Standstill (2006), O_Rex (2007), W (Double U) (2008), EUX (2008), Line-Up (2009), C.A.P.E. (2010-2012), Terra Nova (2011), and NoHorizon (2012). http://www.crewonline.org

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This event is free and open to the public. Reservations are recommended and can be made in person at the EMPAC Box Office or over the phone at 518.276.3921. Tickets will be available for pick-up starting at 5 PM the evening of the performance; they must be claimed by 6:45 PM or they will be released.
 
Evelyn's Café will open at 5 PM with a full menu of meals, snacks, and beverages as well as a selection of wines. Service continues after the performance. Parking is available in the Rensselaer parking lot on College Avenue.
 
More information can be found on the EMPAC website: empac.rpi.edu. Questions? Call the EMPAC Box Office: 518.276.3921.

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Vectors of Research—Circles of Art
 
EMPAC—The Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center—is where the arts, sciences, and technology interact with and influence each other by using the same facilities, technologies, and by breathing the same air.
 
Situated on the campus of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, EMPAC is dedicated to building bridges between our human senses, to modes of perception and experience, to creating meaning in a physical environment, and to the intangible world of digital technology.
 
Four discrete venues are designed with unique technical infrastructure to enable audiences to see, hear, and move in space in endlessly different ways. EMPAC hosts artists and researchers to create new work and presents events which ask audiences to join the quest for new perspectives.

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, founded in 1824, is the nation's oldest technological university. The school offers degrees in engineering, the sciences, information technology, architecture, management, and the social sciences and humanities. For over 30 years, the Institute has been a leader in interdisciplinary creative research, especially in the electronic arts. In addition to its MFA and PhD programs in electronic arts, Rensselaer offers bachelor degrees in electronic arts, and in electronic media, arts, and communication — one of the first undergraduate programs of its kind in the United States. The Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies and EMPAC are two major research platforms that Rensselaer established at the beginning of the 21st century.

EMPAC 2012-2013 presentations, residencies, and commissions are made possible by continuous support from the Jaffe Fund for Experimental Media and Performing Arts. Additional project support by the National Endowment for the Arts; the National Dance Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; the New York State Council for the Arts; Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation with support from the National Endowment for the Arts; Arts Council Norway, Fond for Lyd og Bilde, and Fond for Utøvende Kunstner.

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The Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC)
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
110 8th Street
Troy, NY, 12180

[HvEXAS] Kris Verdonck and Alix Eynaudi: EXIT | Fri Jan 25, 7 PM | EMPAC, Troy, NY

PERFORMANCE 

Kris Verdonck and Alix Eynaudi: EXIT
Friday, January 25, 2013, 7 PM
EMPAC Theater
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY

FREE - reservations required

http://empac.rpi.edu/events/2013/spring/exit

You won't have to be embarrassed when you fall asleep during EXIT.
 
Belgian artist Kris Verdonck and choreographer Alix Eynaudi steer the audience's perception by playing with basic theatrical elements such as light, sound, movement, language, and scenography.
 
What value does our society attach to relaxation, rest, silence, sleep, and laziness? Are we not caught up more than ever in the relentlessness of production and consumption? These are the central themes behind this research and performance. You are invited to become co-conspirators in this experiment. Pillows will be provided!

+ Kris Verdonck: http://www.atwodogscompany.org/

+ Alix Eynaudi: http://www.margaritaproduction.be/artists/alix-eynaudi

+ EXIT performance documentation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eGE8KJXujY

This event is free and open to the public. Reservations are required and can be made in person at the EMPAC Box Office or over the phone at 518.276.3921. Tickets will be available for pick-up starting at 5 PM the evening of the performance; they must be claimed by 6:45 PM or they will be released.
 
Evelyn's Café will open at 5 PM with a full menu of meals, snacks, and beverages as well as a selection of wines. Service continues after the performance. Parking is available in the Rensselaer parking lot on College Avenue.
 
More information can be found on the EMPAC website: empac.rpi.edu. Questions? Call the EMPAC Box Office: 518.276.3921.

 
Kris Verdonck's visual arts, architecture, and theater training is reflected in the work he produces: his creations are situated between visual arts and theater, installation and performance, and dance and architecture. He has directed theater productions and produced various installations, including a.o. 5 (2003), Catching Whales Is Easy (2004), and II (2005). Verdonck often presents combinations of different installations/performances as variations. The first, Stills, consisting of gigantic projections, was created in 2006. In 2007, he created the theatrical installation I/II/III/IIII. In 2008, END premiered during the Kunstenfestivaldesarts in Brussels. Variation IV, a combination of seven installations was shown during the Avignon Festival in 2008. In 2010, Verdonck finished the circuit performance Actor #1, which shows three variations on a theme from chaos to order. K, a Society, a circuit of installations and projections inspired by the work of Franz Kafka, premiered at Theater der Welt 2010 in Essen, Germany, in 2010. In 2011, Verdonck presented two research projects: TALK explored language, while EXIT, created with dancer and choreographer Alix Eynaudi and musician Rutger Zuydervelt, tackled theater as a medium. In 2011, the first solo exhibition of his work, EXHIBITION #1 was shown together with a new work, EXOTE. In 2012/13, Verdonck is presenting M, a Reflection, a theater piece based on texts of Heiner Müller and performed by Johan Leysen. He is currently working on H, an Incident, based on the work of Russian writer and dissident Daniil Kharms. H, an Incident will premiere in 2013.
 
Alix Eynaudi trained as a ballet dancer in the Opéra de Paris and worked in various ballet companies before entering PARTS when the school first opened. In 1996, she joined Anne-Teresa De Keersmaeker's company Rosas, participating in the creation of several pieces.
 
Eynaudi works in Brussels creating her own pieces, including Crystalll, in collaboration with Alice Chauchat (2005), and Supernaturel (2007) and Komposition (2008), in collaboration with Anne Juren, Marianne Baillot, and Agata Maszkiewicz, The Visitants (2008) and Long Long Short Long Short (2009), were done in collaboration with Agata Maszkiewicz.
 
She has performed with Janez Jansa, Erna Ómarsdóttir, the Superamas, Kris Verdonck, Anne Juren, and Mark Lorimer, among others. She also teaches workshops in Ljubljana, Brussels (PARTS), Zagreb, Vienna (ImPulsTanz), Reykjavik, New York (Panetta Movement Center), and Kopenhagen (Skolen for Moderne Dans/The Danish National School of Contemporary Dance). 

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Vectors of Research—Circles of Art
 
EMPAC—The Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center—is where the arts, sciences, and technology interact with and influence each other by using the same facilities, technologies, and by breathing the same air.
 
Situated on the campus of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, EMPAC is dedicated to building bridges between our human senses, to modes of perception and experience, to creating meaning in a physical environment, and to the intangible world of digital technology.
 
Four discrete venues are designed with unique technical infrastructure to enable audiences to see, hear, and move in space in endlessly different ways. EMPAC hosts artists and researchers to create new work and presents events which ask audiences to join the quest for new perspectives.

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, founded in 1824, is the nation's oldest technological university. The school offers degrees in engineering, the sciences, information technology, architecture, management, and the social sciences and humanities. For over 30 years, the Institute has been a leader in interdisciplinary creative research, especially in the electronic arts. In addition to its MFA and PhD programs in electronic arts, Rensselaer offers bachelor degrees in electronic arts, and in electronic media, arts, and communication — one of the first undergraduate programs of its kind in the United States. The Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies and EMPAC are two major research platforms that Rensselaer established at the beginning of the 21st century.

EMPAC 2012-2013 presentations, residencies, and commissions are made possible by continuous support from the Jaffe Fund for Experimental Media and Performing Arts. Additional project support by the National Endowment for the Arts; the National Dance Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; the New York State Council for the Arts; Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation with support from the National Endowment for the Arts; Arts Council Norway, Fond for Lyd og Bilde, and Fond for Utøvende Kunstner.

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The Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC)
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
110 8th Street
Troy, NY, 12180