Wilson Tanner Smith ‘Wasteland’
AKJAi
We’re back with a special second CLEAT Series of the month, our series that focuses on work composed for the 16-channel speaker system in our space, allowing audiences to experience different approaches to spatial audio. For this one we’ll have Wilson Tanner Smith presenting ‘Wasteland’, an electro-acoustic monodrama originally created for the 29-speaker dome at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, adapted here for the CLEAT space and expanded with a bevy of Chicago improvisers. Joining Smith will be Scott Rubin, Julian Otis, Ben Zucker, and others TBA. Ishmael Ali is back with his project Archipelago as well, but this time he’ll have his regular working project AKJAI join him as sound source. This band includes Ali, Brianna Tong, Johanna Brock, and Andrew Scott Young. Ali will process their sounds through the CLEAT. Don’t miss this one!
Artist Bios
"Wasteland" is a an electro-acoustic monodrama originally created for the 29-speaker dome at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, adapted here for the CLEAT space and expanded with a bevy of Chicago improvisers. A person finds themself cast into an unfamiliar, abject, and alienating landscape and variously tries to make sense of it, cowers in fear from it, wonders if they are supposed to be employed by it. Analogizing the speaker array to something like the post-apocalyptic earthworks proposed by a US-commissioned report on deterring future humans' excavation of radioactive waste, "Wasteland" supposes that each thing humanity creates is an expression of its/our values, and how shall we respond if so. "This place is a message, and part of a system of messages. Pay attention to it!" (Sandia National Laboratories, "Expert Judgement on Markers to Deter Inadvertent Human Intrusion into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant" (1993)) -- Electronics created by Aaron Gochberg, performed by Scott Rubin Musicians: Julian Otis, Ben Zucker, Scott Rubin, Wilson Tanner Smith, others TBA Created by Wilson Tanner Smith
Akjai is an improvising quartet comprising double bass, cello, violin and vocals.The group explores many sonic worlds ranging from 20th century classical music, to art song, to free jazz and pairs it with various forms of text including Octavia Butler, RA Washington, Brianna Tong, and Ishmael Ali. Archipelago is part performance, part composition, part interactive sound installation. Musicians will be interspersed throughout the room, performing a partially improvised score. These individual sounds will go through Elastic Art's 16 channel CLEAT system, be manipulated, processed, and joined with electronic sounds and samples via an interactive controller in the center of the room. Attendees are encouraged to interact with this controller, thereby influencing and connecting the isolated performers to the audience as well as each other. The project aims to explore distance, perspective, and focus while examining the performer - audience relationship. Archipelago is intended to be used as a loose template for future performances led by friends and colleagues.
Ishmael Ali - cello, composition, CLEAT programming
Brianna Tong - vocals
Johanna Brock - violin, vocals
Andrew Scott Young - double bass