Residencies

Spring 2019

• Mariam Ghani / JAN 2–11
  Mariam Ghani is in residence to finish the post-production for her new film What We Left Unfinished, based on the history of the Afghan Film Archive—the state film institute based in Kabul, Afghanistan.
• jumatatu m. poe and Jermone “Donte” Beacham / JAN 16–28
  Choreographers jumatatu m. poe and Jermone “Donte” Beacham are in residence for a late-stage technical residency in EMPAC’s Studio 1. With their collaborators, the artists will finalize lighting, video, sound, and choreography for the third installation of the Let ‘im Move You series, This is a Formation, a work-in-progress version of which will be presented on January 24.
• Jaamil Olawale Kosoko / FEB 5–10
  Jaamil Olawale Kosoko is in residence with a team of collaborators to develop an archive of found and original podcasts and sound clips that will become central to the Chameleon project. Kosoko will present on the work in a conversation work-in-progress showing on February 7.
• Jon Wang and Bahar Behbahani / MAR 25–29
  New York-based artists and filmmakers Jon Wang and Bahar Behbahani will be in residence in Studio 1 to develop a performance, which will be presented as part of the Short Shadows film series on March 29. This residency is produced in collaboration with Bard College’s Center for Curatorial Studies.
• Iver Findlay and Marit Sandsmark / APR 9–19
  Theater and dance artists Iver Findlay and Marit Sandsmark are in residence to develop motion-tracking and animation content for their performance >>returner<<. The artists will also work with EMPAC’s video and audio engineers to document the work during a public performance on Thursday, April 18.
• Ephraim Asili / JUN 3–14
  Ephraim Asili is in residence with an ensemble cast to shoot scenes for his feature film Inheritance. Based on real events, the film’s protagonist inherits a house in West Philadelphia that becomes home to an urban collective for activists of color. The increasingly claustrophobic drama unfolds as the group attempts to live together and find consensus through Black political discourse and social philosophy—a commitment that will climax in explosive action.
• Klein / APR 8–13
  UK-based producer, performer, and playwright Klein is in residence at EMPAC developing a new performance to be presented at MoMA PS1’s VW dome. Her recordings incorporate pitched vocals with manipulated audio samples and experimental electronics to create a collage-like assembly of sounds. This residency is in partnership with MoMA PS1 in Queens, New York.
• Justin Shoulder / APR 29–MAY 18
  Justin Shoulder is in residence with support from the Australia Council for the Arts. Shoulder will collaborate with Sam Rolfes to develop green-screen video content that the artist will manipulate live with a sensor system.
• James Richards / VARIOUS DATES
  Berlin-based artist James Richards is in residence for the development stage of a new project, and will be working with theatrical lighting in order to explore its affective, environmental, and performative potential in practice.
• Anna Craycroft / VARIOUS DATES
  Anna Craycroft is in residence throughout Spring 2019 to research and produce a new series of sculptures and a theatrical installation. Craycroft is experimenting with how acoustic technology can be built into architecture to mimic, extend, or deny one's body. Her sculptures will play with the identification and manipulation of the source of a speaker’s voice.
• Ana Navas / VARIOUS DATES
  Venezuelan artist Ana Navas will be in residence for the initial research stage of a project responding to Alexander Calder’s series of sculptural acoustic panels, Clouds, that were produced in the 1950s in collaboration with architect Carlos Raúl Villenueva and MIT acoustic engineers Bolt, Beranek & Newman, and are housed at the Aula Magna (the Central University of Venezuela’s auditorium) in Caracas.

Fall 2018

• YARA TRAVIESO / VARIOUS DATES
  Yara Travieso is in residence with composer/sound designer Sam Crawford and set designer Seth Reiser to write, design, and film material for a newly commissioned performance that will premiere in the Concert Hall as part of EMPAC’s 10 YEARS celebration.
• MARIA HASSABI / JULY 1–3
  Choreographer Maria Hassabi is in residence in EMPAC Studio 2 to finish the design for her newly commissioned moving-image installation that will have its US premiere as part of EMPAC’s 10 YEARS celebration.
• MOVED BY THE MOTION / AUG 6–17, OCT 8–14
  Wu Tsang and boychild are in residence with their collaborators Josh Johnson, Patrick Belaga, Jeff Simmons, and Asma Maroof to continue work on a new performance for EMPAC's Theater to be premiered at the 10 YEARS celebration. Footage shot by cinematographer Antonio Cisneros during the August residency will be incorporated into the final performance.
• MARY ARMENTROUT / AUG 29–SEPT 16
  Choreographer Mary Armentrout, video artist Ian Winters, and composer Evelyn Ficarra are in residence to finish their new multi-sited performance, Listening Creates an Opening, which has been in development at EMPAC over the past two years. The piece will premiere Sept. 12-15.
• ELLEN ARKBRO / SEPT 24–OCT 14
  Stockholm-based composer and sound artist Ellen Arkbro is in residence to develop an installation titled mirror point, field of wave. Arkbro will create a continuous sound environment in Studio 1 using EMPAC's Wave Field Synthesis loudspeaker array. This work is commissioned as part of EMPAC’s 10 YEARS celebration.
• ANNA CRAYCROFT / VARIOUS DATES
  Anna Craycroft is in residence throughout Fall 2018 to research and produce a new series of sculptures and a theatrical installation. Craycroft is experimenting with how acoustic technology can be built into architecture to mimic, extend, or deny one's body. Her sculptures will play with the identification and manipulation of the source of a speaker’s voice.
• GHISLAINE LEUNG / OCT 22–NOV 2
  London-based artist Ghislaine Leung is in residence in Studio 2 to experiment with spatial sound. Leung is working towards the extension of "active sound cancellation" technology, usually used in headphones, to an architectural scale. She will discuss her work with EMPAC audio engineer Todd Vos on Oct. 25, 2018.
• ALICE SHEPPARD/KINETIC LIGHT / NOV 5–16
  Choreographer Alice Sheppard is in residence with her company Kinetic Light to develop audio and accessibility design for their dance performance DESCENT. The company will perform DESCENT at EMPAC on Nov. 8 before embarking on a national tour.
• MARIAM GHANI and QASIM NAQVI / NOV 26–30
  Artist Mariam Ghani is in residence to finish the post-production audio and color mastering on her feature film What We Left Unfinished. She will be joined by composer Qasim Naqvi (Dawn of Midi), who has scored and recorded soundtracks for Ghani’s moving image works for over a decade. The two will screen and discuss the new film on Nov. 29.
• JAMES RICHARDS / NOV 26–30
  Berlin-based artist James Richards is in residence to work with EMPAC’s stage technologies team to experiment with theatrical lighting.
• LAURIE ANDERSON / DEC 4–7
  Laurie Anderson with artistic and technical collaborators Jason Stern, Amy Koshbin, Jim Cass, and Bob Currie, were in residence recreating the virtual reality work Chalkroom into a human-scale video installation for the Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, DC.
• MARILYN NONKEN and STEPHEN MAROTTO / DEC 17–21
  Pianist Marilyn Nonken and cellist Steven Marotto is in residence in EMPAC's Concert Hall to record composer Morton Feldman's Patterns in a Chromatic Field (1981).

Spring 2018

• WU TSANG and BOYCHILD / JAN 3–15
  Wu Tsang and boychild are in residence in EMPAC’s Theater to experiment with light, scrims, and projection surfaces for the development of a new work in their Moved by the Motion series. The performance is conceived in collaboration with Fred Moten, Patrick Belaga, and Klein.
• EPHRAIM ASILI / JAN 16–24
  Ephraim Asili is in residence with eight performers to workshop the script for his new feature-length film, Inheritance. An accompanying performance in three acts will be presented on Jan. 24 in Studio 1.
• MISH GRIGOR / JAN 26–28
  With support from the Australian Arts Council, choreographer Mish Grigor is in residence to develop Situation Tragedy, a work that features a disembodied live performer who guides audience members through a series of instructions. The piece satirizes the notion of the singular "Australian identity."
• LAURE PROUVOST, SAM BELINFANTE, and PIERRE DROULERS (France) / FEB 12–16 Artists Laure Prouvost and Sam Belinfante are in residence with choreographer Pierre Droulers for the final development of their new theatrical production They Are Waiting for You. They are working in collaboration with percussionist Eli Keszler and the Artemis Ensemble (Tara Loeper, Lizz Windnagel, Alia Jeraj, Bethany Battafarano). They Are Waiting for You will be presented in the theater on Feb. 16.
• ELENA DEMYANENKO and ERIKA MIJLIN / FEB 16–MAR 2
  Choreographer Elena Demyanenko and filmmaker Erika Mijlin are in residence to finish the development of echo/archive, a dance performance that explores how body movements and physical memories of these movements are passed down, communicated, and changed between generations. The EMPAC commission will premiere on MAR 2.
• ELLEN ARKBRO / FEB 26–MAR 9
  Composer Ellen Arkbro is in residence to create a new work for EMPAC’s Wave Field Synthesis spatial-audio system to be premiered in Fall 2018.
• RESTLESS NYC / MAR 13–21
  Restless NYC artists Mallory Catlett, Keith Skretch, G Lucas Crane, and Bill Kennedy are in residence with performers to create an installation version of their award-winning play This Was The End. The installation will have work-in-progress showings on MAR 19 and 20, including a live "activation" of the installation for the opening on MAR 19.
• MICHAEL GORDON and THE CROSSING / MAR 19–23
  Composer Michael Gordon and 24-voice choir The Crossing are in residence in the Concert Hall to record Gordon’s new choral work Anonymous Man for upcoming release.
• MARY ARMENTROUT DANCE THEATER / MAR 26–APR 4
  Oakland-based choreographer Mary Armentrout is in residence with media artist Ian Winters and composer Evelyn Ficarra to develop Listening Creates an Opening, exploring bodily approaches to technology. The EMPAC commission will premiere in September 2018.
• MARIA HASSABI / APR 16–27
  Artist/choreographer Maria Hassabi is in residence with dancers to shoot and edit a film based on her works STAGED? (2016) and STAGING (2017). The film will further Hassabi’s explorations of color and will include the vivid pink carpet and signature stillness of her prior performances.
• DAVID LANG and ENSEMBLE SIGNAL / APR 24–30
  Composer David Lang and Ensemble Signal are in residence in the Concert Hall to record Lang’s work darker, composed for 12 strings, in preparation for an upcoming release.
• ONEOHTRIX POINT NEVER / MAY 1-17
  Musician Daniel Lopatin returned to EMPAC with a four-piece band to rehearse the material from his forthcoming Warp Records release Age Of and develop the staging (including a giant inflatable sculpture) for his MYRIAD "concertscape" which premiered later that month at Park Avenue Armory in New York City.
• MARIAM GHANI / MAY 21-25
  Mariam Ghani is in residence to work on the post-production audio and video for her new film What We Left Unfinished, based on the history of the Afghan Film Archive—the state film institute based in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Fall 2017

• ANDREW SCHNEIDER / AUG 24–SEPT 5 Performer, writer, and interactive electronics artist Andrew Schneider is in residence in Studio 1 to develop AFTER. This EMPAC co–commission uses lighting, projection mapping, and 3D sound spatialization to create an immersive environment inside of a non–linear narrative. The performance premieres Aug. 31 and Sept. 1, 2017.
• ENNO POPPE AND YARN/WIRE (Germany) / SEPT 18–24 German composer Enno Poppe collaborates with NYC–based two–piano, two–percussion ensemble Yarn/Wire on the development and recording of a new work commissioned by EMPAC.
• ELENA DEMYANENKO AND ERIKA MIJLIN / SEPT 26–OCT 7 Choreographer Elena Demyanenko and filmmaker Erika Mijlin are in residence to develop Echo/Archive, a dance performance that explores how body movements and physical memories of these movements are passed down, communicated, and changed between generations.
• COLIN MARSTON / OCT 16–18 Death–metal bassist Colin Marston is in residence to record his complete works for player piano and feedback.
• MARY ARMENTROUT DANCE THEATER / OCT 20–27 Oakland–based choreographer Mary Armentrout is in residence with media artist Ian Winters to develop Listening Creates an Opening, exploring bodily approaches to technology. The EMPAC–commission will receive a work–in–progress showing on Oct. 25, 2017.
• A.K. BURNS / OCT 27–NOV 3 During the New York–based artist's second residency at EMPAC, A.K. Burns continues her experiments with light, haze, sound, and video in the infrastructure above Studio 1 and the Theater.
• LAURA LUNA (Mexico) / NOV 6–17 Mexican composer and multimedia artist Laura Luna is in residence to develop a site–specific sound work in EMPAC's Concert Hall. The performance will take place on Nov. 17, 2017.
• LAURE PROUVOST (France) / NOV 6–17 French artist Laure Prouvost is in residence to develop a new performance, which will premiere in Spring 2017. While she has until now worked primarily in the context of visual art, this new work marks Prouvost’s first major commission for the stage.
• ALI MOINI (Iran) / NOV 7–17 Paris–based Iranian choreographer Ali Moini is in residence with technical collaborator Fred Rodriguez to electronically analyze Moini’s Kintect footage of repetitive and ritualistic movement practices in Iran. Analysis will serve as source material for Moini’s new work, Intentions.
• EPHRAIM ASILI / NOV 27–DEC 1 Ephraim Asili is in residence at EMPAC with a group of performers to develop the script for his feature–length film, Inheritance.
• MISH GREGOR (Australia) / NOV–DEC With support from the Australian Arts Council, choreographer Mish Gregor is in residence to develop Situation Tragedy, a work that features a disembodied live performer who guides audience members through a series of instructions. The piece satirizes the notion of the singular "Australian identity."

Summer 2017

• ALI MOINI (Iran) / MAY 25–31 Paris-based choreographer Ali Moini is in residence with technical collaborator Fred Rodriguez to electronically analyze Moini's Kinect footage of repetitive and ritualistic movement practices in Iran. Analysis will serve as source material for Moini's new work, Intentions.
• ETIENNE CHAMBAUD (France) / JUN 12–23 French artist Etienne Chambaud is in residence in the theater to use an automated, motion-controlled camera rig to film a complex series of sets and scenarios. The footage will be incorporated into a new feature-length moving image work recently shot on-location in New York and Mexico.
• A.K. BURNS and SHANNON FUNCHESS / JUN 26–30 New York artist A.K. Burns will experiment with light, haze, sound, and video, as well as filming the infrastructure above Studio 1 and the Theater with performer Shannon Funchess for the first in a series of residencies.
• ISABELLE PAUWELS / JUL 18–AUG 4 Canadian artist Isabelle Pauwels is in residence with eight actors to film If it bleeds, her major new moving-image work. The project takes its cues from the scripted artifice of professional Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), and the spectacle of the televised Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC).
• MARKUS NOISTERNIG (France) / JUL 1–31 IRCAM researcher Markus Noisternig will be in residence in the Concert Hall working on a combination of EMPAC’s Wave Field Synthesis System and a 64-channel Ambisonic Dome. Noisternig will be interfacing with Rensselaer’s Blue Gene Summer Computer to calculate time reversal for 3D audio positioning.
• MARTINE SYMS / AUG 16–18 Los Angeles artist Martine Syms is in residence for the installation of An Evening with Queen White, which was produced at EMPAC in fall 2016, and will be presented in Studio 1 between August 21 and September 1 to mark the start of EMPAC's fall 2017 season.
• ANDREW SCHNEIDER / AUG 24–SEPT 5 Performer, writer, and interactive electronics artist Andrew Schneider is in residence with sound designer Bobby McElver and choreographer Vanessa Walters to develop AFTER, an EMPAC co-commission using lighting, projection mapping, and 3D sound spatialization to create an immersive environment inside of a non-linear narrative.

Spring 2017

• RACHEL ARIANNA OGLE (Australia) / JAN 2–20 With support from the Australian Arts Council, choreographer Rachel Arianne Ogle is in residence with lighting designer Benjamin Cisterne and sound designer Luke Smiles to develop their installation-based dance performance I Have Loved The Stars Too Fondly To Be Fearful Of The Night.
• CHARLES ATLAS, RASHAUN MITCHELL, SILAS RIENER / JAN 16–28 Artist Charles Atlas and choreographers Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener are at EMPAC for their final residency prior to the premiere of Tesseract, an evening of 3D film and performance on January 27 and 28.
• GERARD & KELLY / FEB 14–24 Gerard & Kelly’s Modern Living began as two sight-specific dance performances. The New York duo are in residence to translate this work into a gallery installation integrating architectural forms and video projection.
• PIG IRON THEATER COMPANY / FEB 21–23 Philadelphia-based Pig Iron Theater Company is in residence to develop LED light board technology. They will use the media in their new work Period of Animate Existence.
• BOUDRY / LORENZ (Germany) / FEB 27–MAR 10 Berlin-based artists Pauline Boudry and Renate Lorenz are in residence to produce a new moving-image work with multiple performers.
• ISABELLE PAUWELS / MAR 20–24 Canadian artist Isabelle Pauwels is in residence to cast the actors for her major new moving-image work that will be in production at EMPAC in summer 2017. The project takes its cues from Mixed Martial Arts and the spectacle of the televised Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC).
• ANDREW SCHNEIDER / MAR 27–APR 7 Performer, writer, and interactive electronics artist Andrew Schneider is in residence with sound designer Bobby McElver and choreographer Vanessa Walters to develop FIELD, an EMPAC co-commission using lighting, projection mapping, and 3D sound spatialization to create an immersive environment inside of a non-linear narrative. There will be a work-in-progress showing on MAR 30 with a soft launch at EMPAC in August 2017.
• MARY ARMENTROUT / APR 10–19 Oakland-based choreographer Mary Armentrout is in residence with media artist Ian Winters, composer Evelyn Ficarra, and performer Chris Evans to develop a multi-site commission that explores bodily approaches to technology. The work will premiere in fall 2018.
• TRAJAL HARRELL / APR 24–MAY 3 Choreographer Trajal Harrell is in residence with lighting designer Jean Stephan Kiss to develop the stage environment for Calm House Terrace, an evening-length contemporary dance solo. The work ritualistically resurrects Japanese butoh artist Tatsumi Hijikata’s Quiet House (1973).
• ALI MOINI (France) / MAY 22–28 Paris-based choreographer Ali Moini is in residence with technical collaborator Fred Rodriguez to electronically analyze Moini’s Kinect footage of repetitive and ritualistic movement practices in Iran. Analysis will serve as source material for Moini’s new work, Intentions.

Fall 2016

• MABEL KWAN / JUL 25–29, SEPT 19–22 Pianist Mabel Kwan is in residence in the Concert Hall to record, edit, mix, and master Georg Friedrich Haas’ Trois Hommages, a composition for two pianos played by one performer. She will perform the piece on Sept. 22.
• ROB HAMILTON / AUG 15–SEPT 2 Rensselaer Arts Department professor Rob Hamilton is developing a multichannel electronic installation and performance for EMPAC’s wave field synthesis array—a newly constructed system of 496 independently controlled speakers in Studio 1. The installation will be open during the week leading up to the Sept. 2 performance.
• PATRICIA L BOYD / AUG 24–SEPT 1 Artist Patricia L Boyd is in residence to complete the post-production work on her EMPAC-produced moving-image project. The film will be premiered alongside a commissioned text by poet Anne Boyer on Sept. 1.
• OLIVIA DE PRATO / SEPT 2–4 Violinist Olivia De Prato is in residence in the Concert Hall to record, mix, edit, and master new solo works by composers Reiko Futing, Taylor Brook, Ned Rothenberg, Samson Young, Tyshawn Sorey, and Missy Mazzoli.
• HANNAH RICKARDS / SEPT 12–30 Artist Hannah Rickards is working in Studio 1 with actors Ted Schmitz and Catriona James to rehearse One can make out the surface only by placing any dark-colored object on the ground, a new performance and moving-image work that uses navigational techniques to choreograph the interaction of a cable-suspended moving camera with the two performers.
• MARY ARMENTROUT / SEPT 23–30 Dance and theater artist Mary Armentrout is in residence with video and media artist Ian Winters to conduct site-specific research for a new performance in Armentrout's Reveries and Elegies series. Armentrout will work throughout EMPAC, on the Rensselaer campus, and in Troy to develop scenarios that incorporate wearable movement sensors, video, and choreography.
• ANDREW SCHNEIDER / OCT 18–31 Performer, writer, and interactive electronics artist Andrew Schneider is in residence in Studio 1 with sound collaborator Bobby McElver and performer Kristine Haruna Lee to develop and rehearse Unified Field Theory, a new production that features lighting, projection mapping, and 3D sound spatialization. The performance will be premiered in Fall 2017.
• MARTINE SYMS / NOV 7–18 Artist Martine Syms is in residence in the Theater to develop scenarios for a new feature-length work to be filmed using a 360-degree camera rig.
• LAURE PROUVOST / NOV 28–DEC 9 Artist Laure Prouvost is in residence to experiment with performance technologies for a new work using light, objects, and music in Studio 1. The project will be premiered alongside her solo exhibition at Walker Art Center in 2017-18.
• KATE SOPER / DEC 2–9 Composer/vocalist Kate Soper is in residence in the Theater to develop the staging for Ipsa Dixit, her new evening-length work of theatrical chamber music, which will premiere here on Dec. 9.
• CHARLES ATLAS / DEC 13–18 Filmmaker Charles Atlas and dancer/choreographers Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener are in residence to finish their multi-year project combining a group of dancers, live cameras, and 3D projection. The performance will premiere at EMPAC in January 2017.

Spring 2016

• CHARLES ATLAS / Various Dates New York-based artist Charles Atlas is in residence throughout 2016 working on the post-production of his EMPAC-commissioned 3D film work with choreographers Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener. The final video and performance will be premiered in January 2017.
• HANNAH RICKARDS (United Kingdom) / JAN 11–22 / APR 11–25 UK artist Hannah Rickards was in residence to test the possibilities of flying a camera from the rigging system in Studio 1 for a developing film and performance project.
• ENSEMBLE SIGNAL / JAN 22–24 Ensemble Signal returned to complete their ongoing recording of the works of American composer Steve Reich. This recording of Radio Rewrite, Reich's 2012 composition for 11 players, will be released by the label Harmonia Mundi.
• ANDROS ZINS-BROWNE AND KARTHIK PANDIAN (Brussels, USA) / JAN 25–29 / MAR 22–April 1 Choreographer Andros Zins-Browne and visual artist Karthik Pandian were in residence to film two camels against EMPAC's green screen for their new performance Atlas Revisited.
• AMIRTHA KIDAMBI / JAN 28–31 Harmonium player and vocalist Amirtha Kidambi’s quartet Elder Ones was in residence in the Concert Hall to record, mix, and master an audio recording of her new work Mother Tongues.
• NATE WOOLEY / FEB 8–12 Musician Nate Wooley was in residence in the Concert Hall to make audio and video documentation of his solo trumpet work For Kenneth Gaburo.
• THE MUSIC OF SALVATORE SCIARRINO / APR 11–15 Rensselaer Arts Department faculty Nicholas DeMasion rehearsed ensemble works by Italian composer Salvatore Sciarrino for performance on April 14.
• WU TSANG / APR 11–15 Artist Wu Tsang was be in residence in the theater with her collaborators boychild and Patrick Belaga to work on the staging of a new iteration of their performance Moved by the Motion.
• LONGLEASH / APR 25–28 The Longleash trio (piano, violin, cello) was in residence in the Concert Hall making audio recordings of new compositions by Reiko Füting, Yukiko Watanabe, Christopher Trapani, and Clara Iannotta for future release.
• PATRICIA L BOYD / APR 25–28 Artist Patricia L Boyd was in residence to film an intricate sequence of tracking shots using a networked group of cameras rigged in EMPAC's Theater. The residency was part of a developing moving-image project.
• TAREK ATOUI (Lebanon) / MAY 2–13 Sound artist Tarek Atoui was in residence for the final EMPAC presentation of his multi-year research and performance project developing tools and techniques for performing sound to a hearing-impaired audience.

Fall 2015

• ANT HAMPTON / The Extra People (United Kingdom) / SEPT 8–13 Working with binaural audio recording technology and a number of test audiences, British artist Ant Hampton prepared the premiere of his interactive theater piece in which the audience-turned-performers receive instructions through earbuds.
• ELIZABETH ORR / Mount Rushmore / SEPT 8–19 + OCT 20–NOV 2 Brooklyn-based artist Elizabeth Orr combined a green-screen shoot with motion graphics to tell the story of a Mount Rushmore park ranger interrupted from his daily routine by alarmist political email.
• TAREK ATOUI (Lebanon) / SEPT 14–25 Lebanese sound artist Tarek Atoui collaborated with Rensselaer Distinguished Research Professor of Music Pauline Oliveros to engage students in designing and building new instruments and interfaces for performance.
• MARK FELL / Recursive Frame Analysis (United Kingdom) / SEPT 21–OCT 11 British electronic artist Mark Fell put the finishing touches on his first work integrating dance with sound and light design. The project required the EMPAC team to design and build a specialized strobe light interface.
• JENNIFER WEST / SEPT 30–OCT 2 Los Angeles-based artist Jennifer West was in residence to develop Film Memory, an installation in which she integrated 100 channels of film to explore cinema as a material repository of memory.
• FRANCE JOBIN (Canada) / OCT 5–16 Using an array of specifically placed loudspeakers numbering in the dozens, Montreal composer France Jobin developed and presented a new work of “sound sculpture” built for the EMPAC Concert Hall.
• ONEOHTRIX POINT NEVER / OCT 9–16 Known for making intricate electronic music, Daniel Lopatin (AKA Oneohtrix Point Never) was in residence to develop and premiere new material set for release later in 2015.
• TIM HECKER (Canada) / NOV 9–16 Canadian electronic musician Tim Hecker created a new stage performance of sound and light in Studio 1.
• YARN/WIRE / NOV 6–8 Brooklyn-based two-piano, two-percussion ensemble Yarn/Wire was in residence to record and produce newly commissioned works for future release.
• CHARLES ATLAS, RASHAUN MITCHELL, AND SILAS RIENER / NOV 9–25 Media-dance pioneer Charles Atlas continued his EMPAC commission, shooting the final sections of a stereoscopic film in collaboration with dancer/choreographers Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener.
• PATRICIA L BOYD (United Kingdom) / DEC 7–18 San Francisco-based Patricia L Boyd was in residence to film throughout the EMPAC building in collaboration with both performers and EMPAC production staff.

Spring 2015

• ROSA BARBA (Germany) / FEB 23–MAR 13 Berlin-based artist Rosa Barba was in residence for the development of a site-specific EMPAC commission, working in collaboration with Heidi Newberg, professor of physics, applied physics, and astronomy and director of Rensselaer’s Hirsch Observatory, and Rensselaer physics undergraduate students Nicholas Palmieri, Jake Weiss, and Thomas Hartmann.
• DAVÍ∂ BRYNJAR FRANZSON (Iceland) / MAY 4–9 Icelandic composer Davíð Brynjar Franzson was in residence with ensemble Yarn/Wire to record, edit, and master both audio and video for an upcoming release.
• CHRIS CERRONE / JAN 12-15 Composer Chris Cerrone was in residence with video director Mark DeChiazza and percussionist Ian David Rosenbaum to shoot a video for Memory Palace, a 23-minute composition for percussion and electronics. The piece’s title refers to an ancient technique of memorization that helped orators remember very long speeches by placing mental signposts in an imaginary location and “walking” through it.
• ELLIE GA / MAY 4–8 Ellie Ga was in residence to develop her lecture-performance Eureka, a lighthouse play.
• MICHAEL GORDON + VICKY CHOW (Canada) / APRIL 1–9 Pianist Vicky Chow was in residence with composer Michael Gordon to record and perform Gordon's Sonatra.
• LAUREL HALO / JAN 6–19 The Berlin-based electronic musician was in residence to record material for her album Dust, released on Hyperdub Records in 2017.
• JUDY RADUL / JAN 12–29 Judy Radul was in residence at EMPAC to develop her technical approach to computer-controlled video installation.
• LUCY RAVEN / FEB 4–8 Lucy Raven’s residency at EMPAC focused on her research into the history and evolution of 3D-film technologies.
• CALLY SPOONER (United Kingdom) / FEB 2–14 Cally Spooner was in residence to finish production on And You Were Wonderful, On Stage.
• TALEA ENSEMBLE / MAR 9–13 Talea Ensemble were in residence to record and perform the US premiere of German composer Enno Poppe's Speicher.

Fall 2014

• LUCY RAVEN / JUL 14–AUG 8 Lucy Raven’s residency at EMPAC focused on her research into the history and evolution of 3D-film technologies.
• ROSA BARBA + JAN ST WERNER (Germany) / AUG 2–18 Berlin-based artist Rosa Barba was in residence for the development of a site-specific EMPAC commission, working in collaboration with Heidi Newberg, professor of physics, applied physics, and astronomy and director of Rensselaer’s Hirsch Observatory, and Rensselaer physics undergraduate students Nicholas Palmieri, Jake Weiss, and Thomas Hartmann.
• MIVOS QUARTET / ERIC WUBBELS / SEPT 24–29 The Mivos Quartet, one of the most sought-after string quartets in the international new music scene, performed the world premiere of a new work for string quartet and electronics by American composer Eric Wubbels, developed while in residence.
• AARON LANDSMAN & BRENT GREEN / JUN 23–OCT 5 Theater director Aaron Landsman, visual artist and filmmaker Brent Green, and performer Jim Findlay collaborated on Empathy School, an EMPAC commission that combined travel, theater, and audio in a contained space—a bus trip—where listening to another person’s stories is the only possible act of togetherness.
• TEMPORARY DISTORTION / SEPT 15–OCT 6 A six-hour performance—combining live music, text, and video—where the performers were confined in a freestanding 24΄ x 6΄ soundproof box. Free to come and go, the audience was able to see the inside, stationed at windows, and listen to the performance through headphones whenever they chose. But the performers could only see their reflections in the two-way mirrors, stretching off infinitely in both directions.
• ANTHONY MARCELLINI / SEPT 21–OCT 24 Obsolescere: The Thing is Falling was a performance that captures objects at the moment their usefulness becomes uncertain. The title is drawn from the Latin obsolescere—“falling into disuse”—the idea that when an object falls out of use over the course of time it shows that obsolescence is not a fixed point, but instead is an active and fluctuating state.
• ISABELLE PAUWELS (Canada) / MAY 11–OCT 30 ,000, is a multimedia theatrical production that tracks the history of the Canadian city of New Westminster along with biographical details of its residents and the urban landscape that they inhabit.
• PATRICIA L. BOYD (United Kingdom) / OCT 27–NOV 5 Patricia L Boyd lives and works between San Francisco and London. Selected solo exhibitions include Under Glass, TG Gallery, Nottingham (2015); Metrics, Modern Art Oxford, Oxford (2014); Clinic, YEARS gallery, Copenhagen (2-person, 2014); Ovum, Ohio, Glasgow (2013); The Pull, The Vanity, Los Angeles (2012); and a solo event, Nudes, at Cubitt gallery, London (2013). In 2013 Boyd participated in the 12th Lyon Biennale and produced a Frieze Film commission. Her work has been exhibited in group exhibitions at Steirischer Herbst, Graz (2014); Gasworks, London (2014); as well as events at Chisenhale Gallery, London (2012) and The Showroom, London (2014).
• STAVROS GASPARATOS (Greece) / AUG 3–NOV 13 During two production residencies, Stavros Gasparatos—a composer and digital sound artist— preapared for the world premiere of Expanded Piano, an EMPAC commission.
• JACQUELINE KIYOMI GORDON / MAY 17–NOV 17 Sound artist Jacqueline Kiyomi Gordon worked in residence to investigate how one’s perception of sound can be changed as he or she moves through space. Gordon created an interconnected series of listening rooms, each built with modular walls composed of a variety of materials (stone, metal, wood, cloth, etc.), and within it created a perpetually shifting audio experience from diffused sound projected from a ring of loudspeakers.
• EVE SUSSMAN + SIMON LEE / NOV 5–27 During a three-week film production residency, the team installed a large structural set, prepared all the props, costumes, lighting setup, as well as camera testing, leading up to a week-long filming period that transformed EMPAC’s Theater stage into a full-scale soundstage.
• GERMAINE KRUIP (Belgium) / SEPT 2–DEC 5 In A Possibility of an Abstraction, Germaine Kruip created an atmospheric film-like effect without actually using film, accomplished by manipulating light across the proscenium stage that served as a stand-in for the screen.
• MELVIN MOTI (The Netherlands) / NOV 30–DEC 6 Melvin Moti led a team of undergraduate physics and engineering students to assemble the components of The Vision Machine: a light source shines through a prism and reflects off a series of Mylar-covered panels affixed to a rotating bike chain, projecting a kaleidoscopic display on the wall. The effect evokes rainbows, sundogs, halos, and other atmospheric optical effects that rely on the position and perspective of the viewer to become visible.
• BLOOPERS — SARA MAGENHEIMER, MICHAEL BELL-SMITH, + BEN VIDA / JUN 17–DEC 7 Brooklyn-based artists Michael Bell Smith, Sara Magenheimer, and Ben Vida were in residence to produce a new video for their commissioned performance Bloopers #1. Using EMPAC’s Black-magic 4K camera, they filmed multiple house-hold objects, as well as actors, on a custom-built rotating platform embedded into a vinyl green screen.
• VICKY CHOW (Canada) / NOV 17–DEC 8 Chow was in residence to record Surface Image by Tristan Perich. A work for solo piano accompanied by 40 channels of 1-bit electronic sounds, Surface Image is a 60-minute composition that juxtaposes acoustic human performance and the sounds of hand-built electronics.

Spring 2014

• MARIANNE M. KIM / JAN 13–17 Kim and her team worked with EMPAC staff on location filming topographical material to be projected as a backdrop on a giant wall constructed at EMPAC, which consisted of hundreds of layered paper panels to create a pixel-like effect. An intricate lighting design to accentuate these panels/pixels was created, followed by rehearsals and filming of the two performers on the set.
• ROBERT AA LOWE + SABRINA RATTÉ (US/Canada) / JAN 6–25 Created in residence over three weeks, the artists worked in collaboration; using real-time synthesis, Ratté modified live video while Lowe used his voice as the source of his sonic manipulations. Inspired by René Daumal’s novel Mount Analogue, the first work of literature to use the word peradam to describe “an object that is revealed only to those who seek it,” Lowe’s composition for the modular synthesizer focused on the texture of a consistent equilibrium between the peak and valley of a sound wave to create a heightened experience akin to ecstatic music.
• CHARLES ATLAS / FEB 18–20 Charles Atlas was in residence to develop a commissioned theatrical production intertwining dance, live 3D video, and music, working in collaboration with choreographers Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener.
• DD DORVILLIER (US/France) / FEB 3–MAR 20 Extra Shapes explores ideas of spectatorship and the perceptual and functional differences between movement, sound, and light. The piece occupies a rotating, rectangular space divided into three equal and autonomous spaces dedicated to sound, light, and dance, respectively.
• ALAIN FRANCO, JÖRG LAUE, PETER STAMER / MAR 10–23 In 1988 and 1989, philosopher Gilles Deleuze sat in his living room and participated in a multi-part television interview discussing topics literally from A to Z—one letter, one concept, from “A as in Animal” to “Z as in Zigzag”—yielding seven-and-half hours of philosophy on the go. Nearly 20 years after Deleuze’s suicide in 1995, 26 Letters to Deleuze reworks this original Abécédaire interview into 26 performative “letters,” mixing performance, installation, concert, and symposium. Commissioned by EMPAC, it was presented as a work-in-progress. The multidisciplinary collaborators included: Alan Franco, who has worked with the Ensemble Modern (Frankfurt), the Ictus ensemble (Brussels), the Musiques Nouvelles ensemble (Brussels), and the Liège Philharmonic Orchestra, among others; Berlin-based Jörg Laue, whose LOSE COMBO has been realizing live art projects on the borders of stage performance, visual arts, and contemporary music; and Peter Stamer, who has worked as director, dramaturge, mentor, and curator in the field of contemporary theater across Europe, as well as in China, Egypt, the US, and Israel.
• SELINE BAUMGARTNER (US/Switzerland) / FEB 25–MAR 29 For this DANCE MOViES Commission, Seline Baumgartner worked with professional choreographers/dancers over the age of 62 (Meg Harper, Sally Gross, and Vicky Shick) to explore how contemporary dance forms indulge in the eternal cult of youth.
• ERIKA VOGT with MATH BASS, SHANNON EBNER, LAUREN DAVIS FISHER, MARIAH GARNETT, MPA, SILKE OTTO-KNAPP + FLORA WIEGMANN, ADAM PUTNAM, MARK SO / MAR 31–APR 11 Los Angeles-based artist Erika Vogt presented a collaborative theatrical production that brought together visual artists and performers who work across media, including Math Bass, Shannon Ebner, Lauren Davis Fisher, Mariah Garnett, MPA, Silke Otto-Knapp & Flora Wiegmann, Adam Putnam, and Mark So.
• ORIT BEN-SHITRIT (US/Israel) / APR 21–30 At EMPAC, Ben-Shitrit and her team, including choreographer Kate Corby, participated in an intense 10-day residency culminating in a three-day shoot with more than 20 people.
• SABISHA FRIEDBERG (South Africa) / JAN 13–MAY 31 Sound artist Sabisha Friedberg’s work explores perceptual thresholds, focused sub-sonic compositions, and low-frequency levitation. It pulls together concepts from the perceptual, phenomenological, and phantasmagorical to create thought-provoking, mystifying pieces. During her residency, Friedberg offered a talk and a work-in-progress installation/performance.
• RALPH LEMON / MAY 27–JUN 13 After several years and multiple residency visits, Ralph Lemon premiered 4Walls, a live multimedia dance installation that provides four points of view on one dance, giving a new shape to a “dance with no form.”
• ECCE / PER BLOLAND / JAN 17–SEPT 18 The contemporary music ensemble ECCE was in residence in EMPAC’s Concert Hall to make video and audio recordings of works by composer Per Bloland. Best known for his compositions using the electromagnetically-prepared piano, Bloland’s music fuses acoustic instruments with electronic sound, creating a richly unified whole that neither element alone could produce.

Fall 2013

• PETRA CORTRIGHT / AUG 5–21 Petra Cortright’s Bridal Shower was produced during a Frieze Film commission production residency. The work moves beyond Cortright’s past Internet-based experiments to test new production values associated with broadcasting.
• A TWO DOGS COMPANY / KRIS VERDONCK (Belgium) / AUG 23–SEPT 9 ISOS is a 3D video installation inspired by the apocalyptic science fiction novels of J.G. Ballard. Theater maker and visual artist Kris Verdonck worked extensively in residence on this installation, which focuses on the feeling of estrangement and “unheimlichkeit” (or eeriness) that arises from the tension between man and machine.
• ONEOHTRIX POINT NEVER / SEPT 6–13 Oneohtrix Point Never—aka Daniel Lopatin—is a Brooklyn-based composer who creates electronic music that is often described as “cinematic” and “orchestral.” In preparation for the performance, Lopatin was in residence in the Concert Hall with visual artist Nate Boyce developing the live touring show for his album R Plus Seven.
• LAURIE ANDERSON / JAN 16–SEPT 20 Begun as a 40-minute personal essay for French-German Arte TV, Heart of a Dog by EMPAC distinguished artist-in-residence Laurie Anderson captures a series of interconnected confessional stories set against a soundtrack of original music. Partially filmed at EMPAC, the film has been expanded to feature length, driven by Anderson’s spirit of transformation, embracing uncertainty in her process while allowing the work to take on new properties as it was being made.
• PATRICIA LENNOX-BOYD (United Kingdom) / SEPT 23–OCT 4 Patricia L Boyd’s short film was produced during her Frieze Film commission production residency at EMPAC. It features an EMPAC production technician self-recording the assembly and breakdown of his Dodge truck engine. During a two-week shoot at EMPAC, Boyd experimented with different scenarios for capturing and combining handheld camera motion to create a film that resists the idea that gesture can be read as a transparent revelation of authorship.
• CABULA6 / JEREMY XIDO (Austria, Netherlands, US) / OCT 14-20 The Angola Project is a series of multimedia lecture-performances that investigate the convoluted nature of storytelling, global travel, colonial history, and shifting notions of home in our age of polycultural mashup identities. The third part of the work, Part 3–XIN, was commissioned by and developed at EMPAC, where the artists surrounded a boxing ring with four screens and tested interactive components, including a heart-monitor sensor, which could trigger audio and video, as well as speech-recognition software.
• ELLIE GA / JUN 24–OCT 22 Ellie Ga’s experience at the marine archaeology program at Alexandria University, and describes the journey of an artist lost in the process of research and the impossible effort to piece together the thousands of stones barely visible on the seabed. Spanning a variety of media, Ga’s work probes the distinctions between documentary and fiction, private and public histories, writing and visual inscriptions, and the still and moving image.
• DANA GINGRAS (Canada) / OCT 28–NOV 2 Choreographer and director Dana Gingras came to EMPAC to create a short film based on the dance performance Chainreaction; the result was a collision of dance, animation, and sound that juxtaposes the movements of two live performers with the motion of animated projections, in a continuous interactive evolution.
• BORU O'BRIEN O'CONNELL / OCT 21–NOV 8 Boru O’Brien O’Connell came to EMPAC to shoot and edit this two-channel video installation in preparation for a solo exhibition at The Kitchen. Taking the work of industrial designer and illustrator John Vassos as the starting point, production involved a complex video shoot utilizing slow overhead tracking shots of desks, cameras, and microphones in a black and white set.
• MARK FELL (United Kingdom) / OCT 28–NOV 9 British electronic musician Mark Fell was in residence to create three site-specific audio and light installations and an immersive performance in the Concert Hall. Each of the installation pieces used the same algorithm to generate different effects: a cube of color-scrolling lights; a three-floor, haze-filled room permeated by vibrantly oscillating light and sound; and a massive, dark space filled by a strobe-lit skydancer.
• ERIKA VOGT / NOV 11–17 Los Angeles-based artist Erika Vogt presented a collaborative theatrical production that brought together visual artists and performers who work across media, including Math Bass, Shannon Ebner, Lauren Davis Fisher, Mariah Garnett, MPA, Silke Otto-Knapp & Flora Wiegmann, Adam Putnam, and Mark So.
• WOJTEK ZIEMILSKI (Poland) / NOV 7–25 In the 1950s, the CIA participated in the promotion of American art for propagandistic purpose, investing funds to turn an unexpected group of artists—Jackson Pollock and other abstract expressionists among them—into international art stars exemplifying America’s creativity. Central Intelligence Agency centers on stories, the difficulty of objectivity, and how judgment can become hostage to what we see.
• GORDON HALL / DEC 3–8 Hall worked in residence at EMPAC conducting research on the history of lecture-performances, from the tradition of the soapbox lecture to the relationship between contemporary artists Robert Morris and Simone Forti. The culmination of Hall’s research was a presentation that used sculptural objects, sound, and projected image, titled “Read me that part a-gain, where I disin-herit everybody” after a line from composer John Cage’s 1959 Lecture on Nothing.
• ARCHITEUTHIS WALKS ON LAND / AUG 27–DEC 13 Violist Amy Cimini and bassoonist Katherine Young have been performing together as Architeuthis Walks on Land since 2003. Cimini and Young were in residence to record, mix, and master their album The Surveyors.
• LUCY RAVEN / DEC 17–20 Lucy Raven’s residency at EMPAC focused on her research into the history and evolution of 3D-film technologies. Raven investigated the fluid cultural perception of the form’s use of spatial depth, and uncovered the mechanisms of industrial cinema production through analysis of the transnational circulation of labor and materials.
• VICKY CHOW (Canada) / DEC 2–22 Chow was in residence to record Surface Image by Tristan Perich. A work for solo piano accompanied by 40 channels of 1-bit electronic sounds, Surface Image is a 60-minute composition that juxtaposes acoustic human performance and the sounds of hand-built electronics.

Spring 2013

• DAVÍ∂ BRYNJAR FRANZSON (Iceland) / JAN 14–18 Icelandic composer Davíð Brynjar Franzson was in residence with ensemble Yarn/Wire to record, edit, and master both audio and video for an upcoming release. Franzson is known for his experimentation with music at the edge of perception, bringing sounds from between the cracks of consciousness to the forefront of perception.
• CREW & ERIC JORIS / (Belgium) / JAN 11–28 The goal for HeadSwap was to allow participants to choose an individual point of view within footage shot in Japan and New York City, while “swapping their heads”: simultaneously seeing what another person chooses to see. During a three-week research residency, Joris and a multi-disciplinary team of designers, programmers, and dramaturges worked to composite different video and graphic sources and find a way to view the end result in an “omnidirectional” way.
• BEN FROST (Australia) / FEB 1–8 Ben Frost’s music is not just heard; it’s felt. Influenced by classical minimalism, punk rock, and metal, he creates intense, monolithic sounds that command attention. While using EMPAC’s Studio 1 for tracking, he routed sound back through the Concert Hall, transforming it into a real-time reverb chamber.
• PETER EVANS QUINTET / MAR 26–30 Evans and his ensemble performed at EMPAC while they were in residence recording material for their next album. Evans is a trumpet player and composer based in New York City who works across a wide spectrum of contemporary music practices.
• COLIN GEE / APR 1–7
• MARIA KEFIROVA (Canada) / MAR 25–APR 8 Next to Focus was an interactive performance/installation where a performer actively produces or relocates the sound, and at the same time, is driven and mobilized by it. The collaborators—choreographer Maria Kefirova, visual artist Miguel A. Melgares, and composer and sound designer Martin Messier—worked at EMPAC on choreographing movement of sound in relation to the performers’ body and static objects.
• MIGUEL ANGEL MELGARES (Spain/Netherlands) / MAR 25–APR 8 Next to Focus was an interactive performance/installation where a performer actively produces or relocates the sound, and at the same time, is driven and mobilized by it. The collaborators—choreographer Maria Kefirova, visual artist Miguel A. Melgares, and composer and sound designer Martin Messier—worked at EMPAC on choreographing movement of sound in relation to the performers’ body and static objects.
• INFRAROUGE / MARIE BRASSARD (Canada) / APR 15–28 Marie Brassard and Infrarouge, her Montréal-based theater company, completed their work in residence and then premiered it at EMPAC. The company developed reactive video, light, and sound environments that would respond to performers in a mix of accidental and planned ways.
• CHAMECKILERNER (Brazil) / MAY 13–18 In residence to produce an EMPAC-commissioned dance film, chameckilerner experimented in the use of high-speed video to achieve extreme slow-motion images of dancers’ bodies—of various ages and shapes—in an Eskasizer vibrating belt massager.
• SAM GREEN / MAY 10–18 Sam Green, a San Francisco-based documentary filmmaker, worked at EMPAC on post-production of a 30-minute experimental documentary about fog in San Francisco. His residency at EMPAC allowed the filmmaker to edit his film while viewing it on a large cinema screen with a 30,000-lumens projector rather than on a computer monitor—a rarity for independent filmmakers—enabling him to make informed choices about the tempo and sequencing of the film, as it would be experienced by audiences.
• MANUELLA BLACKBURN (United Kingdom) / MAY 13–JUN 3 Blackburn was in residence to work on a composition commissioned by EMPAC called Time Will Tell. Assembled from the sounds of various clocks recorded across upstate New York, Blackburn transformed their mechanistic tick into a frantic and moving world of sound.
• KURT HENTSCHLÄGER / JUL 29–AUG 1 Austrian artist Kurt Hentschläger was in residence developing his audiovisual work CLUSTER, an evolutionary step in his artistic practice. A work in progress that began in 2004 combining seven complete, independent works, a full-length stereoscopic version of CLUSTER premiered in 2012.
• EARLY MORNING OPERA / LARS JAN / JUL 8–AUG 2 HOLOSCENES is part of a suite of multi-format artworks inspired by flooding; the name refers to our current geological epoch, the Holocene. During a month-long production and research residency, Jan and his designers, performers, and programmers worked with EMPAC’s production team to create a gigantic laboratory for the large-scale commercial water tanks and program the high-speed transfer of five tons of water between the two tanks by regulating hydraulic pumps.

Fall 2012

• WET INK / AUG 6–11 The members of the Ensemble collaborate in a band-like fashion, writing, improvising, and preparing pieces together over long stretches of time. In addition to yearly performances in New York City, the ensemble has taken part in numerous tours and residencies, including a residency at Duke University for the 2011-12 and 2012-13 academic years, and residencies at UC San Diego and Northern Illinois University.
• SAM GREEN / AUG 10–17 Sam Green, a San Francisco-based documentary filmmaker, worked at EMPAC on post-production of a 30-minute experimental documentary about fog in San Francisco. Seemingly an unlikely topic for a movie, fog can be a profoundly interesting visual phenomenon, and it is often breath-takingly beautiful.
• YEGOR SHEVTSOV / AUG 28–31 Shevtsov is a Ukrainian-born pianist based in New York City. As a soloist and a collaborative pianist, he has performed widely, including at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, the Whitney Museum, and Tanglewood.
• THOM KUBLI (Germany) / JUL 16–SEPT 7 Berlin-based composer and artist Thom Kubli has exhibited and presented his work in the US and Europe, including ICA (London, UK), Akademie der Künste (Berlin, Germany), Ars Electronica (Linz, Austria), and The New Museum (NYC).
• MICHAEL GORDON / SEPT 10–15 Composer Michael Gordon rehearsed, recorded, and premiered his new work Rushes for seven bassoons. Composed with cascading waves of sound, Gordon’s composition transformed the woodwinds into something improbably electronic. A companion piece to his earlier composition Timber (which applied a similar sound layering technique to the Simantra percussion instrument), Rushes is a haunting convergence of digital and analog ambiance.
• ELLA FISKUM DANZ (Norway) / SEPT 4–18 During a two-week production residency, Norwegian choreographer Ella Fiskum and her team of dancers and designers workshopped Triptych 0811 prior to its North American premiere at EMPAC. Like a painted triptych in which three separate images are placed side-by-side, Triptych 0811 explores the relationship between dreams, reality, and ambition with the inner life of fantastic aspirations flanked by the obstacles of real life.
• TIM HECKER / SEPT 23–29 Canadian musician and sound artist Tim Hecker was in residence developing a site-specific performance in the Concert Hall at EMPAC and recording new material for an upcoming album. Hecker used a multi-channel surround-sound setup, including speakers located above the Concert Hall’s suspended fabric ceiling, to create an immersive sound experience in near darkness.
• DEVILLE COHEN / OCT 15–26 Deville Cohen spent two weeks at EMPAC shooting for his video work Zero, inspired in part by the television sci-fi drama The X-Files. Cohen takes closed narrative forms, like the television show structure of a crime scene—investigation and resolution—only to twist them apart.
• RALPH LEMON / NOV 5–18 Lemon is a dancer, choreographer, writer, and visual artist, and is also artistic director of Cross Performance, a company dedicated to the creation of cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary performance and presentation.
• HAND2MOUTH / NOV 25–DEC 7 The Portland-based ensemble Hand2Mouth was in residence for two weeks in EMPAC’s Theater for final rehearsals of Something’s Got Ahold of My Heart. Exploring the tension be-tween how love is portrayed in popular culture versus how it is experienced in our personal lives, the performance drew on diverse source material including interviews, pop music concert footage, and advice books.
• OPENENDED GROUP + JAROSLAW KAPUSCINSKI / DEC 1–12 This residency supported a collaborative project featuring music by composer Jaroslaw Kapuściński and projections by The OpenEnded Group. The resulting work, Linked Verse, premiered at Stanford Live and was an evening-length concerto for cello (Maya Beiser), Japanese shõ (Ko Ishikawa), voice and surround sound from 24 speakers, and live 3D stereoscopic visual projection.
• DIMITRIS PAPAIOANNOU (Greece) / NOV 19–DEC 18 Papaioannou is an avant-garde stage director, choreographer, and visual artist who has worked across the boundaries of theater, dance, and the visual arts; he drew international acclaim for his direction of the opening ceremony of the Athens 2004 Olympic Games.

Spring 2012

• RYAN + TREVOR OAKES / JAN 5–FEB 5 Work by Ryan and Trevor Oakes is held in the permanent collections of the Field Museum and the Spertus Museum in Chicago, and the New York Public Library. Their public art projects include a large-scale outdoor sculpture that debuted in Chicago’s Millennium Park in the summer of 2009, and is now installed at O’Hare International Airport.
• BARBARA FOULKES (Mexico) / JAN 9–FEB 5 Flota is a study in falling and floating: a dance performance that takes place on freestanding walls built to form a corner, with live video projections of the suspended dancer on other surfaces. The audience chooses where to position themselves and where to look. Flota existed as a solo performance; at EMPAC, Foulkes experimented with site-adaptive iterations of the set-up, as well as shooting footage for an installation version.
• RODRIGO PARDO (Belgium) / JAN 9–FEB 5 Pardo’s work combines dance, video, and mixed media into site-specific projects in urban spaces. Originally from Argentina, Pardo is currently based in Brussels.
• LUCKY DRAGONS / FEB 8–16 Fischbeck and Rara have presented interactive performances and installations at MOCA Los Angeles, Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Whitney Museum of American Art (as part of the 2008 Whitney Biennial), the Kitchen, the Walker Art Center, REDCAT, ICA London, ICA Philadelphia, and the Centre Pompidou in Paris.
• NORA CHIPAUMIRE / FEB 6–17 Born in Zimbabwe and based in New York City, Chipaumire has studied dance in many parts of the world including Africa (Senegal, Burkina Faso, Kenya, and South Africa), Cuba, Jamaica, and the US. She was a 2012 Alpert Award in the Arts recipient, a 2011 United States Artist Ford Fellow, and a two-time New York Dance and Performance (Bessie) award winner.
• KURT HENTSCHLÄGER / FEB 5–24 Chicago-based Austrian artist Kurt Hentschläger creates audiovisual performances and installations. Between 1992 and 2003 he worked collaboratively as one half of Granular Synthesis, whose performances and installations confronted viewers on both a physical and emotional level, overwhelming them with sensory stimulation.
• MARIEL ROBERTS / FEB 24–MAR 2 Roberts has performed at the Kennedy Center, the Guggenheim Museum, Zankel Hall, MoMA, The Stone, Issue Project Room, and Roulette, and has performed internationally as a member of the Mivos String Quartet, as well as with a variety of other ensembles in venues around the world.
• JEAN-FRANCOIS PEYRET (France) / FEB 21–MAR 5 Director Jean-François Peyret’s work uses theater to imagine reveries around the living and artificial, bodies and machines, and variations on the theme of man’s technical destiny. His works often spring from the writings of philosophers and scientists.
• BEN RUBIN / FEB 28–MAR 6 Ben Rubin is a New York City-based media artist who has worked with composer Steve Reich, architects Diller Scofidio & Renfro and Renzo Piano, performers Laurie Anderson and Arto Lindsay, theorists Bruno Latour and Paul Virilio, and artists Ann Hamilton and Beryl Korot. He frequently collaborates with UCLA statistician Mark Hansen.
• JENNIFER + KEVIN MCCOY / MAR 26–31 Index was an EMPAC-commissioned public art installation by Rensselaer arts alumni Jennifer and Kevin McCoy, consisting of multiple sculptures filmed via small cameras. The resulting live video projections, as well as the models, were presented throughout EMPAC’s public spaces during an extended residency with the artists.
• TALEA ENSEMBLE / MAR 27–31 The Talea Ensemble has given many important world premieres of new works by composers such as Pierre Boulez, Tristan Murail, Jason Eckardt, Pierluigi Billone, Stefano Gervasoni, and Marco Stroppa, in addition to Fausto Romitelli.
• PETER EDWARDS + SABISHA FRIEDBERG (USA / South Africa) / MAR 26–APR 8 A collaboration between American Peter Edwards and South African Sabisha Friedberg, The Hant Variance was an exploration of audio composition driven by an audience’s movement through space. The score was inspired by the writings of Vic Tandy and other scientific and metaphysical sources that suggest certain sonic equations yield supernatural experiences.
• KOTA YAMAZAKI | FLUID HUG HUG (Japan) / MAR 26–APR 11 This work for six dancers combined butoh (a Japanese dance form that embraces shadows and darkness) with traditional African dance and contemporary movement, exploring similarities between these forms.
• BRENT GREEN / MAY 1–4 American filmmaker Brent Green was in residence to record a live performance version of his stop-motion animation film Gravity Was Everywhere Back Then. Originally presented as a touring film with live narration and musical accompaniment, Green wanted to create a DVD document of the project. All the video, audio, and design work took place onsite at EMPAC, with every department at EMPAC collaborating to realize the project.
• SUSAN SGORBATI / APR 1–MAY 13 Susan Sgorbati’s original work in emergent improvisation in dance led to her concept of “emergent structuring” for collaborative, applied problem solving for political, social, and environmental issues.
• JOSHUA FINBERG + MARILYN NONKEN / MAY 29–JUN 1 A collaboration between pianist Marilyn Nonken and composer Joshua Fineberg; while Nonken recorded works for solo piano, Fineberg mixed and mastered them in EMPAC’s audio production room. Combining Fineberg’s work in psycho-acoustics and Nonken’s virtuosic command of the modern repertoire, the performance produced Voix Voilées: Spectral Piano Music, featuring the music of Fineberg and an additional composition from Hugues Dufourt.
• LAURIE ANDERSON / JUN 13–14 Laurie Anderson worked on electronics and a custom-built software program for her composition Landfall. Inspired by Anderson’s experience of Hurricane Sandy, Landfall is an evocative meditation on transience. The piece combines texts—descriptions of loss, from water-logged pianos to disappearing animal species—and music that juxtaposes electronics and traditional strings. Dense projected texts were triggered musically via software developed for the work.
• RADIOHOLE / JUN 4–18 Radiohole is a Brooklyn-based performance collective founded in 1998 by Erin Douglass, Eric Dyer, Maggie Hoffman, and Scott Halvorsen Gillette. At the heart of the company’s ethic is collaboration and play. Their cut-up techniques, rich object-oriented visual sense, amplified, sampled sound, and raw, energetic performance style owe as much to the punk and new wave movements of the 1970s and ’80s as they do to any formal theatrical tradition.
• FREYA OLAFSON (Canada) / JUN 11–29 Olafson is an intermedia artist who works with video, audio, painting, and performance. Her creations have been presented and exhibited internationally.
• LARS JAN / JUN 25–JUL 2 Lars Jan is a director, designer, writer, and media artist. His performance and film works have been seen at Symphony Space (NYC), REDCAT (LA), the Venice Architectural Biennale, The Edinburgh Fringe Festival, The Philadelphia Live Arts & Fringe Festival, and the Whitney Museum of American Art (NYC).
• ED OSBORN / JUL 9–15 Osborn’s sound art pieces take many forms includ-ing installation, sculpture, radio, video, performance, and public projects. His works combine a visceral sense of space, sound, and motion with an economy of materials, and are by turns playful and oblique, engaging and enigmatic.

Fall 2011

• JOHANNA DOMKE (Germany) / JUL 27–AUG 18 Johanna Domke was educated in fine arts in Denmark and Sweden; her work crosses between art and cinema with both a structural and socio-political approach. She is concerned with how images influence the course of history, the creation of meaning, and the shaping of identity.
• KONIC THTR (Spain) / AUG 8–SEPT 2 Kònic thtr is an artistic platform based in Barcelona that is dedicated to contemporary creation at the confluence between arts, new technologies, and science.
• GUY MADDIN (Canada) / AUG 25–SEPT 2 Tales from the Gimli Hospital: Reframed paired Guy Maddin’s first feature film with a live performance of a newly-commissioned score by Matthew Patton, performed by a cast of Icelandic string musicians and vocalists including twin sisters Kristín Anna Valtýsdóttir and Gyða Valtýsdóttir (formerly of the band múm), Sigur Rós bandmates Amiina, Borgar Magnason, and more.
• PHANTOM LIMB / SEPT 12–26 Phantom Limb, founded by composer and marionette maker Erik Sanko and visual artist Jessica Grindstaff, incorporates puppetry, music, and large-scale installation to probe contemporary life.
• ROBERT GERARD PIETRUSKO / SEPT 20–26
• RALPH LEMON / SEPT 19–30 Lemon is a dancer, choreographer, writer, and visual artist, and is also artistic director of Cross Performance, a company dedicated to the creation of cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary performance and presentation.
• SHANTALA SHIVALINGAPPA (India) / OCT 12–18 Born in Madras, India, and brought up in Paris, Shivalingappa was inspired by Kuchipudi Master Vempati Chinna Satyam, and received an intense and rigorous training in Kuchipudi. She has also performed with some of the greatest contemporary theater and dance artists, including Maurice Béjart, Peter Brook, and Pina Bausch.
• POOR DOG GROUP / OCT 23–NOV 14 Poor Dog Group is a Los Angeles-based collective of performance and media artists committed to nurturing a distinctive aesthetic through adventurous collaboration in the creation of new work and through the radical reexaminations of existing texts.
• E-TEAM (USA / Germany) / NOV 13–16 eteam works at the intersection of relational aesthetics, the Internet, and land art, and coordinates collective happenings and conceptual transactions.
• JAPANTHER / NOV 9–DEC 3 Japanther is an art project established by Ian Vanek and Matt Reilly in Brooklyn, New York that creates interactive live shows in unconventional settings: out of the back of a moving truck, alongside giant dinosaurs, with synchronized swimmers, with oversized puppets, and with BMXers flying off the walls at the 2006 Whitney Biennial presentation of Don’t Trust Anyone Over Thirty, All Over Again in collaboration with Dan Graham and Tony Oursler.
• JACK QUARTET / DEC 6–9 JACK Quartet (violinists Christopher Otto and Ari Streisfeld, violist John Pickford Richards, and cellist Kevin McFarland) collaborated with EMPAC’s audio and video teams while in residence to finish their recording of Helmut Lachenmann’s complete string quartets.

Spring 2011

• KAY MATSCHULLAT, SUZANNE VEGA+ DUNCAN SHEIK / JAN 3–20 Vega is a renowned singer-songwriter; Duncan Sheik’s theater credits include Spring Awakening; and Kay Matschullat directed the world premiere of Prize-wining Derek Walcott’s To Die For Grenada, the world premiere of Ariel Dorfman’s Widows, and the English language premiere of Vaclav Havel’s The Conspirators, among other works.
• MICHAEL SHUMACHER / OCT 1–JAN 21 Michael J. Schumacher is a composer, performer, and installation artist based in New York City. Working predominantly with electronic and digital media, he creates sound environments that evolve over time and use multiple speaker configurations that relate the sounds of the installation to the architecture of the exhibition space.
• MARLENE MILLAR + PHILIP SZPORER (Canada) / JAN 23–28 Millar and Szporer founded Mouvement Perpétuel, a Montréal-based media production company specializing in arts programming, in 2001.
• BRENT GREEN / JAN 25–28 Brent Green is a storyteller, singer, songwriter, and self-taught filmmaker. Green often performs his films with live musicians, improvised sound-tracks, and live narration in venues ranging from rooftops to art institutions such as the Getty Center, the Walker Art Center, the Hammer Museum, the Wexner Center for the Arts, The Kitchen, and MoMA. He lives and works in the Appalachian hills of Pennsylvania.
• PHYLLIS CHEN + ROB DIETZ / MAR 4–7 Chen creates original multimedia compositions using toy pianos, music boxes, electronics, and video, presented in concert alongside works by prominent 20th century composers such as John Cage and Julia Wolfe. Dietz is a multimedia artist, VJ, and electroacoustic musician with an interest in generative audiovisual systems.
• GRAHAM PARKER / MAR 15–APR 15 New York City-based artist Graham Parker created new film and audio work in residence at EMPAC to be shown alongside a series of alter-ations made to the building’s environment—ranging from the theatrical to the virtually invisible.
• FRANCISCO LOPEZ (Spain) / APR 6–MAY 1 López has 30 years of experience in sound creation and environmental recordings, and has developed a personal and iconoclastic sound universe based on profound listening to the world. He has been involved in hundreds of sound installations, field recordings, and concerts in over 60 countries.
• CELESTE BOURSIER-MOUGENOT (France) / APR 26–MAY 13 A native of France, Boursier-Mougenot’s works have been exhibited worldwide.
• WALLY CARDONA + JENNIFER LACEY / MAY 31–JUN 13 Lacey is an American choreographer based in Paris whose solo works often emphasize ambiguous borders. Cardona is an award-winning Brooklyn-based choreographer and dancer. Tool is Loot’s sound score was created by composer, musician, and singer Jonathan Bepler.
• FRANCIS FAREWELL STARLITE / JUN 13–16 Starlite’s background as a virtuoso jazz pianist and commitment to a disciplined, and sometimes spectacular, performance aesthetic offers an expansive view of popular culture. For several years Starlite only performed at a space in downtown Brooklyn that he had built for his band; The White Room was an opportunity to document this area of his practice.
• THE WOOSTER GROUP / JUN 1–17 The Wooster Group is a collective of artists who make new work for the theater. Under the direction of Elizabeth LeCompte and with its associates and staff, the group has created over 40 works for theater, dance, and media.
• NORA CHIPAUMIRE / JUN 20–26 Born in Zimbabwe and based in New York City, Chipaumire has studied dance in many parts of the world including Africa (Senegal, Burkina Faso, Kenya, and South Africa), Cuba, Jamaica, and the US. She was a 2012 Alpert Award in the Arts recipient and 2011 United States Artist Ford Fellow; and a two-time New York Dance and Performance (“Bessie”) awardee.
• MARY REID KELLEY / JUL 5–13 Kelley’s videos and drawings present her take on the clash between utopian ideologies and the realities of women’s lives in the struggle for liberation and through political strife, wars, and other historical events.
• OPENENDED GROUP / APR 11–JUL 27 The OpenEnded Group created a 3D stage environment for a live chamber opera, Twice Through the Heart.
• LAURIE ANDERSON / JUL 27–29 Laurie Anderson, EMPAC’s inaugural distinguished artist-in-residence, presented a series of events focusing on topics unique to her practice as an artist.

Fall 2010

• LARS JAN / EARLY MORNING OPERA / JUN 21–AUG 2 Lars Jan is a director, designer, writer, and media artist. His performance and film works have been seen at Symphony Space (NYC), REDCAT (LA), the Venice Architectural Biennale, The Edinburgh Fringe Festival, The Philadelphia Live Arts & Fringe Festival, and the Whitney Museum of American Art (NYC).
• ANNIE DORSEN / AUG 1–9 An Obie-award winning director and writer, Annie Dorsen works in a variety of fields, including theater, film, dance, and as of 2010, digital performance. She is the co-creator of the 2008 Broadway musical Passing Strange, which she also directed.
• PETER FLAHERTY / AUG 9–22 Flaherty’s work has been seen in theatres, galleries, and museums internationally, and has collaborated with The Builders Association, Complicite, Francois Girard, Chen Shi-Zheng, Basil Twist, and Bang on a Can.
• STEVE CUIFFO, GEOFF SOEBLLE + TREY LYFORD / SEPT 12–16 AMAZINGLAND IN TROY EMagicPAC: The second in a trilogy of theater pieces that embrace and subvert American popular entertainment. Cuiffo, Lyford, and Sobelle enter magic contests as their illusionist personas—Louie Magic, Dennis Diamond, and Daryl Hannah—and succeed or fail while creating faux-documentary video to be integrated into performance.
• YANIRA CASTRO / OCT 1–2 Puerto Rican born and Brooklyn-based director/choreographer Yanira Castro collaborates with a core group of performers and designers to create hybrid performance works that integrate music, movement, installation, text, and visual elements such as film and video. She is the director of a canary torsi, an organism engaged in the creation of multi-disciplinary art collaborations.
• MIRO DANCE THEATER / OCT 1–3 Already Seen. Inspired by the infinite circle of the film loop and the process of sound looping, Already Seen looks at the circles of repetition and the feelings of déjà vu that permeate our lives and relationships. The performers experience the same repeating moment and we, the viewer, are left to determine what has changed and what remains the same.
• WALLY CARDONA / SEPT 27–OCT 3 Wally Cardona is an artistic director, choreographer, and performer residing in Brooklyn, NY and is the recipient of a 2006 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in choreography and a 2006 Bessie Award for the creation of Everywhere.
• ROBERT HENKE (Germany) + Tarik Barri (Saudi Arabia) / OCT 4–8 Berlin-based composer and sound artist Robert Henke, who is also one of the principal authors of Ableton Live software, provided insights into his artistic approach in two talks, and performed a multi-channel audiovisual concert together with visual artist Tarik Barri.
• NURIA FRAGOSO (Mexico) / OCT 19–NOV 2 Nuria Fragoso is a Mexican artist, dancer, and performer whose work explores the phenomenon of space as a social reality and as shaper of human relationships. A recipient of a DANCE MOViES Commission, Fragoso came to EMPAC first to research, and then to complete post-production on Anatomy of Melancholy.
• ARGENTO NEW MUSIC GROUP / NOV 9–12 Founded in 2000, Argento consists of nine core members and regularly expands to up to 30 musicians. Argento has toured widely in the US and abroad, and has worked closely with leading contemporary composers including Pierre Boulez, Beat Furrer, Georg Friedrich Haas, Bernhard Lang, Fred Lerdahl, Fabien Lévy, Tristan Murail, and others.
• HANS TUTSCHKU (Germany) / NOV 18–21 Tutschku is the Fanny P. Mason Professor of Music and director of the Harvard University Studio for Electroacoustic Composition.
• SEAN GRIFFIN / APR 14–DEC 7 Sean Griffin’s unique compositional works rely on interdisciplinary incongruities positioned at the intersection of sound, image, performance, and the archive. His works manifest as music, large and small-scale operas, collaborative installations, historically weighted musical performance works, and numeric choreographies.

Spring 2010

• GRAHAM PARKER / JAN 5–10 Graham Parker shot 100 hours of footage (working with cinematographer Ben Tiven) while in residence at EMPAC during January 2010 for two projects, The Flitter and The giST n.
• JILL SIGMAN / JAN 11–26 Jill Sigman/thinkdance creates conceptual performance that grows out of physical experience at the intersection of dance, theater, and visual installation. Sigman’s work transforms simple actions into complex statements about self, society, and human experience.
• KEIKO COURDY + FREDERIC SOFIYANA (France) / JAN 12–FEB 1 Courdy is a French multimedia artist and director who creates installations, performances, and interactive and immersive works that push the limits of perception. Collaborators on this project included Jacques Parnell, a French illustrator and painter who works on representations of utopian architecture, and art director and photographer Frederic Sofiyana.
• WAYNE MCGREGGOR / RANDOM DANCE (UK) / FEB 12–MAR 1 In a two-week residency, Wayne McGregor and Random Dance (WM|RD) investigated visual design concepts, tools, and ideas for a work-in-progress, a sequel to Entity, choreographed and directed by McGregor and premiered at Sadler’s Wells, London in 2008.
• THOM KUBLI (Germany) / FEB 22–MAR 20 Berlin-based composer and artist Thom Kubli has exhibited and presented his work in the US and Europe, including ICA (London, UK), Akademie der Künste (Berlin, Germany), Ars Electronica (Linz, Austria), and The New Museum (NYC).
• MICHAEL SHUMACHER / APR 23–25Michael J. Schumacher is a composer, performer, and installation artist based in Brooklyn, NY. He works predominantly with electronic media, creating computer-generated acoustic environments that evolve continuously for long time periods. In their realization, Schumacher uses multiple speaker configurations that relate the sounds of the installation to the architecture of the exhibition space. Architectural and acoustical considerations thereby together become basic structural elements.
• ANTI VJ (France) / APR 9–30 The AntiVJ visual label is a project initiated by a group of European visual artists whose work is focused on the use of projected light and its influence on our perception, presenting performances and installations that create wonderment and challenge the senses.
• MARITES CARINO + Rebecca Halls (Canada) / MAY 4–17 Trained in ballet and contemporary dance, Carino also has a postgraduate degree in broadcast journalism and has made several documentary films in addition to the dance films. HOOP was also commissioned by Canada’s Bravo!FACT program.
• YARN | WIRE / JUN 8–17 Founded in 2005, Yarn/Wire is a chamber quartet that specializes in the performance of 20th and 21st century music. In addition to the numerous world premieres of music written specifically for the ensemble, Yarn/Wire frequently presents US premieres by many leading international composers. The unique instrumental combination of two percussionists and two pianists allows the ensemble flexibility to slip effortlessly between classics of the repertoire and modern works that continue to forge new boundaries. Yarn/Wire maintains an active performing and teaching schedule at festivals, chamber music series, universities and colleges across the country.
• PER TENGSTRAND (Sweden) / JUL 9–14 Tengstrand performed the complete Beethoven cycle in a number of cities and venues, and blogged extensively about his artistic approach to learning and recording all 32 sonatas, posting detailed analyses of each work demonstrated with short sound files. An advocate of Scandinavian repertoire, in 2005 Tengstrand was decorated by King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden with the Royal Medal Litteris et Artibus for outstanding service to the arts, the youngest recipient ever to be so honored.

Fall 2009

• TONI DOVE / AUG 3–16 Lucid Possession is a live-mix cinema performance. Musicians, a VJ, and stage-controlled robotic screens combine to present a contemporary ghost story—a poetic musing on managing the mass of online information “noise.”
• MIGUEL AZGUIME (Portugal) / JUL 10–AUG 9 Azguime’s previous opera Salt Itinerary toured America, Canada, Europe, and Asia; in its performance he spoke and sung in five languages, and used a combination of real-time algorithmic audio and video. Azguime has composed instrumental and/or vocal works with and without electronics, electroacoustic music, sound poetry, including music for sound installations, theater, exhibitions, dance, and cinema. He also dedicates himself to the promotion of contemporary music as artistic director of the independent label Miso Records and of the Música Viva International Festival.
• BRUCE ODLAND + Sam Auinger / SEPT 29–30 What would it mean to build the city based on what we hear rather than what we see? Bruce Odland and Sam Auinger (O+A) are known for their observation of the urban soundscape and the resulting sound installations for public spaces around the world.
• MADS LYNNERUP (Denmark) / JUN 17–OCT 1 Many of the themes in the work of Mads Lynnerup, a Brooklyn-based Danish artist, have roots in his interest in the everyday, whether it’s the influence of billboards and advertisement texts, or his obsession with the daily routines taking place in public space.
• FLUX QUARTET / OCT 6–10 Strongly influenced by the irreverent spirit and “anything-goes” philosophy of the fluxus art movement, violinist Tom Chiu founded FLUX in the late ’90s. The quartet has since cultivated an uncompromising repertoire that follows neither fashions nor trends, but rather combines yesterday’s seminal iconoclasts with tomorrow’s new voices. Alongside late 20th-century masters like Cage, Feldman, Ligeti, Nancarrow, Scelsi, and Xenakis, FLUX has premiered more than 100 works by many of today’s foremost innovators, including Michael Byron, Julio Estrada, David First, Oliver Lake, Alvin Lucier, Marc Neikrug, and Matthew Welch.
• INETERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY ENSEMBLE / OCT 6–10 After performing in EMPAC’s opening festival, International Contemporary Ensemble returned to EMPAC’s state-of-the-art recording venue to record The Bright and Hollow Sky, an album of the electro-acoustic music of Nathan Davis.
• DANIEL TEIGE (Germany) / SEPT 22–OCT 18 Daniel Teige is a Berlin-based composer, sound artist, and sound director specializing in installations, improvisation, and interactions. His quirky sound collages combine ambient sound with elegant musical progressions, for an effect that is both classically restrained and whimsical.
• VOLKMAR KLEIN (Austria) / SEPT 22–OCT 18 Volkmar Klien works in various areas of the sonic arts, from electronica to interactive installations and instrumental compositions. Klien was invited to EMPAC to remix a composition—Start-Ziel-Siege, in which washes of electronic feedback float over computer-generated percussion—for dozens of speakers. “Start-Ziel-Siege” is a phrase used in the German racing world that signifies a “start-to-finish victory.”
• NURIA FRAGOSO (Mexico) / OCT 19–NOV 2 Nuria Fragoso is a Mexican artist, dancer, and performer whose work explores the phenomenon of space as a social reality and as shaper of human relationships. A recipient of a DANCE MOViES Commission, Fragoso came to EMPAC first to research, and then to complete post-production on Anatomy of Melancholy.
• PER TENGSTRAND (Sweden) / OCT 3–NOV 20 Tengstrand performed the complete Beethoven cycle in a number of cities and venues, and blogged extensively about his artistic approach to learning and recording all 32 sonatas, posting detailed analyses of each work demonstrated with short sound files. An advocate of Scandinavian repertoire, in 2005 Tengstrand was decorated by King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden with the Royal Medal Litteris et Artibus for outstanding service to the arts, the youngest recipient ever to be so honored.
• LAURIE ANDERSON / NOV 16–20 One of America’s most renowned performance artists, Laurie Anderson’s genre-crossing work encompasses performance, installation, film, music, writing, and photography. Anderson has invented several technological devices for use in her recordings and performance art shows, and published books, produced numerous videos, films, radio pieces, and original scores for dance and film.
• WORKSPACE UNLIMITED (Belgium) / OCT 30–NOV 21 Workspace Unlimited, founded in Belgium by Thomas Soetens and Kora Van den Bulcke, is an international collective creating compelling virtual worlds and interactive installations.

Spring 2009

• LARS JAN / EARLY MORNING OPERA / JAN 12–17 Lars Jan is a director, designer, writer, and media artist. His performance and film works have been seen at Symphony Space (NYC), REDCAT (LA), the Venice Architectural Biennale, The Edinburgh Fringe Festival, The Philadelphia Live Arts & Fringe Festival, and the Whitney Museum of American Art (NYC).
• SEAN GRIFFIN / JAN 12–17 Encompassing many languages, styles, media, and forms, Griffin states that his unique compositional works “rely on interdisciplinary incongruities positioned at the intersection of sound, image, performance, and the archive.” His works have been commissioned and presented internationally; Griffin lives and works in Los Angeles.
• LISA PARRA + SOPHIE BARRET-KAHN / JAN 5–28 One of four winners of the DANCE MOViES Commission 2008, new media artist Sophie Kahn and choreographer Lisa Parra collaborated on a single-channel video installation during their three-week residency.
• CATHY WEIS / JAN 19–FEB 7 Cathy Weis’ work, performers partner with technology to negotiate the boundaries between the recorded and live, the electronic and human, and real and imagined experience in surprising, whimsical, and moving ways.
• MARYANNE AMACHER / JAN 29–FEB 26 Amacher was a major innovator in the field of 20th-century electronic music. A rigorously perceptive mind and uncannily sensitive listener, she created powerful situations for listening that broke new ground in areas of telematics with her CityLinks series in the 1960s, sound spatialization with her unique approach to structure-borne sound, and the creative use of otoacoustic emissions (sounds self-produced by the inner ear). Her work has been produced at festivals worldwide since the late 1960s and, until her death in 2009, she traveled extensively, continuing to research, compose, and inspire those around her.
• YVON BONEFANT (Canada) / MAR 2–13 A UK-based Canadian artist, Bonenfant is also senior lecturer in Performing Arts and director of Research and Knowledge Exchange at the University of Winchester, UK, and an overseas associate of the Institut d’Esthetique des Arts et Technologies of the University of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne.
• OPEN ENDED GROUP / MAR 14–20 Upending is enacted on both perceptual and thematic levels. Ordinary objects, spaces, and bodies are probed and queried from unfamiliar perspectives, so that viewers become exquisitely aware of their own perceptual processes and of their minds’ continual attempt to spin out meaning from what their eyes take in. The play of images is accompanied by an EMPAC-produced recording of Morton Feldman’s First String Quartet by the FLUX Quartet that places the listener, literally, in the center of the ensemble, with every sonic gesture articulated across space simultaneously. Through this aural lens, the moving image becomes almost balletic, even as the projected play of light allows the audience to hear Feldman as never before.
• WILL RAWLS + KYLE WILAMOWSKI / MAR 23–29 Will Rawls (producer) and Kyle Wilamowski (director and editor) created this short documentary on the founding, history, and current relevance of Movement Research (MR), one of the world’s leading laboratories for the investigation of dance and movement-based forms.
• MICHAEL SHUMACHER / APR 22–MAY 2 Michael J. Schumacher is a composer, performer, and installation artist based in New York City. Working predominantly with electronic and digital media, he creates sound environments that evolve over time and use multiple speaker configurations that relate the sounds of the installation to the architecture of the exhibition space.
• LUCIANO CHESSA (Italy) / JUL 5–18 Luciano Chessa came to EMPAC to reconstruct Futurist composer and inventor Luigi Russolo’s intonarumori (or noise intoners). In collaboration with EMPAC and Performa, Chessa embarked on this reconstruction using his research that revised longstanding misconceptions about their construction, making this ensemble the first sonically accurate portrayal.

2008

• JENNIFER TIPTON / JAN 11–FEB 3 In dance, Tipton has collaborated with Mikhail Baryshnikov, Jiri Kylian, Dana Reitz, Jerome Robbins, Paul Taylor, Twyla Tharp, and Dan Wagoner, among many others; her work in the theater has garnered two American Theater Wing Awards, an Obie, two Drama Desk Awards, and two Tonys.
• THE WOOSTER GROUP / SEPT 14–OCT 4 The Wooster Group is a collective of artists who make new work for the theater. Under the direction of Elizabeth LeCompte and with its associates and staff, the group has created over 40 works for theater, dance, and media. For more than 30 years, the Wooster Group has cultivated new forms and techniques of theatrical expression reflective of and responsive to our evolving culture, while sustaining a consistent ensemble and maintaining a flexible repertory. Elizabeth LeCompte has directed all of the Wooster Group’s productions since the founding of the company in 1976. Jeffrey Shaw has been a leading figure in new media art since its emergence from the performance, expanded cinema, and installation paradigms of the ’60s to its present day technology-informed and virtualized forms.
• BALLETLAB / NOV 23–DEC 19 The company focused their time at EMPAC on the creation of movement and sound material for the piece, originally titled Fermata. The choreographer and director of the company, composer, engineer, and sound designer, and the four dancers came to the residency to gather ideas and work out the choreography, which had been in development for a year.
• PETER FLAHERTY / DEC 23–JAN 12 2009 Soul Leaves Her Body is an integrated-media performance synthesizing theatre, dance, live video, music, and cinema. Inspired by a 13th-century Chinese story about a young woman who tears her soul from her body in order to pursue her destiny in the city, the performance explores the soul-body relationship in today’s networked, electronic culture.
• WORKSPACE UNLIMITED (Belgium) / MAR 1–OCT 30 2009 Workspace Unlimited (WU) is a digital arts collective co-founded by visual artist Thomas Soetens and architect Kora Van Den Bulcke that has been commissioned by cultural institutions to create large-scale digital environments for specific exhibits or buildings. WU’s projects feature hybrid spaces, merging the thin line between physical environments and perceptual realities. Conceptually rooted in the convergence of art and architecture, WU reconciles these two “realities” through the creation of environments where virtual space overlaps with “real” physical space, through the use of immersive environments, real-time gaming technology, projections, body tracking, and mirroring techniques.