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Upcoming Performance The Lab and 23five Incorporated present: Jeff Surak (Washington, DC) Scott Arford (Oakland) Relay For Death (Oakland) Tralphaz (San Francisco) Sunday • November 11, 2011 • 8:00pm • $7.00 The Lab • 2948 16th Street • San Francisco, California www.thelab.org Jeff Surak started in the early 80s participating in the international hometaper network. His primary projects include -1348-, New Carrollton, V., and Violet. Surak has collaborated with such artists as Alexei Borisov, Zan Hoffman, Rinus Van Alebeek, Frans De Waard, Michael Gendreau, etc. He operates in the netherworld between composed and improvised music, moving between musique concrete, drone, noise, & free improvisation using whatever sound implements at hand. Surak runs the Zeromoon label and directs the annual Sonic Circuits Festival in Washington DC. "Like beautiful rats hugging a sinking ship." -- The Wire Scott Arford (b. 1967) has been active in the Bay Area's underground music and art scene since 1995. His work constantly strives to create an undeniable ecstatic moment, where sound, image and environment merge into a singular experience. His Static Room and TV-IV projects create intense flickering static environments using images to create sound and sounds to create images. Works created for Naut Humon's Cinechamber expand these projects into multi-channel video and sound installations. His Infrasound collaboration with Randy Yau, activates architectural space with sound, literally causing buildings to shake and vibrate. More recently he collaborated with Holly Herndon and Mathew Dryhurst in Total Accomplishment, a funky, darkly rhythmic, electronic dance outfit. Arford has shown work globally including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Sounding Festivals in Guangzhou, China and Taipei, Taiwan, Liquid Architecture in Melbourne, Australia, Sonic Light in Amsterdam, and the Center for Contemporary Arts in Kitakyushu, Japan. His awards include an Honorable Mention in the 2005 Prix Ars Electronica. Arford received a Bachelor of Architecture from the College of Architecture and Design at Kansas State University in 1991. He currently works at EHDD where he just competed a 14 story campus building for City College in downtown San Francisco. Relay For Death is a project comprised of twin sisters from the American South. Due to close proximity since inception the two have been fated to act as physical witness-one for the other - of certain pre-birth awarenesses. Embodied psychic imprints not allowing for the comfort of forgetting. Where the sense is retained, always looming, though not fully realized in the nervous half -known swarm that seems to surround them and their sound. Making references to numerous styles but conforming fully to none, the underlying coherence of this post-industrial project rests on a metaphysical vision rather than a stylistic approach. Upon hearing the often bleak and unsympathetic, sometimes frenzied arch of their recordings and live sets which are here and there interspersed with stabs of unrelenting beauty one can easily depict this duo as an atrophied hand that resignedly pushes the sinking trash sound boundary or matter-of-factly points at our existence as a terrible dream toward and everlasting reality. Their LP Birth of an Older Much More Ugly Christ (2010) on Hanson records is highly acclaimed in the genre; and They Are Heating Up The Ovens Get the Fuck Out Now (2011) released by No Rent Records is a disquieting and considered elaboration on their work. Relay For Death will be performing with Sean Hollins aka Dick Cheney, a well known Oakland native, former chess champ, current sound experimentalist, and wordsmith, having performing with Relay For Death here and there since 2010. Tralphaz is an electronic sound artist from San Francisco. He has recorded for labels such as Troniks, RRRecords, Throat, and Harsh Noise and has toured the U.S., Switzerland, and Japan.

Two recent albums from 23five Incorporated Helmut Schafer : Thought Provoking III 23five017, Compact Disc release date: February 27, 2012 Richard Garet : Areal 23five016, Compact Disc release date: February 27, 2012 23five is delighted to announce the release of our two latest publications -- Areal from the intrepid New York intermedia artist Richard Garet, and a posthumous release from Helmut Schaefer, featuring Will Guthrie, Elisabeth Gmeiner, and Zbigniew Karkowski. On AreaI, Garet continues his ongoing research with electromagnetic disturbances through radio. Garet treats the radio process of transmission and reception as a routing system for the audio signal, all the while deliberately agitating and distressing the nodes that direct the course of that signal. For example, an electrical motor might be situated near a radio's antenna disrupting its ability to properly receive a transmission that Garet is broadcasting from nearby. Through the controlled use of electro-acoustic techniques (some rough and volatile, some refined and delicate), he organizes the signal distortion, the crackling static, and the ever-present tendencies for feedback into swarms of chiming resonance, electrically sourced harmonics, tactile bricolage, and impressionist din. As much as Garet's process pushes the interaction of sound and electricity to the brink of self-immolation, Areal balances his crunched textures with extended passages of radiant blooms of blurry noise and drone, finding common ground between the glassine density from Rhys Chatham and the splintered excursions of Kevin Drumm. Schäfer posited Thought Provoking as a radical shift from his brutalist electronic engineering to a spatialized, open-ended composition based on the muffled tones from an ad hoc instrument he built from salvaged church organ pipes and hair dryers. The first presentation of this work took place in his home town of Graz, Austria in 2003; the second was a collaboration with violinist Elisabeth Gmeiner in Vienna two years later; and the third & final performance occurred in 2006 with percussionist Will Guthrie and Gmiener at the St. Andre Church where he first presented it in Graz. After Schäfer's death, Guthrie reconstituted the rehearsal takes from that performance for this recording of Thought Provoking III, attempting to re-imagine the controlled energy of those sessions with Schäfer's aesthetic framework at the forefront. The bellowing hums from Schäfer's organ pipe and hair dryer contraction ebb and flow amidst intermittent percussive flourishes, subtle gong overtones, sustained violin trills, and fizzling electronic mark-making. On the second track of this disc, long-time friend Zbigniew Karkowski presents a smoldering electro-acoustic remix of Thought Provoking III as a fitting tribute to Schäfer. Both titles are available through by clicking on the publications link above, or here. Older Posts 23five co-presents : Tension at Battery Townsley as part of the Soundwave (5) Biennial Battery Townsley at Fort Cronkhite Golden Gate National Park August 5, 2012 Eli Keszler (New York) Ben Bracken and Ashley Bellouin (Oakland) Tom Duff (San Francisco) Soundwave Humanities takes you into the wilderness for a sonic event like no other. Up in the hills of the Marin Headlands, amongst the gorgeous ocean and parklands, lies a structure steeped with history, Battery Townsley at Fort Cronkhite. Built in 1940 during WWII, this strongest and most secretive harbor fortification was a marvel in technology outfitted with battleship guns to defend the western shores against the Japanese navy. After the war, the outpost was a military testing site but by the 1980s, it was largely abandoned. National Park Service took authority and historians, contractors and Volunteers in Parks helped restore a historic site. Sound artists will use the Battery to explore notions of Tension (war and peace, and love and desire) in this former war installation with special performance installations using the extreme resonant spaces with the tensions of strings and stringed instrumentation to give voice to the Battery of what once was and what will become. New York artist Keszler creates a large scale mechanical string installation in the Battery gunwell formerly outfitted with battleship guns. Sonic duo Bracken and Bellouin use hand-made instruments that utilize strings, aluminum, wood, and microtonal tuning systems in the battery tunnel. Sound artist Duff creates Wire Machine, inspired seminal composition/installation Music on a Long Thin Wire, inside the battery rooms and hallways. http://www.projectsoundwave.com Tarab : Japan Tour, June 2012 +quiet : Ochiai Soup, Toyko June 10, 2012 Tarab & Hiroki Sasajima Celer Chihei Hatakeyama Hakobune DJ Reizen http://ochiaisoup.tumblr.com/#23295104176 Test Tone 82: Moving Derivatives of Stasis : Super-Deluxe, Tokyo June 12, 2012 Tim Olive + Madoka Kouno + Cal Lyall Tarab Black Zenith www.test-tone.com www.super-deluxe.com/room/238/ 23five Incorporated presents the fifteenth annual Activating The Medium festival in collaboration with Art Practical, The Lab, and the San Francisco Art Institute Since 1998, 23five Incorporated has produced the annual Activating The Medium festival -- an internationally recognized showcase for the most innovative and visionary practitioners of sound art. Now entering its fifteenth season, Activating The Medium addresses the theme of a 'dark ecology' -- a term which comes from the philosopher Timothy Morton, who argues that the idea of nature and the attitudes surrounding those ideas are the stumbling blocks to environmental thinking. A glance through the lens of dark ecology refuses to idealize nature as a Romanticized other; furthermore, it eschews the notion that mankind has disturbed and transgressed nature through our engineering and manipulation. A dark ecology frames reality that anything has the potential to disrupt everything, with global catastrophes inevitably occurring through such relationships. As such, Morton beseeches an aesthetic that does not forget the murk, the grime, and the filth that are the symptoms, causes, and glue of what might have once been described as 'nature.' It is from this vantage point that 23five is curating the 2012 Activating The Medium festival, seeking works that engage the specter of noise pollution, the melancholy of eco-acoustic blight, the horror of technological chimeras, and / or the altered states that may emerge from such meditations through sound-based composition and performance. Activating The Medium XV : Chapter One  Friday, April 20, 2012 : San Francisco Art Institute Bevin Kelley / Blevin Blectum (Providence) 8pm : free lecture Activating The Medium XV : Chapter Two Saturday, April 21, 2012 : San Francisco Art Institute Bevin Kelley / Blevin Blectum (Providence) Pod Blotz (Oakland) Andrea Williams (Oakland) 8pm : performances : $10 - $15 sliding scale : free to current SFAI students and staff Activating The Medium XV : Chapter Three Friday, April 27, 2012 : The Lab Relay for Death (North Carolina) Danishta Rivero (San Francisco) Jen Boyd (Vallejo, California) 8pm : performances : $10 - $15 sliding scale Activating The Medium XV : Chapter Four Saturday, April 28, 2012 : The Lab Maile Colbert (Portugal) Marielle V. Jakobsons (Oakland) Holly Herndon (San Francisco) Andrea Polli (Albuquerque) : lecture 7:30 : lecture : 8pm : performances : $10 - $15 sliding scale Activating The Medium XV : Chapter Five Sunday, April 29, 2012 Andrea Polli (Albuquerque) Andrea Williams (Oakland) 3pm : soundwalks : Oakland : $10 The Lab 2948 16th Street : San Francisco http://www.thelab.org San Francisco Art Institute : Lecture Hall 800 Chestnut Street : San Francisco http://http://www.sfai.edu Activating The Medium XV was curated by Andrea Williams and Jim Haynes. Runar Magnusson (Denmark / Iceland) Jim Haynes (San Francisco) Brown Un (San Francisco) Saturday • November 26, 2011 • 9:00pm • $8.00 donations Five Points Art House • 72 Tehama Street • San Francisco, California • fivepointsarthouse.com Runar Magnusson is an Icelandic composer, working in Copenhagen, Denmark. Inspired by the sounds of nature, horror movies, noise, and meditation, Magnusson specializes in atmospheric disturbances through minimalist compositions. While an oppressive hue is often cast upon Magnusson's work, it is nevertheless always drafted with a sly trace of humor. Over the past 10 years, Magnusson has travelled the globe presenting his work at various festivals and in various guises, including in the ensembles Vindva Mei and SameSameButDifferent. Recently, he has been focusing on surround sound, playing multi channel concerts at various locations, in churches, galleries, clubs and theaters located throughout the world including China, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Mexico, and the USA. Runar is the cofounder of Hljódaklettar, a boutique record label he founded with Sabrina Joy Winogrond for the purposes of releasing rare, limited, and collectible music and organizing events of art and music. http://hljodaklettar.com http://soundcloud.com/runar http://runarmagnusson.wordpress.com/ Describing his work through the pithy phrase, "I rust things," Jim Haynes is an artist who has developed a vocabulary of decay that he has applied to photography, sculpture, installation, and sound. Haynes' sound work draws from shortwave radio static, electric field disturbances, controlled feedback manipulation, and numerous textural scrapings, manifesting broken minimalism of magnetic drones and volatile tactility. This engineering of disparate materials and media seeks to evince the unpredictability of decay, to manifest its potential for a rough hewn beauty, and to bare witness to its inevitability. He has exhibited internationally at Electric Works (San Francisco), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art , the Bekerley Art Museum, The Exploratorium (San Francisco), WestSpace (Melbourne, Australia), Jack Straw Productions (Seattle), Eyedrum (Atlanta), Diapason (New York), and The Lab (San Francisco). Haynes has published his work through the Helen Scarsdale Agency, 23five Incorporated, Intransitive, Observatoire, and Elevator Bath. He has collaborated with Steven Stapleton (Nurse With Wound), M.S. Waldron (irr. app. (ext.)), Keith Evans, Allison Holt, and Loren Chasse. He is also a contributing writer for The Wire. Haynes is one of the Directors for 23five and is the lone occupant at the Helen Scarsdale Agency. http://www.helenscarsdale.com/haynes http://soundcloud.com/helen-scarsdale 23five Incorporated, swissnex San Francisco, & The Lab present Infrasound (Oakland) Jason Kahn (Switzerland) Francisco Meirino (Switzerland) Tuesday • September 27, 2011 • 8:00pm • $12.00 The Lab • 2948 16th Street • San Francisco, California • www.thelab.org On September 27, 23five celebrates 10 years of Infrasound, the acclaimed collaborative project between Scott Arford and Randy Yau. These two sound artists engage the architecture of a particular performance space in manipulating the resonant frequencies of that space through finely tuned broadcast of specific frequencies at extreme volumes. The low frequencies literally rattle the walls and manifest standing waves through the space. As such, Infrasound performances are experienced only in a live context; and they have never played the same space twice. Infrasound will also be joined by the pioneering electro-acoustic minimalist Jason Kahn and the noise tactician of failed electronics Francisco Meirino. Preceding Infrasound, Kahn and Meirino will be presenting two solo sets and a collaborative set. With the support from the Swiss Arts Council, Pro Helvetia.