Presents

MACABRE

7PM Saturday, November 3rd
Avenue 50 Studio
131 N. Avenue 50
Highland Park (Los Angeles), CA

An evening of readings, performances, spectral hauntings, and celebration on the Day of the Dead.

Christian Cummings & Michael Decker will perform Spectral Psychography

Grace Krilanovich will read an excerpt from The Orange Eats Creeps, involving Kirk Cameron, earthquakes and hibernation cults.

Martin Camps will read about zombies.

The Heliconius String Quartet will reveal the compelling and tragic themes in Schubert’s Death and the Maiden.

More information on the presenters:

Spectral Psychography is a method for psychic mark making developed by L. A. based artists Christian Cummings and Michael Decker. The Psychographer uses an adapted Ouija device (planchette) to collaborate artistically with unseen forces. Blindfolded, the hand forms an image while the mind remains unaware. Decker and Cummings have collaborated with ghosts in the service of drawing, painting, poetry, sculpture and musical composition. To date they’ve produced hundreds of Spectral Psychographs and with surprise visits from Barnett Newman, Paul Klee, Gertrude Stein, Walt Disney, Keith Harring, Tony Smith, David Smith, Sigmar Polke, Norman Rockwell and the 17th century English poet William Congreve. This project has been shown at Creativetime NYC, at the Santa Monica Museum of Art, at the Museum of Jurassic Technology in Los Angeles, and has been included in numerous group and solo exhibitions.

Grace Krilanovich‘s debut novel The Orange Eats Creeps, published by Two Dollar Radio, was a finalist for the Indie Booksellers’ Choice Award and the Believer Book Award, and was named one of Amazon’s Top Ten Science Fiction/Fantasy Books of 2010. Grace is a MacDowell Colony fellow and was a National Book Foundation “5 Under 35″ honoree for 2010.

Martin Camps has published: Desierto Sol (Desert Sun, 2003), La invención del mundo (Invention of the world, 2008), Extinción de los atardeceres (Extinction of Twilight, 2010) and Zombie Poems (2012). He has published poems in Tierra Adentro, Alforja, Bitter Oleander, Hunger, among others.

The Heliconius String Quartet is made up of violinists Georgia Broughton and Emily Call, violist Madeline Falcone, and cellist Betsy Rettig. The group hails from The California Institute of the Arts, where they cultivate a repertoire of contemporary and standard classical works:

Georgia Broughton got her start playing chamber music many years ago in the CalArts Community Arts Partnership (CAP) and recently graduated from UCLA where she studied Ethnomusicology. She is a student of Tamara Chernyak of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and an attendee of the Castleman Quartet Program.

Emily Call is currently pursuing her MFA in violin performance at CalArts, where she studies with Lorenz Gamma and Mark Menzies.  Before moving to the west coast, she received her undergraduate degree from Bennington College in Vermont, which has decidedly better autumn weather than southern California.

Madeline Falcone is a violinist, runner, and violist when necessary. She received her undergraduate degree from Loyola University New Orleans, where she was a founding member of the Contemporary String Ensemble and New Orleans Chamber Ensembles.  Madeline is currently completing her MFA at CalArts, where she also studies with Mark Menzies and Lorenz Gamma.

Betsy Rettig is a versatile cellist who enjoys performing many styles of music, from early music and classical works to contemporary compositions. Originally from Arizona, she is currently completing a Master’s degree in cello performance at CalArts.

Novum #5:

Around the Day in Eighty Worlds: Assembling/Disassembling Narratives

7pm Saturday 5/19/12
Avenue 50 Studio
131 N. Avenue 50
Highland Park, LA, CA

Featuring:
Felipe W.Martinez
David P. Earle
Kate Hoffman

FELIPE W.MARTINEZ studied Literature & Writing at UC San Diego. He is the creator of AMISSINGBOOK.COM, an online literary project that aims to investigate the absence of Brazilian author João Guimarães Rosa from English literary discourse. He lives in San Diego, California, where he works in public education.

Assembling: A Missing Book: An investigation into the disappearance of João Guimarães Rosa in America: Independent Scholarship in the 21st Century: Translation: Political/Cultural/Geographical/Linguistic Crossings: ∞

DAVID P. EARLE is a Los Angeles-based artist and writer. His work has been featured at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Telic Arts Exchange (Los Angeles), The Fellows of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles) and The IFC Center (New York). Recently he was the artist in residence at The Artist Studio in Pasadena. He is the editor and curator of “The Open Daybook,” a perpetual calendar featuring the work of 365 contemporary artists which was published in book form by Mark Batty Publisher (Random House) and exhibited at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions in January 2011. He is an adjunct faculty member in The School of Critical Studies at CalArts and a faculty member of The Armory Center for the Arts.

David P. Earle will invite the audience to participate in a puzzle building project as he simultaneously discusses the jigsaw puzzle as an object of art in perpetual motion.

KATE HOFFMAN is a Los Angeles-based artist. Hoffman received her BFA from Maryland College Institute of Art and her MFA from UC San Diego. She has exhibited her work throughout the United States as well as in Mexico and France, and she recently had a solo show at the Greenleaf Gallery at Whittier College. Additionally, Hoffman completed a residency at Centre Est-Nord-Est in Quebec and has done research in Budapest, Hungary and Berlin.

To be discussed at Novum is Hoffman’s recent work “Liquid Gold-Black Gold, the Golden Age of Whaling.” Reflected in the project “Liquid Gold-Black Gold” are the whale’s migration paths preceding the 1850′s, the whalers that pursued them, and the system of escape used by slaves now known as the Underground Railroad. These three systems of movement are at times asynchronous, and at other times they become entwined and directly engaged. Through the use of found imagery, documents from the abolitionist movement and narratives of escape from slavery, the various intersections are expressed in a series of paintings and sculpture.

REANIMATE

A Reading of 5

7PM Saturday, January 28th, 2012

Avenue 50 Studio
131 N. Avenue 50
Highland Park, LA, CA

Featuring:
SARA FINNERTY
SERGIO HERNANDEZ
JOE MILAZZO
DANIEL RUIZ
&
DANTE ZUÑIGA-WEST

***

SARA FINNERTY is a writer from Queens, living in Los Angeles. Her essays and fiction orbit the themes of adolescence, madness, food, addiction, family, storytelling, alternate realities and magic. Links to selected published work, readings, and an episode of a Mortified web series can be found at madwet.com. She is the co-curator of the Griffith Park Storytelling series, a teacher at various non-profits and afterschools around Los Angeles, and is at work on her second novel.

SERGIO HERNANDEZ is known as ShoneOne in 376 countries. He was born in a small paper boat in the middle of the Bleeding Black Sea. He almost died there, except he wrote his way out of it. ShoneOne is an artist, escape and otherwise. Los Angeles. 1981. Deus ex Machina.

JOE MILAZZO‘s writings may be read in the pages of Electronic Book Review, HTMLGiant, Antennae, Drunken Boat, Super Arrow, H_NGM_N, Everyday Genius, Black Clock, the anthologies Chronometry and Conversations At The Wartime Cafe and elsewhere. Joe lives and works in Dallas, TX, and his virtual location is http://www.slowstudies.net/jmilazzo/.

DANIEL JOSE RUIZ likes stories; it really isn’t more complicated than that. He writes stories about whatever comes to mind and in whatever way seems best at the moment. He writes about people, about what makes them, about what kills them, and about what saves them, if anything. He loves ugly truths and uglier lies.  Because he is an assistant professor at Los Angeles City College, he really only writes during winter and summer. He learned a lot about writing at CalArts, and he learned a lot about random things growing up all over the southwest, but he mostly likes staying in Los Angeles.

DANTE ZUÑIGA-WEST is a novelist, short story writer and journalist who grew up in Los Angeles and ran away to the Pacific Northwest. Known in remote parts of Oregon as the Backwoods Blaxican, his interests include bear hunting, bow-fishing, underground hip hop and surviving the end of the world. His work often touches on his experiences as a professional musician, bouncer, and muay thai kickboxing instructor.

He is the Music and Visual Arts Editor of Eugene Weekly alternative newspaper, and lead vocalist for the environmentalist hip hop group Resident Anti-Hero. His short stories have been published in Black Clock Literary Magazine, East of the Web, Dropout, Bang, and Out of Nothing.

He has recently completed an unpublished collection of stories entitled, Lovers & Fighters.

He does not believe in surrender.

With Angela Frocillo, Colin Dickey, Kate Durbin, Sara Finnerty, Daniel Corral & James Hager. Plus Jen Karmin & David Emanuel.

(Event Info)

Check out photos from the event here:

Check out our papers from the panel here: http://htmlgiant.com/craft-notes/now-tomorrowland-forever-the-mad-science-of-narrative/

Novum #4:

PHANTASMAGORIA

7pm Saturday 10/22/11
Avenue 50 Studio
131 N. Avenue 50
Highland Park, LA, CA

Gather around our bonfire, for an eerie evening of spectral divinations, gothic creations, bizarre sounds & fantastic talks. See apparitions, feel that chill in your bone, and sit around for ghostly stories, music, performances & talks.

Bring your own story, haunted object, or Halloween-themed snack to share.

Featuring:
Daniel Corral
Colin Dickey
Kate Durbin
James Hager
Sara Finnerty
Angela Frocillo

DANIEL CORRAL has composed for avant-garde puppetry, chamber ensembles, an orchestra riding a Ferris wheel, accordion orchestra, music boxes, player piano, film, dance, theater, and much more. He is also the primary composer/arranger for Timur & the Dime Museum. Daniel received his MFA from Calarts in 2007. For more info visit www.spinalfrog.com

Daniel will play some of his solo accordion pieces.

COLIN DICKEY is the author of Cranioklepty: Grave Robbing and the Search for Genius, and Afterlives of the Saints: Stories from the Ends of Faith (forthcoming). His work has appeared in Lapham’s Quarterly, Cabinet, and some other places.

Colin will read from his upcoming book, a gathering of separate (but woven) lyrical essays that move through Renaissance anatomy and the Sistine Chapel, Borges’ Library of Babel, the history of spontaneous human combustion, the dangers of masturbation, the pleasures of castration, and so forth.

KATE DURBIN is a Los Angeles-based writer and artist. Her books include The Ravenous Audience, The Fashion Issue, E! Entertainment, and ABRA (with Amaranth Borsuk). She is founding editor of the online journal Gaga Stigmata, which will be published as a book next year.

Kate will do a performance from the forthcoming Insert/Blanc Press release, a conceptual writing book called E! Entertainment. The performance will be called I Heart Reality TV.

SARA FINNERTY loves writing, rain, hiking in LA, walking in NYC, chopping vegetables, teaching, curly hair, big beds and every place she has ever been. She believes in magic.

Sara will be reading about and sharing ephemera from her grandmother’s house, which is haunted by ghosts recent and the past.

ANGELA FROCILLO graduated from the California Institute of the Arts in 2007 with an MFA in Critical Studies. She currently lives in Silverlake and spends her days practicing yoga, painting with beeswax and studying philosophy.

Angela will be reading a piece about the legend of the wendigo.

JAMES HAGER charts the effects of pain on the human spirit, chases the ghosts of Houdini and other restless souls, and prepares for the zombie apocalypse.

Come see him fresh back from a remote desert location where he learns to master the element of fire and other aboriginal survival skills.

Bring your own story or haunted object to share around the bonfire, featuring special guest JEN KARMIN with collaborator DAVID EMANUEL.

AFTER THE EVENT: SEE PHOTOS FROM THE EVENT HERE!!!

OCT. 13 – 15, 2011 @ UCSD (La Jolla, CA)

&NOW is a festival of fiction, poetry, and staged play readings; literary rituals, performance pieces (digital, sound, and otherwise), electronic and multimedia projects; and intergenre literary work of all kinds, including criti-fictional presentations and creatively critical papers.

Strophe will be presenting this year at &NOW:

FRI 11:30-12:45 PM

The Mad Science of Narrative: Temporal Horizons and Neurological Transcendence

Panelists: Janice Lee / Joseph Milazzo / Laura Vena / Jon Wagner

An exploration of the field of “experimental” narrative via considerations of the nouveau roman, science fiction and the paranormal, translation, cinematic time, and the paradoxes of transcendence as encountered in narrative terms.

…

Abstract:

Should we expect experimental aesthetics to usher in some future? What if tomorrow resembles, in every exactitude, today? Is narrative itself always an attempt to wrench the future into the present? Is experimental narrative itself ultimately a mode of hope?

Through the lens of the Novum, which Ernest Bloch defines as “the unexpectedly new, which pushes humanity out of its present toward the not yet realized…a blankness of horizon of consciousness,” narratives can seek a reconfiguration of the present via investing the instant of reading with a sense of eventfulness. If reading is indeed a series of events, and the mind that serves as both medium and ground for these encounters is a “third” or hybrid mind, then the temporal scope of reading is simultaneously eternal, ephemeral, expansive and yet precisely measured, and each individual literary work creates its own reckoning. Narratives may, in effect, become myths marking not the limits of some forgotten but necessary (and useful) past, but of a precluded or strictly impossible future.

This panel will thus explore: the various guises time may assume in the field of a truly “experimental”narrative, drawing from examples provided by the nouveau roman of Sarraute, Butor and Simon; the transformative effects of reimagined history in works of science fiction and the paranormal; acts of translation considered in the context of both projection and symbiosis; considerations of the nature of cinematic time with reference to Deleuze’s “time image,” and, overall, the paradoxes of transcendence as it is encountered in narrative terms.

***

See our papers from the conference here: http://htmlgiant.com/craft-notes/now-tomorrowland-forever-the-mad-science-of-narrative/

Check out these slightly creepy but also supremely fascinating photos of Vaudeville Ventriloquist Dummies.

Full post here.

With Evelyn Serrano / Elizabeth Chin / Alex and A’misa Chiu

(Event Info)

What an incredible and truly inspiring event. Thanks so much to all our presenters and to all those who came and helped make this one of our best events yet. It was clear how inspired we all left by the presenters and their involvement in making and spreading art and culture to the areas in our communities that thirst  for it the most. The presenters, and our audience, certainly embodied the best of what we have hoped to accomplish with the Novum series: creating community through art and collaboration, risk taking, and a submerging engagement with the new and unknown.

What you missed: the collaborative doodle-board, a talk on zine culture and diy grad school, dancing via the Dunham technique and live demonstration, connections between Dunham’s dance technique/Haitian voodoo/political activism, community-building games, a talk on NOMAD LAB and great initiatives such as a nomad garden on wheels, great conversation, and great company!

Check out photos from the event here:

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Videos:

Elizabeth Chin demonstrates Dunham technique

Evelyn Serrano leads a game

Elizabeth Chin teaches the Dunham technique – Pt 1

Elizabeth Chin teaches the Dunham technique – Pt 2

Elizabeth Chin Final Performance – Pt 1

Elizabeth Chin Final Performance – Pt 2

Elizabeth Chin Final Performance – Pt 3

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Collaborative Doodle Board:

Facilitated by Alex & A’misa Chiu of Eyeball Burp; Alex & Amisa started a doodle board and passed it around for the entire audience to add their own doodles to the collaborative drawing.

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More: Elizabeth Chin will be joining colleague Anindo Marshall on Saturday 6/25 to teach a Dunham class at Agape in Culver city~  12-1:30pm.  The cost is a “love donation,” whatever you can afford.

(Talk on TED website)