San Francisco's blasthaus is pleased to announce a sonic art experience: PREMEDITATED BREAKDOWN, on Thursday April 11, 1996 at the Trocadero Transfer, 520 4th Street at Bryant in San Francisco. Doors open at 8pm. Music starts at 9pm. Tickets are $11 and available at all BASS outlets in addition to Reckless Records, Rough Trade and Record Finder in San Francisco. All ages welcome.
PREMEDITATED BREAKDOWN features a live performance by NEGATIVLAND in collaboration with beats and grooves provided by Scott & Gavin HARDKISS and Jonah Sharp. The extravaganza also features live visual jamming on multiple screens by filmmaker Craig Baldwin, director and producer of Sonic Outlaws, along with Reed Bamels from Look See Visuals. This premiere event is being presented in conjunction with SoundCulture 96 and is brought to you by blasthaus as part of the gallery's one year anniversary festivities. This event marks the first live appearance by Negativland in over 3 years. The band will be improvising live with their notorious style as evidenced by several dozen record releases dating back to 1981 and their monthly radio show "Over the Edge" broadcast on KPFA-FM in Berkeley in which in-coming phone lines invite callers to participate in creating a bizarre, witty and often mysterious sonic landscape.
PREMEDITATED BREAKDOWN is their first-ever collaboration with the rhythms of several renowned disc jockeys. Along side band members Mark Hosler, Don Joyce, Chris Grigg, David Wills (a.k.a. "the Weatherman") will be the innovative HARDKISS DJ's and Space Time Continuum's Jonah Sharp mixing the rhythmic environments and noise beds to provide a percussive component to the event. Among the most innovative free-form DJ's in the world, these names bring with them the key elements of the underground rave scene to create an experience reaching from experimental ambient soundscapes to frenetic dance energy.
The sonic artists of PREMEDITATED BREAKDOWN arise out of a media-savvy subculture which borrows from existing sound production -- a process often referred to as "sampling" or "found sounds." The context of PREMEDITATED BREAKDOWN centers around the technical aspects of sound --it's properties and how sounds occur -- along with the technical difficulties relating to sound such as out-takes, mistakes and jamming. In this context it becomes unclear what is "original" anymore and what is repurposed or "appropriated". In a world with such aggressive media bombardment at every front, the increasing speed at which we are forced to process sonic information alters not only what we hear but how we hear it. Negativland has developed a truly original way of creating and composing sound with astounding technical finesse using existing sound bytes, noise, live sound, sonic manipulation, interrupted signals and jamming. Don't miss this rare opportunity to partake in an unforgettable sonic art experience.
blasthaus is a gallery devoted to the convergence of art and technology, including video, interactive sculpture, sound installations, multimedia, and robotics. For SoundCulture 96 the gallery will feature sonic artworks by Bureau of Inverse Technology (BIT), Jim Cambell, Wang Po Shu, Kenneth Rinaldo and Amy Youngs. The gallery is located at 217 Second Street in San Francisco. Hours: Tue-Fri 11-6pm and Sat noon-5pm. Admission is free. For more info call (415) 789-8044.
SoundCulture 96 is the third transpacific festival of contemporary sound practices. It follows two highly successful SoundCulture festivals presented in Sydney in 1991 and Tokyo in 1993. SoundCulture 96 brings together artists, researchers and cultural theorists in performances, exhibitions, symposia, radio transmissions, experimental, indigenous music and new media forms. For more info call (510) 848-0124 ext. 623