Doors at 7, music starts at 7:30 sharp
Admission $15
February 23, 2023, 7pm
Join us at e-flux on Thursday, February 23 at 7pm for the launch of Dorit Chrysler’s new album Calder Plays Theremin (Fridman Gallery and NY Theremin Society, 2023), with a live performance by Chrysler, visuals by the collective Optipus, and a Q&A with Chrysler moderated by Cara Manes.
Featuring a multi-movement orchestra for the theremin composed by Dorit Chrysler, Calder Plays Theremin originated from a sound piece commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in conjunction with the exhibition Alexander Calder: Modern from the Start.
“The theoretical synergy between Alexander Calder’s ever-changing mobiles, turning and shifting endlessly through the air, and the theremin’s antennas, ready to receive and translate into music the stimulus of any nearby moving object in the air, was irresistible. As part of my MoMA sound commission, I recorded the interplay of sculpture and antennas onsite at the MoMA, then returned to the studio to sort and manipulate the sounds, mixing them into finished compositions in the best tradition of musique concrète.”—Dorit Chrysler
Dorit Chrysler is a Berlin-based composer and sound artist, and co-founder of the NY Theremin Society. Her work explores new applications of the theremin instrument in various mediums. She has been awarded the Austrian State Stipend in Composition 2023 and earned her Master’s Degree of Musicology in Vienna. Chrysler has performed worldwide (e.g. Coachella, Roskilde, Lincoln Center) and has written for film and the theater. Her compositions have been collected by the Guggenheim and Moderna Museet, andhas presented work at MoMA, Venice Biennale, and Klang Fest. Chrysler has collaborated with the San Francisco Symphony, CERN, Laurie Spiegel, Herb Deutsch, Elliot Sharp, Trentemøller, Alva Noto, and Gaite Lyrique. She has produced a ten-piece orchestra performance for the LA Disney Hall, and is the founder of Dame Electric, a festival featuring female pioneers of electronic music. Her recordings appear on over twenty releases by labels such as InMyRoomRecords (DE), The Prurience Factory (US), Monika Enterprise (DE), PlagDichNicht (AU), PlasticTray Records (US), and Mute.
Optipus (Bradley Eros, Lary 7, Rachael Guma, and Richard Sylvarnes) is a nomadic group of chameleon artists/ cine-scientists in search of a laboratory, shape-shifting according to site-specific requirements. The group embraces the ephemeral cinema of unfixed forms and open composition. It is a magnetic field, derived from the psychic urge to build through collective energy and desire, that also contains its opposite, the destructive impulse, seen in its wild sway towards the dangers of pure experimentation, obsolete media, and an attraction to aesthetic decay, technological destruction, and failure. Optipus’s members emerge in myriad collaborations, producing works and events, soundtracks and invented instruments, video edits and film loops, and expanded cinema and immersive installations. Optipus has been seen at various venues including The Kitchen, Anthology Film Archives, The KnockDownCenter, The Parrish Museum, Participant Inc., New York University, MANA Contemporary, Light Industry, Millennium Film Workshop.
Cara Manes is Associate Curator in the Department of Painting and Sculpture at The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
e-flux Music is curated by Sanna Almajedi.
For more information, please contact program@e-flux.com.
Accessibility
–Two flights of stairs lead up to the building’s front entrance at 172 Classon Avenue.
–For elevator access, please RSVP to program@e-flux.com. The building has a freight elevator which leads into the e-flux office space. Entrance to the elevator is nearest to 180 Classon Ave (a garage door). We have a ramp for the steps within the space.
–e-flux has an ADA-compliant bathroom. There are no steps between the event space and this bathroom.