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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. 23five will be presenting sound works in San Francisco over several weekends in April of 2012 at The Lab and The San Francisco Art Institute, with ancillary lectures and two soundwalks around Lake Merritt in Oakland. Lake Merritt is 140 acres of tidal lagoon–not a lake actually, and it is the nation's oldest wildlife refuge. It is home to thousands of creatures including shrimps, fish, clams, sponges, geese, ducks, raptors, an occasional deer, a few turkey, and people. Once fulfilling a need for hunting and gathering, it now serves society's greater need as respite from itself. However, during heavy rains the storm drains bring runoff and trash from sidewalks and people's lawns into the large body of water. We will explore primarily with our ears the Lake Merritt area that has been extensively modified by people over the last 150 years with the intent to provide city dwellers with a harmonious balance between the wild and the cultivated, the natural and the industrial. The soundwalks will happen rain or shine–please dress appropriately. Please choose either Andrea Williams or Andrea Polli as your guide. Both walks will last a little over an hour. Afterwards, the two soundwalk groups will converge at 4:30pm for food and drinks at Los Cantaros for those who would like to linger for discussion. 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. The Artists Jen Boyd Maile Colbert Holly Herndon Marielle V. Jakobsons Bevin Kelley / Blevin Blectum Pod Blotz Andrea Polli Relay For Death Danishta Rivero Andrea Williams 23five Incorporated is a nonprofit organization based in the San Francisco Bay Area, dedicated to the development and increased awareness of sound works in the public arena, and to the support and education of artists working with and discussing the medium of sound. We occasionally send out email announcements of forthcoming events and publications. If you would like to be included on this list, please fill out the forms below. We will not share this information with any other organizations. Name:    Email:

Two new 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 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.