Joe Minadeo (Bellows), Pat McNulty (No, Don't), and Corey Farrow (Pharaohs) use a range of sound sources—from complex digital synths, drum machines, and samplers to vintage analog, modified children's toys, and whatever acoustic and electric instruments they can find—to create dense, varied instrumental music. Examining the meeting places of electronic and acoustic, found and established, and consonance and dissonance, Low in the Sky craft accessible and eclectic takes on diverse genres of music. Since 2005, they have been one of Akron's most acclaimed bands releasing three albums, scores of remixes, and been featured in several videos. Their latest album, A Shared Rainbow, was released on Patternbased/Abandon Building earlier this year.
This compilation of film and video presents the best of the best ground-based Shuttle motion imagery from STS-114, STS-117, and STS-124 missions. Rendered in the highest definition possible, this production is a tribute to the dozens of men and women of the Shuttle imaging team and the 30yrs of achievement of the Space Shuttle Program.
Duo Approximate performs a live musical accompaniment to the piece using traditional and electronic instruments. Producer Matt Melis of the NASA Glen Research Center will also be on hand to narrate a screening of the film as well giving Ingenuity audiences a chance to enjoy the ambient beauty of a shuttle launch as well as learn about this engineering marvel that has just retired from service.
Cats On Holiday is a hard rockin', swamp poppin' outfit serving up a healthy dose of American influenced roots, country, cajun and blues. Reigning from the Cuyahoga River Valley on the shores of the great Lake Erie, this band has been pleasing crowds from bar rooms to outdoor festivals and concerts over the last 6 years. Armed with an arsenal of well-crafted original tunes and an eclectic blend of party songs, it's hard for most listeners not to swing and sway. With a constantly full itinerary, it's easy to catch these guys tearing up some bandstand around town.
Last year's VEX Cleveland Regional Robotics Competition championship team, from the Youth Technology Academy of Tri-C shows off their winning robots, and makes them available for the general public to drive and maneuver through obstacle courses. Also in attendance is their life size FIRST robot (5', 120 lbs) which performs tasks that visitors can control as well!
In keeping with the Festivals theme Currents, the workshop turns recycled plastic bottles into wind socks. In relation to art therapy this is considered an "Art as Therapy" task, to encourage creative thinking, problem solving and relaxation/stress management.
The Fab Lab program is part of the MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms (CBA) which broadly explores how the content of information relates to its physical representation.
The Fab Lab program has strong connections with the technical outreach activities of a number of partner organizations, around the emerging possibility for ordinary people to not just learn about science and engineering but actually design machines and make measurements that are relevant to improving the quality of their lives.
This project brings together classroom talent and creativity with high tech fabrication. Student’s from the CMSD ECM2 STEM School will work on kinetic sculptures powered by green energy. They will utilize the Mobile Fab Lab (on sight at Ingenuity) to help visitors create sculptures as well. These sculptures will be featured at the Festival, operating on green energy throughout the weekend.
This interactive performance in the bridge will explore concepts of flow and currents using dancers fluidly moving, triggering sound, and interacting with the audience. The musician will explore the acoustical space of the bridge by projecting and reflecting sound onto the surfaces of the performance space, and will perform on saxophone, routed through an original Max/MSP, diffusion patch. So, acoustic and electronic sounds interact, as will live and algorithmic processes - current technology interacting with human flow.
The Kasumi Cafe creates an environment of her classic and erie film style. Watch the loosely narrative film, personified by vintage film cutouts, psychadelic colors and rhythmic, percussive imagery moving across the screen.
Inspired by the theme of Ingenuity Fest 2011, Currents seeks to amplify the 3 layers of currents that give the Detroit Superior Bridge it's life during the festival: the bridge, the people and the river. One is able to hear the sounds of the different strata on the bridge with a bone conduction headsets that allows for the physical mixing of the ambient sounds with those of the installation. The sounds are also generatively visualized in real-time via a projected installation.
Kuester installation piece White Noise is built specifically for the Detroit-Superior bridge. Look up to the structural design of the bridge and notice the response, innovative work. Using microphone detectors, cathode fluorescent lights translate the noise and vibration from the traffic on top of the bridge into lights on the ceiling of the festival. The lights reinterpret the current of human flow above in the forms of murmurs and flashes.
Steve Lambert's "Capitalism Works for Me" is a 20-foot long lighted sign that allows viewers to vote "true" or "false' through a kiosk and accompanying LED scoreboard. The sign will first be shown at SPACES Gallery and travel around Cleveland before touring to Boston, Santa Fe, Los Angeles and other cities in the U.S. Start a discussion, with help from the flashy sign which turns the taboo subject to a game.
The digital Mandalas return to Ingenuity! Make your own perfectly semetrical mandala using the iPad app Kaleidescopic Mandals, and see your art made part of a larger community work of art called the Digital Kaleidescopic Mandala Project, displayed on site and online.
I<3 is an interactive installation that works on how many twitter hashtags have been published. For this installation it is counting the number of IngenuityFest tweets based on the hashtag #ingenuityfest.
5 hearts symbolically representing the "life" heart's in video games (such as Zelda) illuminate half or fully based on the number of hashtag tweets of #ingenuityfest. The hearts light up reflecting the amount of the current and flow of life on the bridge. Each 1/2 of a heart lights up once a certain number of tweets has been reached.
Last year, Chris Yanc, thrilled Ingenuity visitors with is Virtual Graffiti Wall. This year, Yanc returns with a full interactive hallway. Visitors move through the space at first unaware they are impacting the flow of objects on a large projection screen. As interaction with the screen becomes more obvious, crowds can freely create their own large scale artwork at Ingenuity.
Walk, shake and gesture in front of the Spyrobeam, which picks up bodily movement and converts it to a meshlike form on screen.
Experience a semi-real simulation game as the life of a fish in our own Lake Erie. The project was inspired by the video game “Spore” and a virtual fish exhibit at the Boston Science Center where visitors create fish for a virtual fish tank inspired this game. In this game, the audience will also be able to create a fish and observe it in a fish tank, with the fish’s goal being to survive. See the impact of weather, disasters and food demand as your fish swims its way through life.
The zyPRINT media cart can demystify the screen printing process from the snap of a digital picture to computer, to printer, and on to screen exposure. Experience the excitement of seeing the process unwind and then to take home a printed piece of ephemera.
The Print Pony Gallop is an old playground rocking horse apparatus that has been mounted to a rocking base where people can come and select a relief plate, ink it up, place it underneath the Print Pony with a clean sheet of paper and start rocking. This is one of the oldest traditions of relief printing with a twist. Zygote would require electricity and tables and chairs.
Taking a cue from Cornelius Cardew’s Scratch Orchestra, which encouraged the idea that people who are untrained in music can be consummate performers, this table-top modular synthesizer looks to place the creation of music into the hands of the festival goer.
At its heart, this synthesizer uses eight modified hand-held radios as a sound source. Each radio has multiple places for the performer/audience member to connect and disconnect cables, allowing for each radio to influence both its own circuitry and that of its neighbor. The performer can freely connect any of the sixty-four points found in the radio stage to one of four rhythm making circuits.
Sound artist Maurice Rickard creates a sonic map consisting of sine wave tones in mathematical relation to each other. Visitors will enter an environment filling with vibrating frequencies reflecting off walls and ceilings and changing with with movement about the room.
The Doodle Bar is exactly what it sounds like: come have a drink and feel free to doodle on just about everything in the vicinity: walls, floors, even couches and pillars. Be inspired by Djs, local artists showing their skills, and posing models in outlandish costumes, and on Saturday night the bar will go psychedelic with black lights and neon markers. This evolution of last year’s Doodle bar will feature interactive technologies that spark the imagination and bring out the secret doodler in us all.
From smart phones to the Internet, so much of today’s society focuses on the visual and our response to it. While advances in audio technology have made surround sound ubiquitous in TV, movies, and video games it is relegated to a supporting role - creating a texture and context but always taking a second seat to the visuals. The Treasure of the Wumpus is a game without visuals. Players are placed in a light proof enclosed pod, given a navigational controller, and are asked to navigate the land of infinite darkness to collect treasure and avoid traps simply by using the surround sound aural cues. Trapped in a maze without walls, players must move slowly, and listen carefully as our aural memory is not as sharp as our visual.
For the audience watching from outside there are two monitors. One displays the map and the players active location, while on the other is an infrared view of the player’s face from inside the pod affording the audience a peak at their reactions.
In "Walking Meditation" as the visitor walks past the camera his/her body is 'scanned' resulting in an image showing the pieces of the body as they were when passing in front of the camera. The longer a body part stays in front of the camera, the more it is stretched horizontally. The horizontal spacial axis is now the time axis. You are seeing how a thin sliver of pixels/space changed over time. The quicker the body part passes in front of the camera, the more it is compressed.
Group A poses as young business professionals and obtains hundreds of phone numbers from Festival goers, and texts movement instructions to the participants to create a moving, living work of art on the bridge.
At IngenuityFest 2011 artist Adam Pate draws his classic speed-caricatures, but also breaks away from traditional caricature artist methods. Pate uses the computer program Illustrator to create digital caricatures in just 8-10 minutes. Playing a game of “digital Mr. Potato Head”, he creates uncanny likenesses, recognizing facial features and unique quirks on every model.
Pate is drawing at Ingenuity throughout the weekend. Come see portraits being created in live-action on a large screen scale, and be one of the hundreds to model for the fast paced, innovative artist.
The Kinetic Light Drum project is a realization of the power of spontaneous performance. It is a visual, social and scientific exploration of alternative power generation and personal expression. The drums are user powered instruments that convert sound vibrations to light using sensitive speakers and ultra bright LEDs. As the drums are played, an electric current creates a flash of light allowing spontaneous communication and expression through sound as well as sight, being visible from over a mile away. Come watch the synchronized sounds and sights, and have a go, yourself, banging at the multimedia instruments.
Our headquarters at Ingenuity hosts a constant audio and visual engagement—a variety of experimental, improvisational, and electronic musicians coupled with a core of visual and video artists and an array of amplification devices, projectors, and instruments. Each afternoon, the Wandering Cave hosts an extended improv at HQ, while our electro-acoustic buskers wander the bridge. Evenings find bands playing at our unique multi-projector stage system. Throughout the weekend, DJ sets and generative music along with art and video installations and multimedia merchandise fill the spaces between. Be sure to check the schedule for info on specific bands and artists.
One part sculptural piece, one part performance art, Lynda Abraham's work of art explores electrical indulgence and it's effect on the consumer. In this piece, Abraham comments on the mechanics of an inflated ego supplied by an electrical outlet that is its own undoing. Watch as the performer literally inflates as they devour electricity, and deflate when they are deprived. Abraham activates another side of Ingenuity's theme of Cur(re)nts, highlighting the dark side of our reliance on electricity, commenting on an excessive use of ‘current’ and the consequences of it suddenly being gone.
These site-specific performances examining the use of the female body to portray victory through various historical eras. Mott manipulates a series of discarded objects repurposed into new sonic contraptions; objects such as a leg built from discarded cardboard and plastic attached to the body creating sonic vibration when moved, a kitchen table reconstructed from a CEO's desk that, when struck, releases 1950's atomic bomb newsreels, and a set of wings built from discarded crutches which recreate the sounds of first flight attempts and air battles.
This theatrical adaptation combines graphic novel projections with live actors. It’s the 22nd Century: money is obsolete, energy is plentiful, and everyone lives forever. So why is attraction designer, Julius having such a bad day? For starters he’s solving his own murder and a rival design group is hell bent on turning everything in The Magic Kingdom virtual.
Anthony Jimenez (pronounced hee-MEH-nes) may be a relative newcomer to the DJ circuit, but he never fails to leave his impression on the dance floor. Since 2003 Anthony has experimented with many different genres of electronic music in his DJ sets to shape his sound into what it is today. Dark, driving, moody techno, mixed with the occasional track to let you come up for air. He’ll be spinning a smooth tech house set for Ingenuity 2011.
Turning in the traditional tools of a DJ, the two turntables and mixer, Anthony chose to adopt an all-digital platform from which to work. This has allowed him to layer, mix and create a truly unique experience every time he performs. More than just a DJ, Anthony is also a respected producer. With his new label “Khombat” launching soon, he is ready to begin releasing his music to the world.
The dance duet Life Currents explores the currents that exist within and around the human body: breath, blood and air. See through the twisting and contorting dance how the elements that flow around us come together to give us life.
These site-specific performances examining the use of the female body to portray victory through various historical eras. Mott manipulates a series of discarded objects repurposed into new sonic contraptions; objects such as a leg built from discarded cardboard and plastic attached to the body creating sonic vibration when moved, a kitchen table reconstructed from a CEO's desk that, when struck, releases 1950's atomic bomb newsreels, and a set of wings built from discarded crutches which recreate the sounds of first flight attempts and air battles.
Imagine conducting an orchestra, as interpreted by a flame-throwing fire machine. Participants are invited to become the conductor of the Pyropodium, to step onto the podium and discover the responsiveness of the artwork to their own movement. Computer optics read bodily movement and interpret gestures into flames and jet streams of rhythmic visual percussion.
The PyroPodium is a non-descript raised platform. Set 20 feet in front of the platform is an extensive array of vertical pipes of various dimensions (15-20). Each pipe is electronically valved, and fed from a common reservoir of propane vapor. When activated, the valves open to release pressurized vapor that ignites from small pilot flames above each exhaust pipe. Flame effects will range from large prolonged bursts to small staccato jets of varying size, and also provide a rhythmic concussion from the detonation.
Recording the conductor on the platform, computer optics interpret their actions and signal the valves to open in various configurations depending on the movements of the arms, legs and body. With no buttons to press or baton to hold, the line between conducting the fire and embodying it becomes blurred.
Borne Away on a Crooked River, 2007, is a tribute to Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River and the bodies of water that support us. The piece is about the tenuous relationship humanity has with bodies of water; we need them to survive, yet sometimes we cannot survive them. The piece was inspired by Cleveland’s own Cuyahoga River and the author Flannery O’Connor’s writings: The Violent Bear it Away, The River and The Wide Net. During the 20 minute quintet, the dancers use water‐filled steel tubs and buckets. In part of the piece, dancers link to form a net in the river. They work together energetically, but paradoxically drag and throw each other at times leaving each other to the mercy of the river. There are moments when they are swirling effortlessly only to drop down into the mud where they must be pulled free by others. This piece is performed to an original music composition by local Old‐Time musician Ron Andrico.
Uzizi is a 5-piece alternative world beat rock band with a 12-member choir. Directed by Craig Matis, the current crop of compositions is strongly influenced by the melodies and harmonies of mid-18th century Sacred Harp music, also known as "shape-note music". Matis' affection for this unique musical style allows him to bend the pioneer religious aesthetic to his own purposes. At times, religious, anti-religious, and nonreligious, the threads of continuity are the joy of singing and the power of primitive harmonic forces.
Nicky English is the nom de plume of singer-songwriter Nikita Hasis, who arrived at the anglophilic sobriquet after watching Brit film director Guy Ritchie's Snatch. His favorite groups include a roster of UK groups, including the Stone Roses, Oasis and Primal Scream. "I also listen to quite a bit of gypsy jazz – Django Reinhardt, The Rosenberg Trio, Moreno… and French stuff, like Francis Cabrel, Joe Dassin..." His records are rife with synth-derived orchestration layered on dozens of individual tracks, all the brainchild of English, the sole – and prolific – songwriter. -- Ohioauthority.com
Heart’s Terrain is a solo performed by Cleveland dancer Sherri Mills that joins internal and external landscapes.The choreography is based on improvisations in nature.The piece is a personal statement of connection with oneself and the larger environment. Performed with a set of dramatic, red hanging fabric, the performer interacts with the ever‐changing terrain on the set and inside of her. The textures of sand, leaves, wood and water are palpable as thedancer moves through a piece that is ascetic, very human and visually stunning. The music is an original composition by local avant‐garde group, Easy Worship Operator.
Back in the late summer of 1990, Damien Perry, Brian Skinner, Chris Gorman, and Alex Perekrest formed a rock band and named it Red Giant. They shared a connection through a love of classic punk, rock, and metal bands- like AC/DC, Motorhead, The MC5, Black Sabbath, and The Stooges.
Red Giant released Psychoblaster and the Misuse of Power, cementing their footprint on the emerging rock scene. As years unfolded, Red Giant shared stages with many of their favorite bands -- Mule, Voivod, Hawkwind, Queens of the Stone Age, Fu Manchu, Nebula, and Hermano to name just a handful.
With the addition of drummer Eric Matthews (ex- Propain, Spudmonsters) to the line up, Red Giant has recently released their latest album for Small Stone.
The Squonk Astro-ramanauts believe that the recent UFO crashes in the region have been a plea for first contact. They also believe that many of our greatest inventions, like the pyramids, zippers and TV remote controls, were the gifts of our extra-terrestrial friends.
To help them send their message to the cosmos, the Squonkers will build a 40′ radio telescope dish mounted to scaffold towers, tuned to the galactic frequency of B-flat. Rising in scissor lift platforms and cherry pickers, they will compose a proud message from our species, power up and transmit.
Squonk Opera is a group of interdisciplinary performing artists formed in 1992. The group has performed in over 250 venues around the world including a run of Bigsmörgåsbørdwünderwerk on Broadway and as a contestant on America’s Got Talent.
These site-specific performances examining the use of the female body to portray victory through various historical eras. Mott manipulates a series of discarded objects repurposed into new sonic contraptions; objects such as a leg built from discarded cardboard and plastic attached to the body creating sonic vibration when moved, a kitchen table reconstructed from a CEO's desk that, when struck, releases 1950's atomic bomb newsreels, and a set of wings built from discarded crutches which recreate the sounds of first flight attempts and air battles.
The dance duet Life Currents explores the currents that exist within and around the human body: breath, blood and air. See through the twisting and contorting dance how the elements that flow around us come together to give us life.
“…Peachcake are going to take over the world.” – The Jersey Beat
Peachcake is designed to make you think. Over the years, some people have taken it in different stride. As gimmick, in seriousness, but most likely just in lively, good ‘ol fashion fun-provocation. Whatever the catalyst for the intrigue, liking, or conversely, any dislike, it’s an ever-evolving force of exuberance and uplifted aspiration, culminating to spread a message of Positivity, spearheaded by Stefan Pruett and his band of mayhem-inducing weirdos that don’t stray from frolicking in wonderment and wackiness.
Evolution is prime. It’s necessary and imperative to the creative motif, interest, and motivation of Peachcake. Having been in existence now for over 6 years, but only a year and a half in its current incarnation, Peachcake sees movement as the focal point of what enables them to do what they do creatively in music, performance and our overall impact. It’s essentially a sort of lifeline, and without it, they’d probably have to surrender to a stagnancy in their musical material as well as the live forum for which they’ve accomplished so much in audience enthusiasm, influence, and interaction.
What’s truly elemental is the movement of thought, and that is an ethic that is very important to Peachcake. So whatever the case for your enjoyment, Peachcake is here to not just shed light on this mantra and vehicle of thought-provoking motivation, but to move that forward to new heights and boundaries as they continue forth. Your life is the cause, and they want you to live it.
In 2011, Peachcake released their second full-length album which they enlisted a grand cast of characters to help realize including mixing engineer Alex Aldi (Passion Pit, The Walkmen, Les Savy Fav, Holy Ghost!) to producer and long-time friend, Jalipaz of Audioconfusion. Written and produced by frontman, Stefan Pruett and his partners Mike McHale and Dave Jackman, the album elaborates on the creativity that has typically permeated Peachcake’s music and essence, however it takes their eclecticism and love for a varied outlook on music stylings to new heights and levels only explored in this incarnation. We can’t wait for the world to hear our Unbelievable Souls!
Within and Without is the debut album by 28 year-old Atlanta-based songwriter and producer Ernest Greene, AKA Washed Out. Long adored and critically lauded in the blog world, Greene first came to prominence in the summer of 2009 after unassumingly posting a handful of bedroom-recorded tracks to his Myspace page from his family home in the seclusion of the tiny rural city of Perry, Georgia. “I’d been writing music on my own for three or four years previous to that,” Greene explains, “mostly as a way to experiment with songwriting processes. Those were just the first I ever shared.”
Despite such modest intentions however, those first songs (many of which would appear on the acclaimed Life of Leisure EP of later that year) were about as complete an opening statement from an artist as imaginable. A heady, psychedelic concoction of what Pitchfork’s Mark Hogan termed “romantic nostalgia and homespun textures,” songs such as “Belong” and “Feel It All Around”—Greene’s biggest hit to date—artfully match the glossy melody of ’80s synth pop, the widescreen scope of early ’90s Balearic dance music and the slowed, heavy bounce of southern Hip Hop production to gorgeously wistful vocals with results as undeniably idiosyncratic and original as they are deeply accessible.
A remarkably impressive feat of songwriting and production given Greene’s means at the time (essentially little more than a laptop, sample bank and microphone), the songs of Life of Leisure saw him, alongside friend Chaz Bundick, AKA Toro y Moi, and the more established likes of Ariel Pink and Panda Bear, designated leader of a newly emerging DIY movement identified by David Keenan of The Wire magazine as “hypnagogic pop” for its romantic, retro-futurist re-imagining of pop music past.
“Hypnagogic pop is music that reaches beyond its performers’ abilities. It refashions ’80s chart pop-rock into hazy, psychedelic drone,” wrote Keenan at the time. Although, as Within and Without proves, it was merely Greene’s simplistic working processes and not any lack of ability that lent Life of Leisure its slightly lo-fi tone. And while all the dubious new genre tags attached to Greene (“hypnagogic pop,” “glo-fi,” “chillwave,” etc.) serve to illustrate his importance as a genuine leader they should not be allowed to distract from his primary talent as a great pop songwriter in the purest sense.
The rest of 2009 and early 2010 saw Greene taking Life of Leisure on tour in North America and Europe; working through various incarnations (initially solo with laptop and then joined by contemporaries Small Black as backing band) with increasing success. Along the way Washed Out inspired a legion of devoted supporters, followers and imitators before seemingly wilfully slipping back into obscurity again-just as the project was beginning to leave the internet ghetto behind in favor of bonafide real world success.
It’s fair to say, then, that Within and Without arrives with a great deal of expectation in tow. Rather than capitalize on the momentum of Life of Leisure immediately by rushing another record out, Greene consciously took a step back from the label scrum surrounding him and considered how best to move the project on. “The sound of those early songs was an aesthetic choice, but also a practical one,” as Greene puts it, “it allowed me to merge and blend a variety of samples and sourced work I was incorporating into my songs at the time. With Within and Without, however, I wanted the songs to develop from a more live, organic place and so some things necessarily changed.”
These changes, however, were not simply the results of a bolstered budget and heaps of studio polish—Greene self-funded the record and actually returned to the perfect isolation of the idyllic lakeside Georgian settings where the Washed Out project began in order to get to work. Instead, he set about adjusting his working methods, “re-learning traditional ways of writing,” as he puts it.
Whereas before Greene pieced his gauzy, looping pop songs from obscure samples and segments of re-constructed found-sound plucked from an intimidatingly vast record collection, the widescreen, ecstatic melodies of Within and Without are all of his own composition and Washed Out no longer just a bedroom production project but a real band (now playing live as a five-piece that includes Greene’s wife Blair). “A lot of the focus while writing the new songs was on how they’d sound live,” says Greene, “that’s something that never quite translated how I wanted with the earlier stuff.” Not quite flying entirely solo, however, the services of esteemed producer and fellow Georgian Ben Allen were enlisted for co-production duties-Allen added a certain poise and conciseness to proceedings in much the same way he harnessed Animal Collective’s psychedelic sprawl into pop gold without sacrificing any of their inventiveness on the group’s breakthrough LP Merriweather Post Pavilion.
The result of this more considered approach to composition and enhanced production is a record that retains the jubilant, sun-kissed energy that lit up the imaginations of so many the first time around but also refines it-conjuring a far more nuanced and balanced sense of emotion from a more organic pallet of sounds and textures. At times Within and Without is almost orchestral in its arrangements and it is consistently, achingly beautiful in its effortless, longing melody. Whereas much of the talk around Life of Leisure was focused on its lingering sense of nostalgia, of halcyon summers spent loafing in the sun, Within And Without exists very much in the present, encompassing all the excitement and turmoil which that entails; for all its romance there is a deep yearning. Across its nine songs it feels equally sad and triumphant, anxious and blissed-out, often all at once.
Released on July 11th/12th (through Weird World in the UK/EU and Sub Pop in North America, respectively), Within and Without is a summer record to span the seasons; a collection of songs as comfortable sound-tracking moments of peaceful relaxation as they are lighting up a party, and a strikingly mature next step from a uniquely focused, sincere artist.
The Revolution Brass Band is an explosive 8 piece brass band founded in 2008 in the pubs of Cleveland, OH. The band is very experienced and versatile, and continues to wow crowds all over the Ohio and Pennsylvania areas. A wide variety of influences include Earth Wind and Fire, James Brown, Fela Kuti, Rebirth Brass Band, Freddie Hubbard, Bob Dylan to name a few. RBB is mainly known for a wide variety of original compositions and cover arrangements from the genres of funk, jazz, hip hop, Afrobeat, Second Line, soul, and experimental music.
A diverse mix of members forms this organic jam band that promotes positivity and expression of emotion. Covering such genres as Jazz, Rock, Reggae, Funk, and African-Pop, The Bees Trees gives the audience a chance at listening to a wide array of styles while experiencing up-lifting vibes.
Jim Gill and Cathy Miller met at a concert in July of 2010 and have been performing together ever since. Cathy's adept fretwork and their combined stunning vocal harmonies are reaping praise from audiences all over Ohio.
Cathy Miller is a former member of the progressive rock band Uzizi, combining centuries-old sacred harp singing with a modern 5-piece band. Cathy was a founding member of Los Angeles-based Pushing Air, and played fiddle in the bluegrass bands Taproot and The Crooked River Fire Brigade.
Past performances include The Chieftains (traditional Irish), Mo’ Mojo (zydeco), as well as playing for three seasons in The Huntsville Symphony.
Jim Gill has been a lover of music his entire life and a guitar player since childhood -- songwriting seemed the next logical step in Jim's musical evolution. His songs evoke the same emotinal scenery as Ellis Paul, Richard Shindell, Jeffrey Foucault, Greg Brown and John Gorka. "Sparse, introspective and compelling", writes the Medina Gazette. The songs are conveyed in his signature, lush, baritone voice that producer Jim Ballard of Skylyne Studios describes as, "Jim Croce with warmth and range!" Audience members routinely comment on his memorable voice and the depth, and breadth, of his lyrical subject matter. He covers everything from coal mining to motorcycles, coffee to politics, from the raucous to the sublime.
In his ever evolving stage show Jim has added a new wrinkle, a "looping" device, to his concert performances which allows him to make layered vocal tracks where he actually harmonizes with his own voice. These on-the-fly aural effects are truly arresting.
Drs. Jerry Mundell and Anne O’Connor will entertain and engage the audience in the principles of chemical and physical properties, minuteness of atoms, properties of gases, and sublimation of solids through entertaining demonstrations that include colorful chemical reactions, volumetric flask bubble factories, collapsing cans under atmospheric pressure, and soda pop geysers. The demonstrations will end with delicious liquid nitrogen strawberry ice-cream. Hands-on chemistry activities will be available for the kids.
This small battalion of trumpets form a sonic sculpture that moves from one end of the bridge to the other over the course of the mid-afternoon. The players begin in the catacombs, playing off of the echoes and special acoustic properties of that space. The sounds here form a sonic landscape around and within the audience. Eventually the performers peal off across the span of the bridge, improvising on the currents of the river and the flow of the crowd. Once all of the ensemble is collected at the other end of the bridge (near the underground pool) they will group together pointing towards the darkness to deliver a slow and soulful sonic prayer, emphasizing the stillness of that space.
This piece will begin on the West end of the bridge at Noon and travel across the bridge to the East.
The Fuse Factory adds to its list of public works with the Velosynth Bicycle Orchestra. Roaming the Detroit-Superior bridge is a crew on bicycles, each with an attached velosynth. This small hacked computer reads the physical interactions between the bicycles and interprets them in the form of sounds, developed by Fuse Factory technologists, sound artists and composers. Imagine every bicycle in Tokyo its own musical instrument!
See and listen to the mobile “orchestra” and discuss velosynth technology with the riders themselves who are demonstrating throughout the weekend.
Last year's VEX Cleveland Regional Robotics Competition championship team, from the Youth Technology Academy of Tri-C shows off their winning robots, and makes them available for the general public to drive and maneuver through obstacle courses. Also in attendance is their life size FIRST robot (5', 120 lbs) which performs tasks that visitors can control as well!
In keeping with the Festivals theme Currents, the workshop turns recycled plastic bottles into wind socks. In relation to art therapy this is considered an "Art as Therapy" task, to encourage creative thinking, problem solving and relaxation/stress management.
The Fab Lab program is part of the MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms (CBA) which broadly explores how the content of information relates to its physical representation.
The Fab Lab program has strong connections with the technical outreach activities of a number of partner organizations, around the emerging possibility for ordinary people to not just learn about science and engineering but actually design machines and make measurements that are relevant to improving the quality of their lives.
This project brings together classroom talent and creativity with high tech fabrication. Student’s from the CMSD ECM2 STEM School will work on kinetic sculptures powered by green energy. They will utilize the Mobile Fab Lab (on sight at Ingenuity) to help visitors create sculptures as well. These sculptures will be featured at the Festival, operating on green energy throughout the weekend.
This interactive performance in the bridge will explore concepts of flow and currents using dancers fluidly moving, triggering sound, and interacting with the audience. The musician will explore the acoustical space of the bridge by projecting and reflecting sound onto the surfaces of the performance space, and will perform on saxophone, routed through an original Max/MSP, diffusion patch. So, acoustic and electronic sounds interact, as will live and algorithmic processes - current technology interacting with human flow.
The Kasumi Cafe creates an environment of her classic and erie film style. Watch the loosely narrative film, personified by vintage film cutouts, psychadelic colors and rhythmic, percussive imagery moving across the screen.
Inspired by the theme of Ingenuity Fest 2011, Currents seeks to amplify the 3 layers of currents that give the Detroit Superior Bridge it's life during the festival: the bridge, the people and the river. One is able to hear the sounds of the different strata on the bridge with a bone conduction headsets that allows for the physical mixing of the ambient sounds with those of the installation. The sounds are also generatively visualized in real-time via a projected installation.
Kuester installation piece White Noise is built specifically for the Detroit-Superior bridge. Look up to the structural design of the bridge and notice the response, innovative work. Using microphone detectors, cathode fluorescent lights translate the noise and vibration from the traffic on top of the bridge into lights on the ceiling of the festival. The lights reinterpret the current of human flow above in the forms of murmurs and flashes.
Steve Lambert's "Capitalism Works for Me" is a 20-foot long lighted sign that allows viewers to vote "true" or "false' through a kiosk and accompanying LED scoreboard. The sign will first be shown at SPACES Gallery and travel around Cleveland before touring to Boston, Santa Fe, Los Angeles and other cities in the U.S. Start a discussion, with help from the flashy sign which turns the taboo subject to a game.
The digital Mandalas return to Ingenuity! Make your own perfectly semetrical mandala using the iPad app Kaleidescopic Mandals, and see your art made part of a larger community work of art called the Digital Kaleidescopic Mandala Project, displayed on site and online.
I<3 is an interactive installation that works on how many twitter hashtags have been published. For this installation it is counting the number of IngenuityFest tweets based on the hashtag #ingenuityfest.
5 hearts symbolically representing the "life" heart's in video games (such as Zelda) illuminate half or fully based on the number of hashtag tweets of #ingenuityfest. The hearts light up reflecting the amount of the current and flow of life on the bridge. Each 1/2 of a heart lights up once a certain number of tweets has been reached.
Last year, Chris Yanc, thrilled Ingenuity visitors with is Virtual Graffiti Wall. This year, Yanc returns with a full interactive hallway. Visitors move through the space at first unaware they are impacting the flow of objects on a large projection screen. As interaction with the screen becomes more obvious, crowds can freely create their own large scale artwork at Ingenuity.
Walk, shake and gesture in front of the Spyrobeam, which picks up bodily movement and converts it to a meshlike form on screen.
Experience a semi-real simulation game as the life of a fish in our own Lake Erie. The project was inspired by the video game “Spore” and a virtual fish exhibit at the Boston Science Center where visitors create fish for a virtual fish tank inspired this game. In this game, the audience will also be able to create a fish and observe it in a fish tank, with the fish’s goal being to survive. See the impact of weather, disasters and food demand as your fish swims its way through life.
The zyPRINT media cart can demystify the screen printing process from the snap of a digital picture to computer, to printer, and on to screen exposure. Experience the excitement of seeing the process unwind and then to take home a printed piece of ephemera.
The Print Pony Gallop is an old playground rocking horse apparatus that has been mounted to a rocking base where people can come and select a relief plate, ink it up, place it underneath the Print Pony with a clean sheet of paper and start rocking. This is one of the oldest traditions of relief printing with a twist. Zygote would require electricity and tables and chairs.
Taking a cue from Cornelius Cardew’s Scratch Orchestra, which encouraged the idea that people who are untrained in music can be consummate performers, this table-top modular synthesizer looks to place the creation of music into the hands of the festival goer.
At its heart, this synthesizer uses eight modified hand-held radios as a sound source. Each radio has multiple places for the performer/audience member to connect and disconnect cables, allowing for each radio to influence both its own circuitry and that of its neighbor. The performer can freely connect any of the sixty-four points found in the radio stage to one of four rhythm making circuits.
Sound artist Maurice Rickard creates a sonic map consisting of sine wave tones in mathematical relation to each other. Visitors will enter an environment filling with vibrating frequencies reflecting off walls and ceilings and changing with with movement about the room.
The Doodle Bar is exactly what it sounds like: come have a drink and feel free to doodle on just about everything in the vicinity: walls, floors, even couches and pillars. Be inspired by Djs, local artists showing their skills, and posing models in outlandish costumes, and on Saturday night the bar will go psychedelic with black lights and neon markers. This evolution of last year’s Doodle bar will feature interactive technologies that spark the imagination and bring out the secret doodler in us all.
From smart phones to the Internet, so much of today’s society focuses on the visual and our response to it. While advances in audio technology have made surround sound ubiquitous in TV, movies, and video games it is relegated to a supporting role - creating a texture and context but always taking a second seat to the visuals. The Treasure of the Wumpus is a game without visuals. Players are placed in a light proof enclosed pod, given a navigational controller, and are asked to navigate the land of infinite darkness to collect treasure and avoid traps simply by using the surround sound aural cues. Trapped in a maze without walls, players must move slowly, and listen carefully as our aural memory is not as sharp as our visual.
For the audience watching from outside there are two monitors. One displays the map and the players active location, while on the other is an infrared view of the player’s face from inside the pod affording the audience a peak at their reactions.
In "Walking Meditation" as the visitor walks past the camera his/her body is 'scanned' resulting in an image showing the pieces of the body as they were when passing in front of the camera. The longer a body part stays in front of the camera, the more it is stretched horizontally. The horizontal spacial axis is now the time axis. You are seeing how a thin sliver of pixels/space changed over time. The quicker the body part passes in front of the camera, the more it is compressed.
Group A poses as young business professionals and obtains hundreds of phone numbers from Festival goers, and texts movement instructions to the participants to create a moving, living work of art on the bridge.
At IngenuityFest 2011 artist Adam Pate draws his classic speed-caricatures, but also breaks away from traditional caricature artist methods. Pate uses the computer program Illustrator to create digital caricatures in just 8-10 minutes. Playing a game of “digital Mr. Potato Head”, he creates uncanny likenesses, recognizing facial features and unique quirks on every model.
Pate is drawing at Ingenuity throughout the weekend. Come see portraits being created in live-action on a large screen scale, and be one of the hundreds to model for the fast paced, innovative artist.
The Kinetic Light Drum project is a realization of the power of spontaneous performance. It is a visual, social and scientific exploration of alternative power generation and personal expression. The drums are user powered instruments that convert sound vibrations to light using sensitive speakers and ultra bright LEDs. As the drums are played, an electric current creates a flash of light allowing spontaneous communication and expression through sound as well as sight, being visible from over a mile away. Come watch the synchronized sounds and sights, and have a go, yourself, banging at the multimedia instruments.
Our headquarters at Ingenuity hosts a constant audio and visual engagement—a variety of experimental, improvisational, and electronic musicians coupled with a core of visual and video artists and an array of amplification devices, projectors, and instruments. Each afternoon, the Wandering Cave hosts an extended improv at HQ, while our electro-acoustic buskers wander the bridge. Evenings find bands playing at our unique multi-projector stage system. Throughout the weekend, DJ sets and generative music along with art and video installations and multimedia merchandise fill the spaces between. Be sure to check the schedule for info on specific bands and artists.
One part sculptural piece, one part performance art, Lynda Abraham's work of art explores electrical indulgence and it's effect on the consumer. In this piece, Abraham comments on the mechanics of an inflated ego supplied by an electrical outlet that is its own undoing. Watch as the performer literally inflates as they devour electricity, and deflate when they are deprived. Abraham activates another side of Ingenuity's theme of Cur(re)nts, highlighting the dark side of our reliance on electricity, commenting on an excessive use of ‘current’ and the consequences of it suddenly being gone.
This compilation of film and video presents the best of the best ground-based Shuttle motion imagery from STS-114, STS-117, and STS-124 missions. Rendered in the highest definition possible, this production is a tribute to the dozens of men and women of the Shuttle imaging team and the 30yrs of achievement of the Space Shuttle Program.
Duo Approximate performs a live musical accompaniment to the piece using traditional and electronic instruments. Producer Matt Melis of the NASA Glen Research Center will also be on hand to narrate a screening of the film as well giving Ingenuity audiences a chance to enjoy the ambient beauty of a shuttle launch as well as learn about this engineering marvel that has just retired from service.
Timbre expansion and aesthetic investigation through electrified violin, simplified polysynths, and lots of delay. Dodecahedrons are floating extradimensional geometries singing songs of their homeworld.
The dance duet Life Currents explores the currents that exist within and around the human body: breath, blood and air. See through the twisting and contorting dance how the elements that flow around us come together to give us life.
This theatrical adaptation combines graphic novel projections with live actors. It’s the 22nd Century: money is obsolete, energy is plentiful, and everyone lives forever. So why is attraction designer, Julius having such a bad day? For starters he’s solving his own murder and a rival design group is hell bent on turning everything in The Magic Kingdom virtual.
Borne Away on a Crooked River, 2007, is a tribute to Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River and the bodies of water that support us. The piece is about the tenuous relationship humanity has with bodies of water; we need them to survive, yet sometimes we cannot survive them. The piece was inspired by Cleveland’s own Cuyahoga River and the author Flannery O’Connor’s writings: The Violent Bear it Away, The River and The Wide Net. During the 20 minute quintet, the dancers use water‐filled steel tubs and buckets. In part of the piece, dancers link to form a net in the river. They work together energetically, but paradoxically drag and throw each other at times leaving each other to the mercy of the river. There are moments when they are swirling effortlessly only to drop down into the mud where they must be pulled free by others. This piece is performed to an original music composition by local Old‐Time musician Ron Andrico.
Roy G Bros (formerly Boovs, formerly Biv Devoe) is a thematically linked improvisational group organized by HORAK (the artist behind the Wandering Cave graphic) and comprised of members of No, Don't, Totally Awesome, QIX, Orange Hell, and Low in the Sky. They gather together in sonic unity for the good of America and New Jacks everywhere.
Cleveland natives Presque Vu’s first album was essentially a solo album by Eddie "Johnny La Rock" Fleisher. But on their newest release "210 And A Moustache," they've become a trio with Vinnie "Furface" Furman and Aaron "Mush Mouth" Donahoo now in the group. Their sound incorporates elements of synth-pop, hip-hop, R&B, indie-rock, and folk. On their recent release "210", Presque Vu revisits themes of love and heartbreak but often turns the hurt into anthems.
The Modern Electric are a Cleveland-based four piece with a passion for their city and an unapologetic enthusiasm for pop music. Equal parts dark and orchestral as it is warm and melodic, they have coined the term “cinematic pop” to define their sound. Considered to be the aural counterpart to 8mm film, cinematic pop is organic, soulful, and emotive. Their self-titled debut album is a soundtrack to real-life heartache, but could just as easily accompany the latest Zach Braff-inspired romantic comedy. Influences include Patsy Cline, Clem Snide, Arcade Fire, and David Bowie—the latter having been immortalized in the band’s unforgettable homage, “David Bowie (Save Us All).”
Years of energetic performances have helped The Modern Electric to amass a devoted following. Citizendick.org, an independent blog focusing on the Midwest music scene, describes the group as “savvy indie-rock veterans, dropping hooks and energy left and right.” The band’s home base, The Beachland Ballroom, is a venue that embodies the perseverance-in-the-face-of-adversity attitude that has come to be known as the Cleveland spirit. The Modern Electric have carried this spirit through performances at The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, The Tower City Ampitheater, The House Of Blues, and The Grog Shop.
Their latest album was voted Best Album of 2011 in the Cleveland Scene Magazine and received 10/10 stars on Citizendick.org who declared the album “beautiful, cinematic and forceful”; the songwriting “earnest as hell... raw, and emotive.” Sixtysecondsofheaven.com labeled the songs “arresting, tension-filled pop symphonies.” The album is currently available on Itunes, Rhapsody, Amazon.com, Cdbaby.com, and Disgstation.com.
These site-specific performances examining the use of the female body to portray victory through various historical eras. Mott manipulates a series of discarded objects repurposed into new sonic contraptions; objects such as a leg built from discarded cardboard and plastic attached to the body creating sonic vibration when moved, a kitchen table reconstructed from a CEO's desk that, when struck, releases 1950's atomic bomb newsreels, and a set of wings built from discarded crutches which recreate the sounds of first flight attempts and air battles.
The dance duet Life Currents explores the currents that exist within and around the human body: breath, blood and air. See through the twisting and contorting dance how the elements that flow around us come together to give us life.
Cleveland rock band Founding Fathers formed in 2009 and consist of John Kalman (guitar/vocals), John Neely (guitar), Carol Schumacher-Yachanin (Bass) and Stanton Thatcher (drums). Guitarist Neely recruited the Fathers from familiar ground, bringing in his former Tokyo Storm Warning bandmate Stanton Thatcher on drums and his fellow Grog Shop employee/habitué John Kalman on guitar and vocals. Kalman's desire to switch to guitar from bass (his instrument in the late and sorely missed Roué) led to a bass-player search that ended in the enlistment of former journeyman Carol Schumacher-Yachanin, and the band finally started rehearsing its hybrid of post-punk, indie and shoegaze last January.
These site-specific performances examining the use of the female body to portray victory through various historical eras. Mott manipulates a series of discarded objects repurposed into new sonic contraptions; objects such as a leg built from discarded cardboard and plastic attached to the body creating sonic vibration when moved, a kitchen table reconstructed from a CEO's desk that, when struck, releases 1950's atomic bomb newsreels, and a set of wings built from discarded crutches which recreate the sounds of first flight attempts and air battles.
Trained as a sculptor, Karl Vorndran's focus has shifted to modular synthesis with an emphasis on creating and shaping sound in real time. Using a custom Eurorack modular synthesizer, each performance starts with an idea patched from scratch, then sculpted and manipulated to create complex soundscapes. A great chance for those unfamiliar with synthesis (as well as seasoned pros) to explore the possibilities of the medium. Karl will be available to discuss contemporary synthesis after his set.
Shakera Blackmon is currently a sophomore at The College of
Wooster, double majoring in Communication studies and Dance/Theatre.
She was introduced to dance and the arts at the age of three, and has
been dancing and performing ever since. Shakera attended Dekalb school
of the Arts in Atlanta Georgia for twelve years with the focus of
dance, acting, and vocal music. After years of studying various dance
forms like ballet, jazz, hip-hop, and modern, she is now a
choreographer and dancer at churches around the Atlanta,GA and Wooster
OH area. She is a member of the Fighting Scots Dance team,
choreographer for The College of Wooster's dance company and will even
be studying in dance in India Dec.2011. She hopes to learn as much as
she can about dance so that she can share her passion for dance with
others, through performance and teaching.
Dance Description: In this dance piece the dancer is literally a part
of the set up. She is a doll /prop that is brought onto stage by
members in the following act (Nana) along with other things needed to
set up. During the set up she comes to life turning into a woman. She
feels emotion such as love, lust anger and desire. She ultimately is
the "woman" that the following group will sing about. She represents
the good, bad, and lovely of the man/woman relationships that will be
sang about after the dance.
Heart’s Terrain is a solo performed by Cleveland dancer Sherri Mills that joins internal and external landscapes.The choreography is based on improvisations in nature.The piece is a personal statement of connection with oneself and the larger environment. Performed with a set of dramatic, red hanging fabric, the performer interacts with the ever‐changing terrain on the set and inside of her. The textures of sand, leaves, wood and water are palpable as the dancer moves through a piece that is ascetic, very human and visually stunning. The music is an original composition by local avant‐garde group, Easy Worship Operator.
This compilation of film and video presents the best of the best ground-based Shuttle motion imagery from STS-114, STS-117, and STS-124 missions. Rendered in the highest definition possible, this production is a tribute to the dozens of men and women of the Shuttle imaging team and the 30yrs of achievement of the Space Shuttle Program.
Duo Approximate performs a live musical accompaniment to the piece using traditional and electronic instruments. Producer Matt Melis of the NASA Glen Research Center will also be on hand to narrate a screening of the film as well giving Ingenuity audiences a chance to enjoy the ambient beauty of a shuttle launch as well as learn about this engineering marvel that has just retired from service.
Ashley Brooke Toussant takes old forms, old sounds, and old instruments, and adds some contemporary twists to them. She's equal parts Joan Baez and Joanna Newsom, but softer and meeker than both. The debut album by the Kent-based singer-songwriter is appropriately called Sweetheart, earning its title with moseying bass lines, subtly soaring lap steel, and sweet lyrics sung with bird-like innocence. There's something fragile and unsullied about the way Toussant coos simple lines like "Let me call you sweetheart, I'm in love with you." Sweetheart shows an incredible amount of musical maturity, with a finger firmly on the pulse of what's good about the current indie-folk movement. Toussant is indeed sweet, but she packs plenty of sadness too: Sweetheart's occasional melancholy adds depth to her ditties about love and the darkness rooted so deeply in Appalachian folk tradition.
— Lydia Munnell (Scene Magazine)
These site-specific performances examining the use of the female body to portray victory through various historical eras. Mott manipulates a series of discarded objects repurposed into new sonic contraptions; objects such as a leg built from discarded cardboard and plastic attached to the body creating sonic vibration when moved, a kitchen table reconstructed from a CEO's desk that, when struck, releases 1950's atomic bomb newsreels, and a set of wings built from discarded crutches which recreate the sounds of first flight attempts and air battles.
This theatrical adaptation combines graphic novel projections with live actors. It’s the 22nd Century: money is obsolete, energy is plentiful, and everyone lives forever. So why is attraction designer, Julius having such a bad day? For starters he’s solving his own murder and a rival design group is hell bent on turning everything in The Magic Kingdom virtual.
Nearly eight years ago, Robbing Mary formed from the ashes of other bands that had either outlived their time or gone awry. Initially, original members and longtime Clevelanders Dan Mills (vocals/guitar), Jennifer Vilimonovic (vocals/violin) and Steve Keefe (bass/guitar) poured their hearts and countless hours into scoring a broad array of original material. Not long after, lead guitar player, Rom Cullers was recruited to lend additional vocal, guitar and songwriting depth and cohesion to a growing catalogue of both originals and unique interpretations of some of the greatest songs ever recorded - some well known and some overlooked gems. With the addition of the experience and professionalism of expert drummer Wil Jones in 2008, Robbing Mary has emerged as one of the premier indie/rock/alt-country bands in Northeast Ohio and beyond. Robbing Mary's concerts are simultaneously powerful, dynamic and memorable, and the band is flexible enough to deliver exceptional performances in shows ranging in length from 45 minutes to 5 hours.
At the outset, choosing a name for the band became a difficult task. During early rehearsals, ideas were pitched and ultimately the name of the band was drawn from a hat. It fictitiously refers to a casanova type who has the key and has stolen the heart of his mistress.
In August, 2009, after 5 years of making obsessively arranged homespun recordings in their basement practice space on Groveland Road in the Heights, Robbing Mary took to the studio and released its first official recording -- an EP suitably named "Groveland." Groveland was recorded and engineered by Matt Curry at Anteup Audio in Cleveland and mixed by well-known producer, recording artist and guitarist Eric Ambel. Among many others, Ambel's extensive history includes production credits for Steve Earle, The Dukes, Ryan Adams and The Bottle Rockets. During the recent past, fueled largely by positive feedback from the Groveland project and some noteworthy gigs and festivals supporting that release, Robbing Mary expanded its recording budget and is currently putting the finishing touches on a comprehensive full-length studio album. Joining Robbing Mary on this project and at various gigs in the past and future is Hammond B-3 ace and multi-instrumentalist, Dave Drotos, a Cleveland native currently moonlighting in Nashville.
Both musically and lyrically, the body of Robbing Mary's work explores the fluidity of life and nature at its very extremes, with a focus on the complexity and frailty of the human condition in the face of adverse self inflicted and environmental factors that confront us all. The simultaneous dissonance and harmony that results from those conflicting forces is both reflected and expressed in Robbing Mary's music and live performances. Robbing Mary's creative momentum shows no signs of slowing. The band continues to write new material, with much of it being drawn from or inspired by improvised interactions with new audiences.
Borne Away on a Crooked River, 2007, is a tribute to Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River and the bodies of water that support us. The piece is about the tenuous relationship humanity has with bodies of water; we need them to survive, yet sometimes we cannot survive them. The piece was inspired by Cleveland’s own Cuyahoga River and the author Flannery O’Connor’s writings: The Violent Bear it Away, The River and The Wide Net. During the 20 minute quintet, the dancers use water‐filled steel tubs and buckets. In part of the piece, dancers link to form a net in the river. They work together energetically, but paradoxically drag and throw each other at times leaving each other to the mercy of the river. There are moments when they are swirling effortlessly only to drop down into the mud where they must be pulled free by others. This piece is performed to an original music composition by local Old‐Time musician Ron Andrico.
An action star banished into space inside of a polygon, Dolph Lundgren trapped in a brutal meditation throughout the universe. Crushing guitar drones and blackened synth noise, ultra-doom solo project of Ram Youssefi (Zurvan, Human).
These site-specific performances examining the use of the female body to portray victory through various historical eras. Mott manipulates a series of discarded objects repurposed into new sonic contraptions; objects such as a leg built from discarded cardboard and plastic attached to the body creating sonic vibration when moved, a kitchen table reconstructed from a CEO's desk that, when struck, releases 1950's atomic bomb newsreels, and a set of wings built from discarded crutches which recreate the sounds of first flight attempts and air battles.
After listening to Trouble Book's dreamily lovely, lushly textured ambient electronica where their influence might really come from: side two of the Beach Boys' 1968 album, Friends, and side two of their 1970 one, Sunflower. Certainly the disconcertingly banal lyrics in Trouble Books songs about, say, spending a day at home or taking a walk through their neighbourhood seem to take their cue from Busy Doin' Nothin', that infamous ditty from the aforementioned Friends which comprised a bossa nova shuffle over which composer Brian Wilson sang directions to his Bel Air mansion. And much of their music has a similar queasily sumptuous synth sound to All I Wanna Do, a little-known but absurdly underrated track that Wilson co-wrote with cousin Mike Love, at the height of his obsession with transcendental meditation, for Sunflower.
In the same way that Wilson was, after the traumatic Smile period, seeking solace in the past, trying to recapture the innocent joy of the nascent Beach Boys, Trouble Books creates drowsy, hazy songs on a budget that sound like classic radio-pop heard while half-asleep at night or half-awake in the morning. All shaky amateur vocals (courtesy of married couple Keith F and Linda L), tape hiss and FX-laden 'tronics over brief spurts of sublime melody, Trouble Books, like everyone from Ariel Pink to Washed Out, make you think of an alternate-reality Brian Wilson who, instead of the most commercially successful American songwriter of his generation, became a minor, misunderstood cult artist making crackly, cheapo synth ditties in his bedroom.
Trouble Books is heavily involved in Bark and Hiss, a label and unofficial collective, much like Elephant 6, based around their hometown of Akron, Ohio. DIY to the core, the trio even create sleeves for their releases by screen-printing and spray-painting on the back of old junk-store records, and including hand-stitched books of artwork with each one.
With one full-length CD ("The Self-Educated Learning Process") and two mixtapes ("Punch Drunk Melodies Vol. 1" and "Vol. 2") to its credit, local rap act Smoke Screen -- MCs Tommy "Street Chemist" Sheridan and Rodney "Mooke" Mynatt -- has high hopes that the Northeast Ohio hip-hop scene is about to take off.
"Right now, it's bubbling," said Sheridan, a 2005 Brush High School graduate. "There's a lot of talent around here, and a lot of guys doing their thing around here. It's just that it's going to take people to get together and get on the same page because everyone right now is on their own thing, which holds people back. But I think Northeast Ohio is actually starting to bubble a little bit more, and our music is more indie hip-hop with kind of a mainstream flavor. It kind of works funny because the music I'm into is more indie hip-hop or underground hip-hop, and Mooke is into more mainstream accessible stuff. So our stuff is lyrical, and it's got content, but you can dance to it."
Imagine conducting an orchestra, as interpreted by a flame-throwing fire machine. Participants are invited to become the conductor of the Pyropodium, to step onto the podium and discover the responsiveness of the artwork to their own movement. Computer optics read bodily movement and interpret gestures into flames and jet streams of rhythmic visual percussion.
The PyroPodium is a non-descript raised platform. Set 20 feet in front of the platform is an extensive array of vertical pipes of various dimensions (15-20). Each pipe is electronically valved, and fed from a common reservoir of propane vapor. When activated, the valves open to release pressurized vapor that ignites from small pilot flames above each exhaust pipe. Flame effects will range from large prolonged bursts to small staccato jets of varying size, and also provide a rhythmic concussion from the detonation.
Recording the conductor on the platform, computer optics interpret their actions and signal the valves to open in various configurations depending on the movements of the arms, legs and body. With no buttons to press or baton to hold, the line between conducting the fire and embodying it becomes blurred.
Solo weirdness from Josh Novak (XXX Super Arcade, Leach Mine, Griefhound). Representing an embodiment of the seven lungs strewn across the celestial islands, centering at an exact point between the third and fourth dimension which may or may not exist without conceptualization of a land ruled by the blackest of beasts... the horse.
A Columbus, Ohio native, Titonton Duvanté had an early appreciation for electronic music and the music associated with breakdancing as well as drawing influence from Depeche Mode and New Order. Functioning as the core composer of the group Body Release, formed in 1991, Titonton formed his unique style of music making. After the breakup of the band in the autumn of 1993, he began to seriously try his hand at the art of being a deejay. Titonton`s composing took a back seat for a period of time while he developed the skills required to express what he conceptualized. His musical techniques have been influenced by the ideologies of jazz improvisation and John Cage. If you are lucky enough to catch one of Titonton`s live PA or DJ sets, you will see that this man invests a lot of his own emotion into the music that he doles out to the audience.
Titonton has played throughout the US, Canada, Europe, and Asia including gigs in Chicago, Detroit(including DEMF 2001), Boston, New Orleans, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Toronto, Geneva, Vienna, London(Co-op), Paris(Rex Club), Barcelona(Moog), Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Brussels, Berlin(Tresor), and Tokyo(Liquid Rooms). If one had to say a few words to sum up the multifaceted musical talent of Titonton Duvanté, adjectives like innovative, ambitious and creative could be used to describe him. Born and raised in Columbus, Ohio, Titonton wrote his first song at the age of five entitled "Journey to the Stars.” As a child, he was drawn to the upbeat rhythms of disco and the futuristic sounds of early electronic music such as Yellow Magic Orchestra and Gary Numan. As Titonton matured, he was intrigued by the... Read more as a recording artist releasing music on numerous labels such as: Palette, 7th City, 21/22 Corporation, Central, Planet E, Starbaby, SSR/Reflective, Phono/Environ, Multiplex, Metamorphic, 2000 Black and Transfigure to name a few. In addition to releasing music on all of these labels, Titonton has also released tons of material on his own label, Residual Recordings which he runs with partner Thomas James. As a dj he is equally sought after and considered to be the number one broken beat dj in the United States.
These site-specific performances examining the use of the female body to portray victory through various historical eras. Mott manipulates a series of discarded objects repurposed into new sonic contraptions; objects such as a leg built from discarded cardboard and plastic attached to the body creating sonic vibration when moved, a kitchen table reconstructed from a CEO's desk that, when struck, releases 1950's atomic bomb newsreels, and a set of wings built from discarded crutches which recreate the sounds of first flight attempts and air battles.
Deeeeeeep Zoroastrian drone meditations from Akron duo of James Bryan Parks (Human) and Ram Youssefi (Dolph Lundgren, Human). Exploring psychedelic ambience and exploding notions of space/time through Sunn amplified guitar and vocal mantras—Zurvan is Ohio's sonic mystery cult . New album, Cymatic Sacrament, out on RCN Recordings limited cassette in September.
The Squonk Astro-ramanauts believe that the recent UFO crashes in the region have been a plea for first contact. They also believe that many of our greatest inventions, like the pyramids, zippers and TV remote controls, were the gifts of our extra-terrestrial friends.
To help them send their message to the cosmos, the Squonkers will build a 40′ radio telescope dish mounted to scaffold towers, tuned to the galactic frequency of B-flat. Rising in scissor lift platforms and cherry pickers, they will compose a proud message from our species, power up and transmit.
Squonk Opera is a group of interdisciplinary performing artists formed in 1992. The group has performed in over 250 venues around the world including a run of Bigsmörgåsbørdwünderwerk on Broadway and as a contestant on America’s Got Talent.
The monolith appearance of a glowing mushroom atop a shopping cart temple. Infinite blue light. Stranded astronaut hobos time-banished from post-apocalyptic wastes. The basics of synthesis as a means of hyperdimensional communication. Cane Swords is the Akron duo behind Rubber City Noise and they're here to communicate cosmic intuition through their gravity-bound galactic temples. Their debut album, Big Warmup in the Mouth of Eternity, met acclaim for its unique take on synthesizer music and ability to balance meditative space ambience with synth chaos. They've since released several splits on their label, RCN Recordings. A full-length LP is due out on Experimedia this fall.
These site-specific performances examining the use of the female body to portray victory through various historical eras. Mott manipulates a series of discarded objects repurposed into new sonic contraptions; objects such as a leg built from discarded cardboard and plastic attached to the body creating sonic vibration when moved, a kitchen table reconstructed from a CEO's desk that, when struck, releases 1950's atomic bomb newsreels, and a set of wings built from discarded crutches which recreate the sounds of first flight attempts and air battles.
The Very Knees have been performing locally for years. However, it wasn't until last year that band visionary Dave Petrovich (vocals, guitar) solidified the act with the addition of Jon Thomas (bass, vocals). "Basically content-wise, we're delivering a really fun, sort of party kind of dance atmosphere rather than a kind of boring, really static, indie-rock, guitar-bass-drums sound," said Cleveland resident Petrovich, a 1988 Westlake High School graduate. "We wanted to do something that was more along the lines of a combination of the Strokes and Hall & Oates. More really catchy and accessible but also not corny or phony. There's a little niche that I don't think has been filled here in Cleveland. Like bands from around here have really all developed personalities, which is great. There isn't really a lot of put-ons going on. However, saying that, I also think that there's this sort of void where nobody around here -- to my knowledge -- has been doing anything really dance-y. So we're high-energy and rock music, but also dance music." Petrovich describes the band's sound as slang pop, which is built upon familiar -- both old and new -- musical and pop cultural references.
Eliot Lipp’s signature sound, a crossbreed of 90’s Hip Hop and House, 70’s Funk fusion as well as classic Electro, has and will continue to breakdown barriers and transpose trendy scenes. His use of vintage gear to create a unique take on Hip Hop and House,has quickly garnered the respect among the industry’s most influential musicians and producers as well as the deep admiration among audiences worldwide.
Whether programming Hip Hop beats, writing dirty basslines, collaborating with the likes of premier producers, DJs, MCs and musicians, examined by SPIN, URB, Pitchfork and other media or playing popping parties at clubs and festivals worldwide, Eliot Lipp will continue to do his part in revolutionizing electronic music.
On their self-titled EP, they deliver six tracks of driving, distant post-punk that skirts the monochrome gradient and darkened corridors of early gothic rock and death rock. They are the first band that Fan Death Records has worked with based on the strength of a demo, having wowed the label immediately with their fully-realized dark, reverbed-out vision. The curious need look no further than lead-off track Nature of Feeling, an exercise in nervous tension featuring an urgent rhythm section and a saw blade-sharp guitar tone, topped with singer Haley Morris’s low, morbid howl.
This compilation of film and video presents the best of the best ground-based Shuttle motion imagery from STS-114, STS-117, and STS-124 missions. Rendered in the highest definition possible, this production is a tribute to the dozens of men and women of the Shuttle imaging team and the 30yrs of achievement of the Space Shuttle Program.
Duo Approximate performs a live musical accompaniment to the piece using traditional and electronic instruments. Producer Matt Melis of the NASA Glen Research Center will also be on hand to narrate a screening of the film as well giving Ingenuity audiences a chance to enjoy the ambient beauty of a shuttle launch as well as learn about this engineering marvel that has just retired from service.
Science: A Catalyst for Art in Motion is a dance performance inspired by Newton's Three Laws of Motion. Dancers in wheelchairs and on foot demonstrate such factors as force, acceleration and opposing reactions through poetic and inspiring physical technique. Come watch the performance and interact with the dancers to learn about the science behind wheelchair design.
In keeping with the Festivals theme Currents, the workshop turns recycled plastic bottles into wind socks. In relation to art therapy this is considered an "Art as Therapy" task, to encourage creative thinking, problem solving and relaxation/stress management.
The Fab Lab program is part of the MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms (CBA) which broadly explores how the content of information relates to its physical representation.
The Fab Lab program has strong connections with the technical outreach activities of a number of partner organizations, around the emerging possibility for ordinary people to not just learn about science and engineering but actually design machines and make measurements that are relevant to improving the quality of their lives.
This project brings together classroom talent and creativity with high tech fabrication. Student’s from the CMSD ECM2 STEM School will work on kinetic sculptures powered by green energy. They will utilize the Mobile Fab Lab (on sight at Ingenuity) to help visitors create sculptures as well. These sculptures will be featured at the Festival, operating on green energy throughout the weekend.
This interactive performance in the bridge will explore concepts of flow and currents using dancers fluidly moving, triggering sound, and interacting with the audience. The musician will explore the acoustical space of the bridge by projecting and reflecting sound onto the surfaces of the performance space, and will perform on saxophone, routed through an original Max/MSP, diffusion patch. So, acoustic and electronic sounds interact, as will live and algorithmic processes - current technology interacting with human flow.
The Kasumi Cafe creates an environment of her classic and erie film style. Watch the loosely narrative film, personified by vintage film cutouts, psychadelic colors and rhythmic, percussive imagery moving across the screen.
Inspired by the theme of Ingenuity Fest 2011, Currents seeks to amplify the 3 layers of currents that give the Detroit Superior Bridge it's life during the festival: the bridge, the people and the river. One is able to hear the sounds of the different strata on the bridge with a bone conduction headsets that allows for the physical mixing of the ambient sounds with those of the installation. The sounds are also generatively visualized in real-time via a projected installation.
Kuester installation piece White Noise is built specifically for the Detroit-Superior bridge. Look up to the structural design of the bridge and notice the response, innovative work. Using microphone detectors, cathode fluorescent lights translate the noise and vibration from the traffic on top of the bridge into lights on the ceiling of the festival. The lights reinterpret the current of human flow above in the forms of murmurs and flashes.
Steve Lambert's "Capitalism Works for Me" is a 20-foot long lighted sign that allows viewers to vote "true" or "false' through a kiosk and accompanying LED scoreboard. The sign will first be shown at SPACES Gallery and travel around Cleveland before touring to Boston, Santa Fe, Los Angeles and other cities in the U.S. Start a discussion, with help from the flashy sign which turns the taboo subject to a game.
The digital Mandalas return to Ingenuity! Make your own perfectly semetrical mandala using the iPad app Kaleidescopic Mandals, and see your art made part of a larger community work of art called the Digital Kaleidescopic Mandala Project, displayed on site and online.
I<3 is an interactive installation that works on how many twitter hashtags have been published. For this installation it is counting the number of IngenuityFest tweets based on the hashtag #ingenuityfest.
5 hearts symbolically representing the "life" heart's in video games (such as Zelda) illuminate half or fully based on the number of hashtag tweets of #ingenuityfest. The hearts light up reflecting the amount of the current and flow of life on the bridge. Each 1/2 of a heart lights up once a certain number of tweets has been reached.
Last year, Chris Yanc, thrilled Ingenuity visitors with is Virtual Graffiti Wall. This year, Yanc returns with a full interactive hallway. Visitors move through the space at first unaware they are impacting the flow of objects on a large projection screen. As interaction with the screen becomes more obvious, crowds can freely create their own large scale artwork at Ingenuity.
Walk, shake and gesture in front of the Spyrobeam, which picks up bodily movement and converts it to a meshlike form on screen.
Experience a semi-real simulation game as the life of a fish in our own Lake Erie. The project was inspired by the video game “Spore” and a virtual fish exhibit at the Boston Science Center where visitors create fish for a virtual fish tank inspired this game. In this game, the audience will also be able to create a fish and observe it in a fish tank, with the fish’s goal being to survive. See the impact of weather, disasters and food demand as your fish swims its way through life.
The zyPRINT media cart can demystify the screen printing process from the snap of a digital picture to computer, to printer, and on to screen exposure. Experience the excitement of seeing the process unwind and then to take home a printed piece of ephemera.
The Print Pony Gallop is an old playground rocking horse apparatus that has been mounted to a rocking base where people can come and select a relief plate, ink it up, place it underneath the Print Pony with a clean sheet of paper and start rocking. This is one of the oldest traditions of relief printing with a twist. Zygote would require electricity and tables and chairs.
Taking a cue from Cornelius Cardew’s Scratch Orchestra, which encouraged the idea that people who are untrained in music can be consummate performers, this table-top modular synthesizer looks to place the creation of music into the hands of the festival goer.
At its heart, this synthesizer uses eight modified hand-held radios as a sound source. Each radio has multiple places for the performer/audience member to connect and disconnect cables, allowing for each radio to influence both its own circuitry and that of its neighbor. The performer can freely connect any of the sixty-four points found in the radio stage to one of four rhythm making circuits.
Sound artist Maurice Rickard creates a sonic map consisting of sine wave tones in mathematical relation to each other. Visitors will enter an environment filling with vibrating frequencies reflecting off walls and ceilings and changing with with movement about the room.
The Doodle Bar is exactly what it sounds like: come have a drink and feel free to doodle on just about everything in the vicinity: walls, floors, even couches and pillars. Be inspired by Djs, local artists showing their skills, and posing models in outlandish costumes, and on Saturday night the bar will go psychedelic with black lights and neon markers. This evolution of last year’s Doodle bar will feature interactive technologies that spark the imagination and bring out the secret doodler in us all.
From smart phones to the Internet, so much of today’s society focuses on the visual and our response to it. While advances in audio technology have made surround sound ubiquitous in TV, movies, and video games it is relegated to a supporting role - creating a texture and context but always taking a second seat to the visuals. The Treasure of the Wumpus is a game without visuals. Players are placed in a light proof enclosed pod, given a navigational controller, and are asked to navigate the land of infinite darkness to collect treasure and avoid traps simply by using the surround sound aural cues. Trapped in a maze without walls, players must move slowly, and listen carefully as our aural memory is not as sharp as our visual.
For the audience watching from outside there are two monitors. One displays the map and the players active location, while on the other is an infrared view of the player’s face from inside the pod affording the audience a peak at their reactions.
In "Walking Meditation" as the visitor walks past the camera his/her body is 'scanned' resulting in an image showing the pieces of the body as they were when passing in front of the camera. The longer a body part stays in front of the camera, the more it is stretched horizontally. The horizontal spacial axis is now the time axis. You are seeing how a thin sliver of pixels/space changed over time. The quicker the body part passes in front of the camera, the more it is compressed.
Group A poses as young business professionals and obtains hundreds of phone numbers from Festival goers, and texts movement instructions to the participants to create a moving, living work of art on the bridge.
Last year's VEX Cleveland Regional Robotics Competition championship team, from the Youth Technology Academy of Tri-C shows off their winning robots, and makes them available for the general public to drive and maneuver through obstacle courses. Also in attendance is their life size FIRST robot (5', 120 lbs) which performs tasks that visitors can control as well!
At IngenuityFest 2011 artist Adam Pate draws his classic speed-caricatures, but also breaks away from traditional caricature artist methods. Pate uses the computer program Illustrator to create digital caricatures in just 8-10 minutes. Playing a game of “digital Mr. Potato Head”, he creates uncanny likenesses, recognizing facial features and unique quirks on every model.
Pate is drawing at Ingenuity throughout the weekend. Come see portraits being created in live-action on a large screen scale, and be one of the hundreds to model for the fast paced, innovative artist.
The Kinetic Light Drum project is a realization of the power of spontaneous performance. It is a visual, social and scientific exploration of alternative power generation and personal expression. The drums are user powered instruments that convert sound vibrations to light using sensitive speakers and ultra bright LEDs. As the drums are played, an electric current creates a flash of light allowing spontaneous communication and expression through sound as well as sight, being visible from over a mile away. Come watch the synchronized sounds and sights, and have a go, yourself, banging at the multimedia instruments.
Our headquarters at Ingenuity hosts a constant audio and visual engagement—a variety of experimental, improvisational, and electronic musicians coupled with a core of visual and video artists and an array of amplification devices, projectors, and instruments. Each afternoon, the Wandering Cave hosts an extended improv at HQ, while our electro-acoustic buskers wander the bridge. Evenings find bands playing at our unique multi-projector stage system. Throughout the weekend, DJ sets and generative music along with art and video installations and multimedia merchandise fill the spaces between. Be sure to check the schedule for info on specific bands and artists.
One part sculptural piece, one part performance art, Lynda Abraham's work of art explores electrical indulgence and it's effect on the consumer. In this piece, Abraham comments on the mechanics of an inflated ego supplied by an electrical outlet that is its own undoing. Watch as the performer literally inflates as they devour electricity, and deflate when they are deprived. Abraham activates another side of Ingenuity's theme of Cur(re)nts, highlighting the dark side of our reliance on electricity, commenting on an excessive use of ‘current’ and the consequences of it suddenly being gone.
These site-specific performances examining the use of the female body to portray victory through various historical eras. Mott manipulates a series of discarded objects repurposed into new sonic contraptions; objects such as a leg built from discarded cardboard and plastic attached to the body creating sonic vibration when moved, a kitchen table reconstructed from a CEO's desk that, when struck, releases 1950's atomic bomb newsreels, and a set of wings built from discarded crutches which recreate the sounds of first flight attempts and air battles.
This theatrical adaptation combines graphic novel projections with live actors. It’s the 22nd Century: money is obsolete, energy is plentiful, and everyone lives forever. So why is attraction designer, Julius having such a bad day? For starters he’s solving his own murder and a rival design group is hell bent on turning everything in The Magic Kingdom virtual.
Since they formed in July 2007, the members of 70 Lewis have made manifest their hopes and dreams, triumphs and setbacks, through their unique yet familiar music. Four twenty-something’s who bring it all to the table, lay it out, and invite people to enjoy what they’ve created. The members of 70 Lewis are friends first – Mike Gray, Scott Young, Chris Hoffman, and Kenny Kerns- who through years of trial and error have finally broken the mold with their complex, harmonious, piano-fronted rock. They create an unparalleled live atmosphere capable of transporting you from a revelous celebration to the quiet countryside and back again. Their intense energy and exciting songwriting quickly invites listeners to view life through their eyes, leaving them with a sense of wonderment and a thirst for more.
The four friends spent their time before 70 Lewis honing their skills, preparing for what would be the most incredible journey they’ve been on to date. Friends through high school, different variations of the current quartet performed many times together with school groups and garage bands, often times taking stages the size of football fields, other times the size of front porches. Having to find a balance between selling out venues such as House of Blues with after school homework, gave them the understanding of and respect for what it takes to live your dream at an early age. “I've played piano since I could sit on a piano bench. I'd say I didn't have a say in the matter and maybe at the time I didn't, but it was all I ever wanted to do” says Kenny.
A strong sense of community, purpose, and “brotherhood” has remained a driving force behind the band. The starry-eyed group booked their first live performance in December of 2007 at the revered “Winchester Tavern and Music Hall” in Lakewood, Ohio and years later are still on a constant high from that evening. “For me personally, that night marked the beginning of a new chapter. Everything fell into place, it felt right, it felt.. like home” says Mike.
The day after their first show, they made a few revisions, discussed a few changes, and then raced off in search of that feeling from the night before. Immediately, they won the hearts of their audiences channeling all they had into every performance. With each show, the music of 70 Lewis evolved eventually allowing the band to speak two languages; lyrically with emotive pop tales about life's highs and lows, and subtly with musicianship unseen in their genre. The band gives off a hypnotic energy, as lonesome pianos battle up-tempo guitars to connect with the crowd, while Chris actually stands in front of his drum kit, pounding away surrounded by the whirlwind of emotion on stage.
Eventually, the time came to record their debut album – and as if by fate, the band met Mike Brown of Lava Room Recording Studios, who immediately saw potential. What started out as the search for a studio to record an album, quickly turned into the mutual pursuit of what is now “East Coast Sunday Morning”, which defines the bands entire purpose. Working with Mike, 70 Lewis was able to exploit delicate details and emotional qualities of their music that they had not seen and were encouraged along the way with words of wisdom, experience, and hopeful excitement.
The album begins with a quick, spunky, and almost comedic, “Intro”, a tribute to an ongoing tradition at live shows where the band plays a quick example of music from a different genre. Following that is “Rocker”, a biting, personal and gritty tune demonstrating the heavier, up-tempo capabilities of the group. The song details a failed romance; “You had it all just to let it go, but that’s over now and you never had the chance to know”. Masterfully placed between heavy hitters such as Rocker and Song For Someone, Hurricane and Winter, by stark contrast, show the band's more delicate, poppy side, quoting life’s trials and tribulations with soaring, positive energy.
The journey through the album continues to evoke different emotions, never letting go of the ones already stirred. Brightest London – a song inspired by a painting - is a personal one, detailing one of life’s many wake up calls. “One day we wake up and think what is this life? I’m twenty and jobless this doesn’t seem right” - This world is a setup we only live once, it’s a tough path to stay on, it’s a tough path to trust”. Throughout the next few tracks, the band expertly navigates the twists and turns of the musical road they’ve paved, with explosive tracks such as Underwater and Divided, Through My Dreams, and Chico. The first of the three an epic piano power ballad about a guy struggling with life decisions regarding college, music, family and success. Finally, when all seems to have been told and the listener is left with a warm satisfaction, Misdirection and Sylvia round out the end of the journey bringing you full circle. Sylvia stands proud as the epic ending to an epic journey- the dream-like melodies over melancholy piano, slowly building into an explosion of intense emotion leaving the listeners head spinning in amazement and dizzy with anticipation. The album picks you up, inspires your thoughts and emotions, and as swiftly as it came gently makes it’s exit after setting you firmly on your feet.
70 Lewis speaks for itself in a world where words often go unspoken, and dreams are often never achieved. Their live reputation extends into their debut album and invites any listener of any age to experience what they pride themselves on. Whether you’re on a search for your soul or in need of a thunderous burst of energy, 70 Lewis will enrapture you in their one of a kind sound.
The dance duet Life Currents explores the currents that exist within and around the human body: breath, blood and air. See through the twisting and contorting dance how the elements that flow around us come together to give us life.
Critics have called Filmstrip everything from psychedelic to punk to slacker rock. But that only reveals some of the truth about the sonic experience that this threesome from Cleveland have put together. The howling guitars and driving rhythm of "Should Have Seen It Coming" are equal parts 90's grunge and early 70's psych.
The lineup is as follows: Dave Taha, vocals and guitar; Matt Taha, bass and vocals; Nick Riley, drums. The brothers' dynamics and harmonies show Filmstrip's closeness while the style and structure of their songs show innovation.The title track to their new debut LP, "Everything Can Change" is a fast- paced pop jam that doesn't let up.
Coming from the legendary Cleveland underground music scene that birthed everyone from Pere Ubu to up-and-comers Cloud Nothings, Filmstrip first garnered international media attention when they performed at the Sundance Film Festival in 2010. With a debut LP and two national tours under their belts, a split 7" with Fahri from Milwaukee in the works and a spring tour planned, Filmstrip are certainly keeping busy.
These site-specific performances examining the use of the female body to portray victory through various historical eras. Mott manipulates a series of discarded objects repurposed into new sonic contraptions; objects such as a leg built from discarded cardboard and plastic attached to the body creating sonic vibration when moved, a kitchen table reconstructed from a CEO's desk that, when struck, releases 1950's atomic bomb newsreels, and a set of wings built from discarded crutches which recreate the sounds of first flight attempts and air battles.
Three Track EP - In February of 2010 a band from Cleveland, Ohio broke onto the scene with their first three track demo. They put it together in Seth's house with an analog recorder only four months after they formed. This new sound proved to be a hit with anyone who heard it. Their first show at the Barking Spider(Cleveland), brought in a wave of Jazmine fans, and all that came were the first to take Carolina Jazmine home with them.
Debut Album - Carolina Jazmine's first, self titled album was released December 23rd, 2010. This eleven track, full length album was the start of their unique and interesting sound. With help from some friends, they put together a professional and appealing album that shows their independence as a group.
Midnight Moon(2nd Full Length Album) - The band is in the studio at this moment recording a seven track, full lenght album entitled, "Midnight Moon." This album aims to show a whole new togetherness and full body sound. The group feels that through their year and a half together, they've grown into an established sound, and this album will show this feeling.
**Due to be released Summer of 2011**
