2019 — The Lab

The Lab

The Lab is a nonprofit experimental art and performance space located in the Mission District of San Francisco.


Tom Hall + Scott Arford + Jorge Bachmann
Aug
31
8:00 PM20:00

Tom Hall + Scott Arford + Jorge Bachmann

8pm doors / 8:30pm performance
$15 general admission / Free for members
Reserve seats: member login or guest registration

Tom Hall is an Australian audio/visual artist, residing in Los Angeles. His practice involves extensive exploration into place, space and time. Inspired by peripheral environments found in the everyday, he focuses on an exploratory discourse to engage and recontextualize found materials, using sound and imagery as a means to translate and create hybrid environments through temporal translations. These outcomes vary and include drone, melody, glitch and installations; portrayed using analog and digital synthesis, computer programming and reactionary visuals. Hall has released a number of recordings in the past two decade on labels such as Elli records, Overlap, Arlen, and Presto!? along with extensive exhibitions and live performance tours worldwide. Hall also works as a Content Developer for the revered Cycling ’74, creators of the visual programming language Max/MSP & Jitter. http://tomhall.com.au

Scott Arford works with sound, video and space. He has been active in the Bay Area's underground music and art scene since 1995. His work spans styles and mediums and includes live a/v performance, installations, and recorded works. Arford has shown work globally including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Sounding Festivals in Guangzhou, China and Taipei, Taiwan, Liquid Architecture in Melbourne, Australia, Sonic Light in Amsterdam, and the Center for Contemporary Arts in Kitakyushu, Japan. His awards include an Honorable Mention in the 2005 Prix Ars Electronica. Arford received a Bachelor of Architecture from the College of Architecture and Design at Kansas State University in 1991. http://www.7hz.org

Jorge Bachmann is a San Francisco based Sound Artist and curator. He has been involved in San Francisco's experimental music/dance scene since the early 2000. Working across a wide range of explorations, Bachmann's work is eclectic, going from subtle "Musique Concrète" Soundscapes to analog modular synth minimalism. Since the early 1980's he has been exploring the strange, unique and microscopic sounds of everyday life. Collecting field recordings and creating immersive soundscapes. Blurring the boundaries between wilderness sound environments and man-made sounds. Bachmann has composed music for MOBU Dance troupe and Christine Bonansea Dance Company. He has performed and exhibited in North America, Europe, Japan, Taiwan and South America. In 2009 he performed his audio-visual piece, "Coleoptera", at the 10th Francisco Electronic Music Festival. In recent years he has performed and improvised with the likes of Alessandro Cortini, Bryan Day, Michael Gendreau, Mason Jones, David Graves, Danishta Rivero, Markus Hawkings, Yuko Matsuyama, Kevin Corcoran, Jaroba and Takahiro Kawaguchi. His last solo album "Mare Island" is on Ithaca's VauxFlores Industrial label. At present he is also part of the bands, “Faults”, "Collision Stories" and "audre". http://soundcloud.com/ruidobello/

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Pamela Z
Aug
29
8:00 PM20:00

Pamela Z

8:00pm Doors / 8:30 pm Performance
ALL SEATS HAVE BEEN RESERVED – Standing room and floor seats will be released at the door depending on space. Add your name to the queue at the front desk when you arrive and we will start releasing spaces at 8:20pm

The San Francisco Arts Commission is thrilled to present legendary composer, performer, and media artist Pamela Z in a live performance of works for solo voice, electronics, and projected image. This performance is planned in conjunction with side by side/in the world, an exhibition on view at the SFAC Main Gallery which explores the idea of sanctuary through the work of ten California artists including Pamela Z. For the exhibition, Z presents Suitcase, a mixed media installation which features a suitcase as both a bag and a home for a video projection of a vulnerable and inconsolable female subject that occupies it. Part of a larger work called Baggage Allowance, Suitcase asks the viewer to think about the things we carry with us both physically and emotionally when we travel by choice or by necessity.

Pamela Z is a composer/performer and media artist who makes solo works combining a wide range of vocal techniques with electronic processing, samples, gesture activated MIDI controllers, and video. She has toured extensively throughout the US, Europe, and Japan. Her work has been presented at venues and exhibitions including Bang on a Can (NY), the Japan Interlink Festival, Other Minds (SF), the Venice Biennale, and the Dakar Biennale. She's created installations and has composed scores for dance, film, and chamber ensembles (including Kronos Quartet). Her awards include the Rome Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Doris Duke Artist Impact Award, the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation residency, the Herb Alpert Award, and an Ars Electronica honorable mention, and the NEA/Japan-US Fellowship. pamelaz.com

Image: Pamela Z performing at Ars Electronica in Linz, Austria Photo: rubra (courtesy of Ars Electronica)

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The poetry and tidal wave of Mahogany L. Browne with Tongo Eisen-Martin
Aug
18
7:30 PM19:30

The poetry and tidal wave of Mahogany L. Browne with Tongo Eisen-Martin

7:30pm doors / 8pm readings
$8 entry (no one turned away for lack of funds), free for members

Originally from San Francisco, Tongo Eisen-Martin is a poet, movement worker, and educator. His latest curriculum on extrajudicial killing of Black people, We Charge Genocide Again, has been used as an educational and organizing tool throughout the country. His book titled, "Someone's Dead Already" was nominated for a California Book Award. His latest book "Heaven Is All Goodbyes" was published by the City Lights Pocket Poets series, was shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize and won a California Book Award and an American Book Award.

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Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener, Phillip Greenlief, and Evelyn Davis
Aug
16
8:00 PM20:00

Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener, Phillip Greenlief, and Evelyn Davis

8pm doors / 8:30pm performance
$15 general admission / Free for members
Reserve seats: member login or guest registration

Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener: Dance
Phillip Greenlief: Saxophone
Evelyn Davis: Piano 

Since 2010 Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener have created dance in response to complex and active spatial environments, often merging elements of fantasy, absurdity, and quiet contemplation into challenging multifaceted performance. After working together in the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Mitchell and Riener developed a keen interest in the way abstraction and representation coincide in the body. Their collaborative work takes many forms, from site-specific installations, improvisational dances, and traditional proscenium pieces to highly crafted and intimate, immersive experiences. Historical influences and aesthetic forms collapse into a visually charged hybrid physical language. Together they have been part of Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Extended Life Dance Development program, the New York City Center Choreographic Fellowship, and have been artists in residence at EMPAC, Mount Tremper Arts, Wellesley College, Jacob’s Pillow, and Pieter. Their work has been presented at MOMA PS1 as part of Greater NY, The Chocolate Factory, New York Live Arts, Danspace Project, REDCAT, ICA Boston and Summer Stages Dance, the Walker Art Center, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, On the Boards, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

Since his emergence on the west coast in the late 1970s, saxophonist Phillip Greenlief has achieved international critical acclaim for his recordings and performances with musicians and composers in the post-jazz continuum as well as new music innovators and virtuosic improvisers. He has performed and recorded with Wadada Leo Smith, Meredith Monk, Rashaun Mitchell and They Might Be Giants; albums include That Overt Desire of Object with Joelle Leandre, All At Once with FPR (Frank Gratkowski, Jon Raskin, PG), and Lantskap Logic with Fred Frith and Evelyn Davis. Recent residencies have included Headlands Center for the Arts and the Banff Center for the Arts. His critical writing has been published in Artforum, SFMOMA's Open Space, and Signal to Noise.

Detroit native and general wanderer Evelyn Davis is an inside/prepared/new music pianist, improvisor, pipe organist, composer, vocalist, synthesist, teacher, songstress, and maker of /participator in oddly shaped musics with an occasional side of performance art. She is an improviser that has recorded with Phillip Greenlief, Fred Frith, and Michael Zerang, among many other esteemed musicians from Chicago and the SF Bay Area. She has appeared at several prog festivals in Europe, including Rock in Opposition festival in Carmeaux, France, and Different Sounds Festival in Lublin, Poland.  Evelyn holds degrees in Jazz from Southwestern Community College, in Composition from Indiana University, and a Master’s degree in Performance and Improvisation from Mills College. Evelyn created and performed the music of Frankenixon, with the help of guitarist Joe Kiplinger.

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