A TRIBUTE TO TONY CONRAD
with C. Spencer Yeh + a film program
Non-Event, Balagan, and Le Laboratoire Cambridge present A Tribute to Tony Conrad featuring Tony Conrad: Completely In the Present (documentary, 2016) The Flicker (film by Tony Conrad, 1966) C. Spencer Yeh, solo violin improvisations.
A TRIBUTE TO TONY CONRAD
Tony Conrad: Completely In the Present (documentary, 2016)
The Flicker (film by Tony Conrad, 1966)
C. Spencer Yeh, solo violin improvisation
5pm: doors
5:30pm: screening Tony Conrad: Completely in the Present (2016, 96 minutes)
Intermission (dinner break!)
8pm: screening The Flicker (1966)
8:45pm: performance C. Spencer Yeh solo violin improvisation
TONY CONRAD: COMPLETELY IN THE PRESENT is a non-fiction film examining the pioneering life and works of filmmaker, musician, artist and educator, Tony Conrad. Tony Conrad was one the great American artists of his time, yet to the world at large he remains criminally under appreciated. Since the early 1960s, Conrad's films and compositions have been the stuff of legend for artists and musicians everywhere. He performed in and recorded the soundtrack to Jack Smith’s legendary Flaming Creatures; he laid bare the paradigms of cinema with The Flicker, a film composed of only black and white frames; his powerful and startling drone compositions still have the music establishment scratching their heads; his early work with La monte Young and John Cale played a role in the formation of The Velvet Underground; as an early adopter of activist public access television he democratized the emerging medium of portable video for ordinary citizens. His vast, fifty year inter-disciplinary repertoire inspired and confounded generations of artists, collaborators and fans. In his later years he continued to perform and make work that pushed the boundaries of reason for which he has finally begun to receive worldwide attention. Utilizing intimate footage of Tony and his collaborators shot over the last twenty-two years, as well as his own archive of recordings and films, Tony Conrad: Completely in the Present mirrors Conrad’s own playfully radical approach to art making. The non-linear structure allows Conrad to wildly free associate his streams of consciousness, revealing an honest and humane way of navigating a remarkable, creative life.
THE FLICKER (1966) is Tony Conrad's most notorious film; it moves audiences into some space and time in which they may look around and find the movie happening in the room there with them. Much has been written about THE FLICKER. It is a library of peculiar visual materials, referenced to the frame-pulse at 24 frames per second. Warning: All flickering light is potentially hazardous for photogenic epileptics or photogenic migraine sufferers.
C. SPENCER YEH is recognized for his interdisciplinary activities and collaborations as an artist, improviser, and composer, as well his music project Burning Star Core. Recent presentations of work include "Modern Mondays" at MoMA NYC, "Sound Horizon" at the Walker Art Center Minneapolis MN, "Closer to the Edge" in Singapore and "Crossing Over" in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia, "Martha Friedman: Some Hags" at the NYU IFA Great Hall NYC, "Ed Atkins: Performance Capture" at the Kitchen NYC, "The Companion" at the Liverpool Biennial, “99 Objects” at the Whitney Museum NYC, the Berwick Film and Media Arts Festival, "Tony Conrad Tribute" at Atelier Nord/Ultima Festival in Oslo Norway, "Great Tricks From Your Future" at D-CAF in Cairo Egypt, Borderline Festival in Athens Greece, Kinomuzeum at Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw Poland, the Lausanne Underground Film and Music Festival, Music Unlimited in Wels Austria, and LAMPO at the Renaissance Society in Chicago IL. Yeh also collaborated with Triple Canopy for their contribution to the Whitney Biennial in 2014. He was a 2015 Artist-in-Residence at ISSUE Project Room NYC, and was included in the performance program for Greater New York at MoMA/PS1.
Recent recordings include "Solo Voice I-X" (Primary Information), "Wake Up Awesome," with Okkyung Lee and Lasse Marhaug (Software Recording Company), “Long Pig” by New Monuments, his trio with Ben Hall and Don Dietrich (Bocian), and "Schlager" with Ken Vandermark.
Yeh also volunteers as a programmer and trailer editor for Spectacle Theater, a microcinema in Brooklyn NY. His video works are distributed by Electronic Arts Intermix. He is also a contributing editor to Triple Canopy and BOMB magazine, as well as contributing to The Third Rail and Personal Best.
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ArtScienceConverged is the 24th experiment of Le Laboratoire, and a public introduction to the inaugural World Frontiers Forum, a global initiative aimed at sparking creative action around a sustainable and inclusive human future. The cultural exhibition blends the Lab's futurist experimentation with the culinary program of Café ArtScience. Artists, scientists, engineers, designers and other creators bring to the public performances, exhibitions, and conversations at 15 frontiers of tomorrow, ranging from biology to architecture, transportation and contemporary art. In the future of a sustainable human experience all frontiers merge.