AUX Performance Space

AUXBLOG moves!

2012-02-08T11:40:00.000-08:00

The website for AUX Performance Space has moved to a new location: voxpopuligallery.org/aux/. Check out the new site for future event listings, archival footage, and more!

Rhythms of Time Sharing: #Nightwatch2012 Score

2012-01-24T07:56:00.000-08:00

#Nightwatch2012 is a collaborative performance for mass participation, taking place on Twitter.

FRIDAY 27th JAN 2012 00:30 - 02:30 GMT/ THURSDAY 26th JAN 19:30 - 21:30 EST

Streamed live to RHYTHMS OF TIME SHARING curated by KIOSK in collaboration with Vox Populi Philadephia at AUX Performance Space in Philadelphia.

Participating artists: Joanna Brown, Tiffany Charrington, Eddy Dreadnought, Sally Labern, Tamarin Norwood, Mary Paterson and Natasha Vicars.

The artists will tweet to a score published in advance. To join in, please follow the score and tweet to #Nightwatch2012

#Nightwatch 2012 Score

1. Tweet from 00:30-02:30 GMT on Friday 27th Jan/ 19:30-21:30 EST Thursday 26th Jan
2. Tweet about the night.
3. Tweet to #Nightwatch2012
4. Start by naming your location, your timezone and the rhythm of your night.
5. End by naming your location, your timezone and the rhythm of your night.
6. Inbetween, follow the words, thoughts and rhythms of the other tweeters.

Rhythms of Time Sharing curated by KIOSK collective, 26 January

2012-01-23T07:09:00.000-08:00

COLLABORATION IS SOCIAL: Continuing AUX's Art Writing event series, London based KIOSK collective presents the latest installment of their project Rhythms of Time Sharing (RoTS). RoTS explores the current shift in contemporary art practice towards participatory and performative work. Live performances at AUX meet nocturnal performances streamed live across the Alantic from KIOSK's South East London studio via Skype, Twitter, UStream, and SMS, utilizing the shifts and cohesions of different spaces and time zones to question participation as a utopian artistic pursuit.

Free and open to all. Thursday, 26 January, 7.30pm.

KIOSK COLLECTIVE
NIGHTWATCH
BONNIE JONES
HELEN KAPLINKSY
JOAO ENUXTO AND ERICA LOVE
THE COLLECT
MATT KALASKY

To view and participate in the #nightwatch2012 Twitter performance, follow the hashtag and check back to the AUX blog where we will be publishing the score.

GUNN-TRUSCINSKI DUO, WEYES BLOOD, DANIEL BACHMAN - JAN 7

2012-01-03T13:58:00.000-08:00

ETERNAL TOUR: DESERTING LAS VEGAS - DEC 7

2011-12-01T11:49:00.001-08:00

The Beautiful Refrigerator is Empty - Friday October 28

2011-10-25T09:57:00.000-07:00

Join us this FRIDAY OCT 28 at 7:30PM
NO FACE PERFORMANCE GROUP presents THE BEAUTIFUL REFRIGERATOR IS EMPTY

This event is a fundraiser for NO FACE's upcoming tour, so come out to see the show and support the artists.

Monday night screening of Sweet Movie curated by Egina Manachova

2011-10-07T14:16:00.000-07:00

Join us this coming Monday, October 10, at 7:30PM for a screening of Dusan Makavejev's Sweet Movie curated by Egina Manachova.

Scatological dinner parties in bizarre bohemian trenches, a candy shop that operates aboard an aquatic likeness of Karl Marx, and a beauty pageant with a gynecological finish, Dusan Makavejev’s Sweet Movie is a feverish, fantastical nightmare of crude indulgences. Although largely unknown even among cinephiles, Makavejev’s oeuvre is a violently provocative, sexually lewd and visually stunning collection of politically charged auteur cinema. Known as "a master of historical irony", Makavejev crafted Sweet Movie in 1974 with a double-edged blade aimed at cutting apart capitalist bourgeoisie notions of individualism as well as communist ideals of collectivism. This exemplar of international radical seventies cinema is neither for the faint of heart nor humor.

This is the first in a series of monthly screenings curated by Egina Manachova. The screening will follow a short introduction to the film and Makavejev's work. Runtime 98 minutes.

AUX presents Freedom & Sound

2011-09-14T12:16:00.000-07:00

Holding our torch to the approaching High Zero Festival in Baltimore, AUX presents Freedom & Sound: three intense nights of musique concrète, acoustic improvisation and live electronic music curated by Breathmint, Bowerbird, and Philadelphia Sound Forum.

On September 20, Breathmint presents Berlin-based Joke Lanz in his Sudden Infant guise, an artist working between performance and body art, improvisation and noise. Praised in Independent Electronic Music as evoking “the anguish of freedom,” Lanz’s extreme form of musique concrète juxtaposes spasmodic gibbering with a battery of disorienting electronics. Also playing are Philly-based experimental, acoustic-instrumental and computer-based bands FUN, Nagler & Kudler Duo, and Savage Relatives.

Bowerbird brings acclaimed artist-composers from London and San Francisco to AUX on September 21. Former physicist, musical guru John Butcher produces multitracked saxophone pieces and improvisational explorations with feedback and extreme acoustics. According to The Wire, he brings “a wholly other kind of physicality to his chosen instrument's full-on, free-blowing post-Coltrane legacy, creating weirdly ectoplasmic clusters of fluttering beats and tones.” Thomas Lehn works with live electronic music grounded in analogue sound synthesis. Drawing on his experience as a pianist, Lehn’s individual musical language gives an acoustic inner syntax to electronic sound compositions. Philadelphia’s live hardware pulse (de)constructors, Dave Smolen / hair_loss, fresh off their self titled split LP, open the night.

Philadelphia Sound Forum curates the final night. John Bischoff, an early pioneer of live computer music, builds sounds from intrinsic features of the electronic medium: high definition noise components, tonal edges, imperfections, transitions, digital shading, and non-linear motion. The Los Angeles Times describes his music’s visceral edge: “You were there, even without understanding where ‘there’ was.” Mark Trayle works in a variety of media including live electronic music, installations, improvisation, and compositions for chamber ensembles. As Electronic Musician puts it: “Few musicians go to Trayle's level of musical and technological extremes.” Charles Cohen and Joe Lentini, Philly-based electronic mainstays, pair up to start off the evening.

Vox Populi’s new performance venue AUX launched in the stifling heat of mid-summer.

2011-09-14T11:43:00.002-07:00

On Friday July 29, the space was packed to capacity with local artists, Vox Populi members, musicians, students and the culturally curious squeezing into every corner to get a view of dancer Gabrielle Revlock and violinist Jacob Mitas producing geometric and organic shapes using the “line” (bow) and “circle” (hula hoop). The duo Bobby & Jean, and artist-run space Bodega also presented live work.

Saturday’s performances ranged in style from the touching to the absurd, curated by Little Berlin in partnership with Philadelphia ICA’s Kate Kraczon. We witnessed a slideshow of teenage snapshots and diary entries; hilarious, brash puppetry; comedy song and dance riffing off pop obsessions; burlesque; and an insane rock three-piece. This ragbag program acted as a complement to Little Berlin’s June exhibition EPIC PAIN, loosely based on adolescent creativity.

Sunday’s programming belonged to collective Tiger Strikes Asteroid, which shares Vox Populi’s building. Performers Jesse Kudler and Kimberly Brandt worked with muscle memory, spatial set-ups, and the nature and parameters of concert performance. Curator Maiza Hixson screened interviews, conducted on AUX’s opening night, about subjective aesthetic experience.

Philly’s live arts scene is thriving, way beyond the artist-led groups that helped us to produce such a fantastic launch event – and we’ll be covering many of the city’s performance events on this blog. Live projects and screenings will continue to happen at AUX on a regular basis, many of them being free of charge. We hope to see many of the same faces at AUX in the future, and if you’d like to contribute to the program, we’re ready to accept submissions.

AUXBLOG launched!

2011-09-14T11:43:00.000-07:00

Please stay tuned as this blog grows--into an archive of programming at AUX, a comprehensive calendar of Philadelphia’s independent performing arts, and an open platform for dialogue about current live and time-based work.