A Synesthete’s Atlas: Cartographic Improvisations Between Eric Theise, Darien Baiza, and Paul Neidhardt
Baltimore, Maryland, United States
The Red Room at Normals Books and Records
Real-time cartographic improvisations using projected, manipulated digital maps by Eric Theise in collaboration with percussionists Darien Baiza and Paul Neidhardt. A visual wash of street grids, land masses, water bodies, and curiosities from built and natural environments. Driving beats. Orphaned labels and free-floating symbology. Auditory roundabouts and redirections. Saturated colors and the subtlest of tints. Sounds symphonic and screeching. Jittery zooms, pans, and traversals. Glitches in crowdsourced data.
This performance will last approximately 50 minutes and will occasionally introduce strobing effects that may affect photosensitive viewers.
Opening is Max Gong, who'll be playing trumpet with Supercollider digital signal processing and synthesis tools.
These performances are not a part of FOSS4GNA but are timed so that attendees of the "Icebreaker: Camp FOSS4G" will have time to travel the three miles between the Hilton Inner Harbor and Red Room.
Bios
Eric Theise is a San Francisco-based artist and geospatial software developer. Through video and realtime performance tools he reinvigorates the perceptual inquiries of structural filmmakers, experimental animators, the Light and Space movement, and 60's light shows, occasionally injecting letterform experiments inspired by visual poetry, as new possibilities in the realm of digital cartography.
Since its Lisbon premiere in April 2022, Theise has performed A Synesthete's Atlas in collaboration with local musical improvisors in dozens of East Coast, West Coast, Midwest, and Rocky Mountain cities; it’s been described as anti-cinema, post-cinema, and pre-cinema, as well as truly radical cartography.
Darien Baiza is an exploratory multi-percussionist, currently residing in the Baltimore area.
Baltimore-based percussionist Paul Neidhardt has been a member of High Zero and the Red Room Collective since 2004. Paul works locally as a drum instructor and dance accompanist. His performance work focuses on improvisation using extended techniques to create non-traditional drum sounds and textures. He currently plays in the percussion ensemble Umbilicus and hosts the monthly Volunteers Collective improvisation workshop at the Red Room.
Maxwell Gong is a Chinese American composer, improviser, and bandleader. His composition reflects his interests in movement and stasis, human imperfections and non-hierarchical collaboration. His works often engage with intensity and absurdity in electronic and acoustic environments.