Under the overarching title, The Future is Not What it Used to Be, the 2nd Istanbul Design Biennial explores the potential of the design manifesto to envision and interrogate the future, now. In our contemporary context of rapid social and political change, how might design manifestos address larger issues while remaining grounded in everyday life? Could the manifesto move beyond its Western origins and incorporate ideas from across cultures? Are new forms of media generating new forms of manifestos? Zoë Ryan, John H. Bryan Chair and Curator of Architecture and Design at the Art Institute of Chicago, and curator of the 2nd Istanbul Design Biennial, will discuss its making, which is on view through December 14, 2014.

Zoë Ryan is a curator and writer. She is the John H. Bryan Chair and Curator of Architecture and Design at the Art Institute of Chicago where she is building the museum’s first collection of contemporary design and expanding its architecture collection. Her recent exhibitions include Building: Inside Studio Gang Architects (2012); Fashioning the Object: Bless, Boudicca, and Sandra Backlund (2012); Bertrand Goldberg: Architecture of Invention (2011); and Hyperlinks: Architecture and Design (2010). Prior to working at the museum, Ryan was Senior Curator at the Van Alen Institute in New York. Ryan has authored and edited numerous publications, including, Building with Water: Designs, Concepts, Visions (Birkhauser Press, 2010). Ryan is often called upon as a juror and critic and has lectured on her work internationally. She has served on the advisory committee of the Experimenta Design Biennial in Lisbon, and has been a juror for the National Design Awards, Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum and the Wheelwright Fellowship, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University. Ryan is an Adjunct Associate Professor in the School of Design at the University of Illinois at Chicago and is a lecturer in the Art History Department of the School of the Art Institute.

This talk is presented in partnership with the Architecture & Design Society of the Art Institute of Chicago.

On November 8, Brooklyn-based artist and composer Robert A.A. Lowe will perform a new improvisation with voice, using a modular synthesizer amplified in quad sound.

Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe (b. 1975, Kansas City, MO) is an artist and composer who works with voice in the realm of spontaneous music, often under the moniker of Lichens. Interested in the physicality of sound, Lowe creates patch pieces using modular synthesizers and tonal vocalizations, both in live performance and recording. His music relies on the sensitivity of analogue modular systems to echo the organic nature of vocal expression in order to create a trance-like state and usher in a deeper listening through sound and feeling. Lowe has collaborated with Ben Russell, Ben Rivers, Sabrina Ratté, Rose Lazar, Nicolas Becker, Tarek Atoui, Evan Calder Williams, Ariel Kalma, Lucky Dragons, Doug Aitken, Hisham Akira Bharoocha, Patrick Smith, Monica Baptista, Kevin Martin, Chris Johanson, Tyondai Braxton, David Scott Stone and Rose Kallal, among others. Select performances include Doug Aitken's "Migration" happening at 303 Gallery (2008) and Princeton University (2010); "La Suite" for Serpentine Gallery (2012); "In the Wan Light of Napalm and Moon," a collaboration with Evan Calder Williams (2012); "Peradam" with Sabrina Ratté at EMPAC (2014); and Cinema du Réel at the Centre Georges Pompidou (2014).

This performance is presented in partnership with Lampo. Founded in 1997, Lampo is a non-profit organization for experimental music, sound art, and intermedia projects. Visit www.lampo.org.

Please note: Event entry is on a first-come, first-serve basis. Tickets do not guarantee entry, so please plan to arrive early. Doors will open at 7:30PM.

Now in their thirteenth season, The Seldoms create bold, thought-provoking dance that is driven by inquiry into contemporary issues, the history of art and ideas, and reflection on individual experiences. Known for their collaborations with visual artists, architects, composers, and fashion designers, the Chicago-based dance company has designed multi-disciplinary, site-specific performances in a variety of unconventional settings.

On November 5, The Seldoms will perform segments from their newest undertaking, RockCitizen—an inquiry into counterculture, rock music, and citizenship. In addition to the performance, The Seldoms' artistic director Carrie Hanson will lead a discussion about the multi-disciplinary, creative process behind the company's work.

The Seldoms are alchemists of artistic media who believe that movement—along with image, sound, text, and location—can expand action and environment into larger restless visions. Since 2001, the company has performed widely in Chicago, notably at the MCA, the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, and at The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago; at national venues including Joyce SoHo in New York; and internationally in Russia, Canada and Taiwan. The group has received numerous grants and awards, including a 2014 National Performance Network Creation Fund and a National Dance Project Production Grant.

Carrie Hanson, artistic director of The Seldoms, is a dance artist and educator. Since founding The Seldoms in 2001, she has made over twenty-five original works for the company. Interested in unconventional performance settings, she has placed dance in a cargo container, an Olympic-sized outdoor pool, and an architectural salvage store. She was a 2005 Chicago Dancemaker’s Forum Lab Artist, has twice been awarded an Illinois Arts Council Choreographic Fellowship, and received a Ruth Page Award for Performance. In 2012, Hanson was named one of “25 to Watch” by Dance Magazine.

Image: Photo Brian Kuhlmann

Related Links
The Seldoms
http://theseldoms.org

The Graham Foundation is pleased to continue its ongoing partnership with Lampo this fall with the premiere of Rene Hell’s “Bifurcating a Resounding No!” on Saturday, October 11. This latest project from Rene Hell draws from years of recorded sounds (acoustic instruments, field recordings, and voice) that the artist collected in cities across the U.S. and then shaped using various digital techniques.

Jeff Witscher a.k.a. Rene Hell (b. 1983, Long Beach, Calif.) is a visual artist, avid chess player, and music obsessive who has explored a variety of underground styles since his teens. His aesthetic choices, expressed over dozens of recordings released under many pseudonyms, have anticipated the shifts in U.S. experimental music spanning the last decade. Most recently, he received acclaim for synth albums Porcelain Opera and The Terminal Symphony (Type), a 2012 split release with Oneohtrix Point Never, and his newest recording, Vanilla Call Option (PAN). Witscher’s practice is peripatetic—roving styles, changing monikers and wide-ranging influences. Travel is central to Vanilla Call Option, with its digital palette constructed on the move between airports, performance spaces, and public libraries, to evoke the musique concrète of Bernard Parmegiani and the computer music of Charles Dodge. Witscher lives in Los Angeles.

This performance is presented in partnership with Lampo. Founded in 1997, Lampo is a non-profit organization for experimental music, sound art, and intermedia projects. Visit www.lampo.org. 

On Monday, October 6, writer and curator Justin McGuirk will discuss his new Graham-funded book, Radical Cities: Across Latin America in Search of a New Architecture. In this newly published title from Verso, McGuirk examines social and activist architecture in cities across Latin America.

Edwin Heathcote writes in the Financial Times: "In his fine and timely book Radical Cities, [McGuirk] takes a road trip to seek out not only the problems caused by rapid growth but also the most radical and influential ideas to have emerged in response over the past couple of decades...an intriguing picture of an activist urbanism and architecture that has made a real difference."

Justin McGuirk is a writer, critic, and curator based in London. He is the director of Strelka Press, the publishing arm of the Strelka Institute in Moscow. He has been the design critic of The Guardian, the editor of Icon magazine, and the design consultant to Domus. In 2012 he was awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale of Architecture for an exhibition he curated with Urban Think Tank. His book, Radical Cities: Across Latin America in Search of a New Architecture was published by Verso in spring 2014.

Image: Anonymous, "A view of the squatted Torre Confinanzas, Caracas, Venezuela." Photo: Justin McGuirk.

Related Grant: Justin McGuirk, Radical Cities: Across Latin America in Search of a New Architecture (Verso, 2014).

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