Residency Period: May 2013

Dave Tompkins, writer and cultural critic

Dave Tompkins visits Miami to research for his forthcoming publication, which speaks to properties of 808 Bass through a sub-history of ossified invertebrates, man-made beaches, riots, skate rinks, cocaine, coral reefs, sea cucumbers, and a U-boat attack in 1942. Tompkins’s first book, How To Wreck A Nice Beach: The Vocoder From World War II To Hip-Hop, is now available in paperback. Amazon named it entertainment book of the year in 2010. He has lectured on the vocoder in Poland, Norway, Germany, and at the NSA’s National Cryptology Symposium. He has contributed to Slate, Grantland, Paris Review, Oxford American, and The Wire, where he wrote a hip-hop column for eight years. Born in North Carolina, he currently lives in Brooklyn. For more crosstalk and mixes, go to howtowreckanicebeach.com.

Machine Project is an informal, non-profit, educational institution located in a storefront space in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. Consisting of a loose group of artist/performer collaborators, Machine Project hosts a variety of events—scientific talks, poetry readings,  musical performances, competitions, group naps, and cheese tastings—and educational workshops exploring electronics, sewing, pickling, computer programming, and car theft, among other topics.

In November and December (2012), four of Machine Project’s collaborators, Mark Allen, Juliana Snapper, Asher Hartman, and Corey Fogel, conducted research residencies at Cannonball. The resulting magic from their time in Miami materializes into a series of site-specific performances throughout town in March and April (2013). David Fenster will showcase the performances in a film, which will be projected at a major public event this summer. Check back soon for more details.

Juliana Snapper
Residency Period: April 2013

In April, Juliana Snapper will return to Miami to perform a sequence of original duets with local vocalists in ordinary workspaces such as tollbooths, truck cabs, and drawbridge towers. The duets, co-written by each collaborating pair, will reflect the particular collision of its singers: its sonic texture, character and mood, shaped by their physical instruments and the songs they have listened to and sung throughout their lives. The large windows in each tiny work booth-turned-theater look out onto the Miami landscape and offer a view in on the action. Each space, because of the glass surfaces and smallness, will bounce and amplify the duets in unpredictable ways.

Exiled from the opera houses of Europe and the Americas, Los Angeles soprano Juliana Snapper makes strange little operas in unlikely situations, often at great personal risk and invariably drawing her toward financial ruin. Playing at the acoustical, expressive, and interpersonal limits of the noisy body, she challenges her own and others’ voices to produce meaning in unexpected ways. Juliana earned her bachelor degree in vocal performance from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and graduate degrees in critical musicology from the University of California, San Diego. Her large-scale works are regularly part of international festivals. Closer to home she usually experiments on a smaller scale in venues like The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, PS1/MoMA, New York, and REDCAT, Los Angeles.

For more information on the artist, please visit www.julianasnapper.org

Asher Hartman
Residency Period: April 2013

Asher Hartman is an interdisciplinary artist, independent curator, and psychic based in Los Angeles. His practice centers on the exploration of the self in relation to Western histories and ideologies. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including shows at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis;  Beijing Open Performance Festival, Beijing; Hayward Gallery, London; Cultural Center of the Philippines, Manila; Recontres International, Paris and Berlin;  Torrance Art Museum, CA; MIX, New York;  London Underground Film Fest and Images, UK; and in a number of Los Angeles venues including Machine Project, LACE, Sea and Space Exhibitions, Monte Vista Projects, Human Resources, and The Hammer Museum.

Hartman’s curatorial projects include Defense at the Sweeney Art Gallery in Riverside; Until We Come to One that Reminds Us, (with Amy Green), Monte Vista Projects, Los Angeles; Instruments of Risk (with Carol McDowell), Sea and Space Explorations, Los Angeles; and A Little Louder: Performance in Conversation, Kristi Engle Gallery, Los Angeles. As a member of the psychic duo Krystal Krunch (with Haruko Tanaka), Hartman has presented and performed at Machine Project, Los Angeles; Southern Exposure, San Francisco; Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh; The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Apiary Studios, London; Spaces, Cleveland; and California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, among other venues. Hartman received his BA from University of California, Los Angeles, and his MFA from California Institute of the Arts, Valencia.

For more information on the artist, please visit www.asherhartman.com.
For more information on Krystal Krunch, visit www.krystalkrunch.com.

The Florida Room
Written and directed by Asher Hartman

For his project in Miami, Asher Hartman writes and directs a new play titled The Florida Room. This two-hour live, public performance will take place at two private residences in the MiMo district of Miami and feature actors Franc Baliton, Rochelle Fabb, Michael Morrissey, Paul Outlaw, and Joe Seely. The play’s narrative follows a man who has becomes so alienated from himself at mid-life that he is split into beings, gradually becoming a deity whose creative and destructive impulses have a profound effect on his closest friends who’ve come to help him in the home he’s house sitting.  Beneath the mythically charged plot is a terse exploration of psychological violence, debt, friendship, and the American quest for security.  Audiences watch as the play unfolds around them. Musical, nastily funny, and haunting, The Florida Room makes us think about the deep emotional attachment we have to the material world. Contains adult content.

Corey Fogel
Residency Period: May 2013

Performance artist and drummer Corey Fogel looks to the architecture and grounds of Vizcaya Museum & Gardens as a platform to create an ephemeral, experiential work that invokes the museum’s authentic and timeless creative spirit. Fogel premieres Mending Mendl (Drapery conceals the unicorn table) at Vizcaya, where music, color, gesture, and material forms coalesce into a sensual exploration of the site’s culture, history, and, as suggested in Josiah McElheny’s recent film The Light Club of Vizcaya: A Women’s Picture, the notions of an experimental subculture.

For this live public performance, viewers will experience Vizcaya’s lush gardens in an alternative way by following a processional of individual performers and musicians, materials, and sounds. This daisy chain of sensory experiments will guide viewers to Vizcaya’s iconic stone barge in the Bay. Populated by a chamber ensemble of strings, horns, and percussion, the barge will pulsate with an original composition written by Fogel specifically for Vizcaya.

Based in Los Angeles, Corey Fogel performs and composes in rock, jazz, folk, and chamber music capacities. His solo work is based on spontaneous encounters with sounds, objects, personalities, textiles, and foods, and often incorporates video, dance, and installation. He has played for Missincinatti, The Mae Shi, Gowns, Cryptacize, Barbez, Monstro, The Curtains, Learning Music, Nowcloud, Dominique Leone, and 18 Squared. His work has been featured at Machine Project; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Human Resources; The Wulf; The Hammer Museum; and REDCAT (all Los Angeles).

For more information on the artist, please visit knitdrums.tumblr.com.