AMNMA feat. The Rios Family on February 21, 2016 @ 6:00 p.m.
Jake Harper is an artist who asked Silent Funny to host an event that he’s created as part of a series called AMNMA. He wanted to include the Rios Family, our neighbors who are artists, to be the guests of honor. Please join us to witness this eclectic, thoughtful, and dynamic event.
AMNMA is a site-specific performative interaction. In a sonic environment of stillness and space, one’s own shape becomes audible as if a bell that rings easily with no need of judgement.
An audience-driven ritual is enacted on a stage made of bubble wrap. Names are broken apart and algorithmically woven into a chant-like song. The names are pulled from the participant’s own family tree, activating genealogy as a material in the work. Environmental recordings become percussion instruments that beat to modular patters. Micro duration sounds and generational information work hand in hand, a diversity of timescales overlapping to create a multi-dimensional portrait of its subjects.
AMNMA has an optimistic goal, ultimately seeking to break apart the notion of the living being as a discreet object. The ritual draws the participant out, to rediscover themselves as a vibrating fabric containing multitudes.
Banrei is a composer and media artist based in Chicago. Working across an eclectic array of aesthetic investigations, Banrei’s work prompts questions of field, perception and duration. Live performance and installation are used to frame ritualistic encounters. Audiences are asked to interpret subtle transformations of space and become aware of that which exists at the edge of perception. Ultimately, Banrei seeks to break apart the notion of the living being as a discreet object. The ritual draws the listener out, to rediscover themselves as a vibrating fabric containing multitudes.
Born in Washington DC in 1988 and formerly of New York and Berlin-based Soundwalk Collective, Banrei has performed and exhibited work at venues around the world including the New Museum, the Centre Pompidou, Lille Fantastique, MuCEM, and the National Gallery of China.