Still, Makino Takashi and Jim O’Rourke, The Seasons, 2009.
If a three-bar, bouncer-peppered, profit-centric venue like Music Hall of Williamsburg seems somewhat of stretch for a “show case” of what is ostensibly the most fiercely anti-commercial and anti-hegemonic music today, try a major metropolitan museum. Those of us who relied solely on the No Fun website for information on the lineup this year will be surprised to learn that the festival had not only one new home this year, but two — along with a brand new “Infinite Sound and Image” component, which is longhand for “film screening.” Recognizing that many of the artists on the bill this year are active outside the purely musical sphere — and, perhaps, that the noise experience in general is not only about what we hear, but, almost always also what we see and feel — Carlos Giffoni teamed with Rhizome’s ongoing “New Silent Series” for an afternoon of moving image work at the New Museum on the Bowery.
Posts Tagged ‘Horizons’
No Fun 2009: Infinite Sound and Image: No Fun Goes to New York’s New Museum
Saturday, May 30th, 2009Noise and Failure: Collaborative Performances at Paris London (Brooklyn)
Monday, March 2nd, 2009
Noise is not for most people. It’s a challenging form of music and involves, by definition, intrusive sounds that one resists instinctively. One way to come to an understanding of the genre is through the live setting, where, as with a rock show, there is a bodily confrontation with the performer and their visceral squall. The live form of noise raises many ambiguities because the goals of the performers are not always clear: sometimes they seem confrontational, sometimes indifferent. So, what makes the live performance good or bad? I find myself considering this while taking in a collaborative, improvisational noise show in Brooklyn this past weekend.
