Friday 11 December 2015, 8pm
Three-day residency curated by Sheffield-based multidisciplinary artist, Mark Fell, spanning distinctive approaches to sound, philosophy, plus a special installation from Fell in the OTO Project Space.
Tonight sees a special duo performance from revered electronic producer Rashad Becker and percussionist/composer Eli Keszler, as well as a set from electronic artist and producer Rian Treanor, a talk on time from philiosopher Simon Prosser (‘Is the passage of time an illusion?’) and a DJ set from Jean Shirt (Fear of a Crap Planet).
Mark Fell's work – ranging from minimal electronic music, to sound installations and audio-visual works – has placed him at the forefront of a rapidly expanding area of extreme and independent computer music and his explorations are never less than fascinating.
PAN artists Rashad Becker [Berlin] and Eli Keszler [NYC] will embark their first European tour in December. These two avant garde composers and fluent improvisers have performed as a duo only twice before, at the Empty Gallery in Hong Kong and in New York, so expect new ground will be broken with each show.
Eli Keszler is a composer, artist and multi-instrumentalist based in New York City. He has released two acclaimed albums for PAN, and was last heard on record in collaboration with another estimable jammer, Oren Ambarchi, and in collaboration with Tony Conrad, Christian Wolff and Joe Mcphee amongst many others.
Rashad Becker's live sets evolve around the angle of ‘traditional music of notional species’, a semi-abstract synthetic narrative that proves appealing to a remarkably wide audience.
Collaboration between the visionary soundscaper and virtuoso percussionist is a mouth-watering prospect, we're sure you'll agree.
British artist Rian Treanor's music is complex yet highly kinetic, reflecting equal interest in club culture and experimental sound design. He has released records on Planet Mu, Nyege Nyege Tapes, The Death of Rave and Warp sub-label Arcola. Using the programming language Max/MSP he develops bespoke software to explore extended rhythmic techniques and algorithmic processes, building devices that enable spontaneous pattern modulation within various collaborations, workshops, live performances and installations.
He has presented work at multiple leading arts festivals and residencies internationally inducing: Aphex Twin Curated Warehouse Project (UK), Nyege Nyege Festival (UG), WWW (JP), Bergen Electronic Kunsthall (NO), Le Guess Who? (NL) Unsound (PL), Mira Festival (SP), GES-2 (RU), Serralves (PT), Berghain (DE), CTM (DE), Rewire (NL), No Bounds (UK), Geometry of Now (PL), Cafe Oto (UK), Glasgow Centre for Contemporary Arts (UK), Empty Gallery (HK), Irish Museum of Modern Art (IRL), Summerhall (UK) among others. He has also taken part in artists residencies at yU+co[lab] in Hong Kong, Counterflows in India and Shape Platform 2020.
“I shall argue that, strange though it may sound, there is no such phenomenon as the passage of time. Philosophers distinguish two main theories about time: the 'A-theory' according to which there is a real 'now' and a real passage of time, and the 'B-theory', according to which there are times, and these are ordered (that is, any time is either earlier or later than any other time), but there is no real 'now', and time does not pass. I shall explain and defend the B-theory, and thus the view that time does not pass. I shall briefly discuss the main existing arguments against passage before describing an argument of my own. According to this argument, the main reason to believe that time passes is that our experience of the world seems to tell us that time passes, and that there is something special about the 'now'. I shall argue, however, that this must be an illusion, for there are very good reasons for believing that the alleged passage of time is not the kind of phenomenon that we could possibly be aware of through experience.”
http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/philosophy/dept/staffprofiles/?staffid=110
