Robert Ashley

https://roulette.org/event/perfect-lives-screening/

Save Friday, June 9 for the special 40-year anniversary PERFECT LIVES screening and celebration at Roulette Intermedium in Brooklyn! https://roulette.org/event/perfect-lives-screening/

The Brick and Object Collection present
Automatic Writing⁠
A Staged Adaptation of Robert Ashley’s Seminal 1979 Composition⁠
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October 26–29 @ 7pm⁠
October 30 @ 5pm⁠
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Tix available at bricktheater.com⁠

The Brooklyn-based performance group Object Collection, acclaimed for its invigorating blend of music and theater, will remount its live, staged adaptation of Robert Ashley’s seminal studio composition, Automatic Writing (1979). The piece premiered at Incubator Arts Project in 2011, with subsequent performances in London and Birmingham in 2014. This revised adaptation will take place at The Brick in Brooklyn, October 26–30, 2022.⁠
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Adapted by Travis Just and Kara Feely⁠
Directed and Designed by Kara Feely⁠
Fulya Peker and Travis Just (voice)⁠
Aaron Meicht (vocal processing)⁠
John Hastings (guitar)⁠
Kara Feely (actions)⁠
Paula Matthussen (programming/electronics)⁠
David Pym (video)⁠
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On a stage strewn with television monitors, video cameras, and dim pools of slowly shifting light, Object Collection evokes the four characters – or parts – while crafting an environment that aims to heighten the enigma and melancholic mood of the original. Performers inhabit four disparate islands, contributing to a dense sound environment. The recording, which never had a score for performance, is treated as a composition that can be interpreted instead of recreated: Genders and languages get switched up, electronics are used over analog, and objects and scenic elements are introduced to give the work a visual dynamic. The result is a mirage-like, transient, and vibrant environment, conducive to listening to the music, as well as enriching it.