Sonic Front Performance at Front Room Gallery for Williamsburg Second Friday

sonicfront at Front Room Gallery 
147 Roebling Street Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Friday, May 8th 8-10PM
http://www.frontroom.org

INSECT ARK
SEYHAN MUSAOGLU
THE SENSORIUM SAXOPHONE ORCHESTRA

sonic front is an exploration of electro-acoustic improvisation, electronic music, and sound art.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES

INSECT ARK started as a the one-woman solo project of bassist/multi-instrumentalist Dana Schechter. Formed in late 2011, Insect Ark has been building a following in the experimental/doom/drone scene in both her hometown of NYC and internationally.

Starting in Jan 2015, San Francisco-based drummer Ashley Spungin (Taurus) joined on drums and synthesizers. Schechter will perform solo when Spungin is on the west coast.

Creating a personal soundtrack to the human psyche’s underbelly, Insect Ark weaves a brooding, textural landscape, a starless night spiked with light and flash. The music braids together delay-drenched lapsteel, drums, distorted bass & synths to create a sonic mural both uncomfortably intimate and icy cold.

Schechter has a history working with other projects, notably as bassist in M. Gira’s Angels of Light (Swans) and her own band Bee and Flower. Spungin is known for her work with Portland based bands Taurus and Purple Rhinestone Eagle. Schechter is also an animator and video artist working in the film business by trade.

Insect Ark’s first full-length album, “Portal/Well” will be released  on CD with Autumnsongs Records, June 2015.
Previous releases include the 10” Vinyl EP “Long Arms” (2013, Geweih Ritual Documents) and the 7” Vinyl “Collapsar” (2012, Lancashire and Somerset Records).

On these first three releases, Schechter played and recorded all the instruments in her Brooklyn studio.

The new duo incarnation of Insect Ark recorded their first single together, “Windless”, to be released as a lathe cut 7" for Utech Records and will be touring in June 2015 in support of Portal/Well.

www.insectark.com
www.facebook.com/InsectArk

Insect Ark Photo Credit: Caroline Harrison

SEYHAN MUSAOGLU is a multi-media artist whose work spans the fields of live performance, sound art, film and video, and 2-D media. Drawing inspiration from diverse sources ranging from science fiction imagery, to fashion, to modern dance choreography, her work investigates the gap between sound production and music composition, contemporary feminist theory, and the history of avant-garde filmmaking. She has been performing widely with collaborations celebrated internationally in genres of sound and experimental noise. She is also an innovative independent curator, and is the founder of the multi-purpose art space SPACE DEBRIS. Seyhan holds an MFA from Parsons the New School for Design. Some of the venues her work has been presented at are: The Kitchen (NYC), New York Studio Gallery (NYC), Lit Lounge (NYC), Curta 8 Film Festival (Brazil), and Istanbul’s famed venue, Babylon.

THE SENSORIUM SAXOPHONE ORCHESTRA formed in 2008 as NYC's first full-on Saxophone Orchestra. Since then, SENSORIUM has enchanted NYC audiences at Douglas Street Music Collective, Goodbye Blue Monday, Issue Project Room, Brooklyn Lyceum, Gershwin Hotel, Shea Stadium, House of Elders, White Box Gallery, 17 Frost Gallery, Midtown Manhattan Library, Spectrum, The Front Room Gallery and The WAH Center.

Their unique single-timbre take on Terry Riley's minimalist classic "In C" is available on Living Records, Wayside Music (Cuneiform Records), and Downtown Music Gallery. The Pulse was provided by a Snare Drum rather than the traditional Piano Pulse, suggested by Roger Miller. The orchestra performed IN C numerous times including at the Midtown Manhattan Library without a Pulse.

"...a haunting dissonant swoon like that of battling church organs, or a swarm of bugs."
- Village Voice, Christopher Weingarten, 2009

http://www.benmiller.info/SSO.html
http://www.sensoriumsaxophone.com/
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sensorium-Saxophone-Orchestra/277106168999578?ref=hl

Sasha Bezzubov: "The Republic of Dust" on view through May 17

                                       
Sasha Bezzubov: The Republic of Dust

April 17th-May 17th, 2015
Viewing hours: Fri-Sun 1-6 and by appointment 

The Front Room Gallery is proud to present "The Republic of Dust," a solo exhibition of new photographs by the artist, Sasha Bezzubov. "The Republic of Dust" is a series of landscapes and portraits of foreigners and locals who coexist in the threatened environment of the Republic of Gabon's rainforest region: a microcosm of global trade and its ruinous effects.

Bezzubov, known for his previous work addressing such subjects as global warming and natural disasters continues his investigation into the impact of humanity's interaction with the natural environment. His photo- graphs, shot with a large format view camera (8x10" and 5x7") are so sharp the dried soil caking the fern leaves on the Gabonese road seems to flake off onto the floor before ones very eyes.

Bezzubov's photographs capture the beauty of the landscape and the massive upheaval caused by the extraction industries (such as timber, rubber, manganese, among other national resourcesgatheredfromtheforestand the land) on the tropical forests in the Republic of Gabon, considered one of the worlds most precious ecosystems.

In Bezzubov's photographs one can see the rainforest is now crisscrossed by logging roads that cut deep into the interior. The dust created in the wake of passing trucks, which cart enormous trees to the port, covers everything in sight. The rainforest turns deep red as the trucks leave behind clouds of dust. This dust settles on plants, smothering them and transforming their natural greens with an industrial concoction of red glow. 

In Bezzubov's Gabonese portraits an unlikely mix of locals and foreigners coexist in this forest, often with great tension. There are Gabonese villagers and indigenous Pygmies, migrant workers from neighboring countries, European technicians working in extracting industries, Chinese laborers, drug tourists, and a motley crew of conservationists, scientists, activists that come together in resource rich regions of the developing world. 

Bezzubov is a two-time recipient of the Fulbright Scholarship Award. His work has been included in numerous solo and group exhibitions including Tucson Museum of Art; Museum Belvedere, The Netherlands; Herter Art Gallery, University of Massachusetts; Wavehill, New York; New Orleans Museum of Art; and Museum of Fine Arts, Tallahassee. Bezzubov's first monograph Wildfire, was published in 2009 by Nazraeli Press. His work is in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of the City of New York and the Joy of Giving Something Foundation, among others. Bezzubov's work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Harper's, The Telegraph Magazine, Esquire, Newsweek, Art & Auction, and Details; and has received critical acclaim in The New Yorker, Freeze, The Village Voice, The Brooklyn Rail and Print. In 2012, The Sylvia Bongo Foundation invited Sasha Bezzubov to Gabon, Central Africa. "Republic of Dust" is a series of photographs that resulted from this experience. Bezzubov received a MFA in Photography from Yale University in 1997. He lives in Brooklyn, New York. 

The Front Room Gallery is located at 147 Roebling Street in Williamsburg Brooklyn. Gallery hours are Friday-Sunday 1-6PM and by appointment. Press contact: Daniel Aycock 718-782-2556