Since April 2022 Eric Theise has been manipulating projected digital maps in collaboration with improvising musicians in Europe and the United States. Constraining his project to use only web mapping technologies, A Synesthete's Atlas is Theise's unique approach to expanded cinema, drawing strategies from experimental film & animation, the Light and Space movement, 1960s light shows, and visual poetry.
The evening begins with a short lecture where Theise will present Carto-OSC, an assemblage of open source libraries, data, and protocols, plus 1000+ lines of creatively-coded JavaScript that integrates it all into a touch-surface control panel. He will discuss his process and motivations, his use of the Open Sound Control protocol to drive the manipulations, and offer aesthetic observations.
For the second part of the evening, he will be joined by local musician The Asthmatic (Sigrid Harmon) for a short performance and Q & A.
Please note: The performance will occasionally introduce strobing effects that may affect photosensitive viewers.
This event is free and open to the public but reservations are requested. Light refreshments will be served.
Co-sponsored by the Osher Map Library and Smith Center for Cartographic Education and the Theatre Department at the University of Southern Maine.
Bios
Eric Theise is a San Francisco-based artist and geospatial software developer. Through video and realtime performance tools he reinvigorates the perceptual inquiries of structural filmmakers, experimental animators, the Light and Space movement, and 60's light shows, occasionally injecting letterform experiments inspired by visual poetry, as new possibilities in the realm of digital cartography. (short)
The Asthmatic (A.K.A. Sigrid Harmon) has been a fixture in the Maine underground music scene for ten years [now]. She is a self-described one-woman band/sound collage that utilizes vaudevillian stage theatrics, synthesizers, and avant-vocal singing styles to communicate. Her obsession with phonetics, cadence, the formation of thoughts and language has grown into a visceral performance style that strays from speech into what could be described as sounds only found in the animal kingdom.