Media Archeology

Aurora Picture Show Presents Media Archeology: Liquid Light to the Laptop, the Evolution of Live Visuals, April 17-18, 2009

Aurora Picture Show, recognized as the most innovative microcinema in Texas, presents the sixth annual Media Archeology Festival April 17-18, 2009. This year’s festival is titled Media Archeology: Liquid Light to the Laptop, the Evolution of Live Visuals. The festival will pay tribute to the multi-media spectacle of the psychedelic light show, as an art form that revolutionized rock concerts, influenced popular culture and paved the way for the VJs of today.
The festival’s headliner on Friday, April 17 is a spectacular, history-making performance by the Joshua Light Show and Electronic Music pioneer Silver Apples. Saturday night’s events will feature Maximal Art: The Origins and Aesthetics of West Coast Light Shows, a presentation by media art historian Robin Oppenheimer with a special screening of Andy Warhol’s Exploding Plastic Inevitable with The Velvet Underground by Ronald Nameth. Media Archeology: Light Light to the Laptop is curated by Bree Edwards of Be Johnny: Video, Art & Design in Los Angeles, in collaboration with the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts at University of Houston and hosted by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
Media Archeology Schedule
8 p.m. Friday, April 17
The Joshua Light Show and Silver Apples
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1001 Bissonnet
Tickets $10 in advance and $12 at the door; Aurora members $10
To celebrate the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11’s historic landing, the legendary Joshua Light Show teams up with pioneering electronic-rock band Silver Apples for a multimedia spectacular featuring the Houston premiere of Silver Apples’ 1969 composition, Mune Toon.
An early pioneer of “liquid light” shows, The Joshua Light Show is best known for the psychedelic projections it provided at New York’s Fillmore East during the late 1960s. Using colored oils and a battery of lighting effects, the Joshua Light Show performed with the Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead and Jimi Hendrix, amongst others, firmly rooting itself in the visual culture of the time. The lightshow is now reinterpreted for our digital age, directed by multimedia artist Josh White, and featuring video artists Bec Stupak, Brock Monroe, and Seth Kirby. While the centerpiece of the original Joshua Light Show was an overhead projector and a transparent container filled with colored oil and water, the performance at Media Archeology utilizes VJ hardware, in addition to a number of modified analog techniques, including live "liquid light."
Formed in 1967 by Simeon Coxe and Danny Taylor, the band Silver Apples made rock music with electronic oscillators instead of electric guitars, creating an individual, minimalist style that anticipated 1970s Krautrock and the electronic dance and indie rock of the 1990s . As a special tribute to Houston and NASA, Silver Apples (currently the solo project of Simeon Coxe) will perform the experimental work, Mune Toon, originally commissioned by the city of New York as part of its official celebration of Apollo 11's world-changing mission. At the moment that Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon's surface, crowds in Central Park were treated to a live performance by Silver Apples. Their free-form-rock electronic instrumental was scheduled for only 16.8 minutes, but went well into the morning. Silver Apples favorites such as "Oscillations" and "Misty Mountain" will top off the night.
Appearing together for the first time in Houston, Silver Apples and the Joshua Light Show create a history-making performance you won’t want to miss.
8 p.m. Saturday, April 18, 2009
Maximal Art: The Origins and Aesthetics of West Coast Light Shows
Presentation by Robin Oppenheimer, followed by a special screening of Andy Warhol’s Exploding Plastic Inevitable with The Velvet Underground by Ronald Nameth.
The Museum of Fine Art, Houston, 1001 Bissonnet
Tickets $10 in advance and $12 at the door; Aurora members $10 \_
Robin Oppenheimer’s presentation will trace the historical origins and aesthetics of light shows on the West Coast - from Vietnam war protests to attempts by artists of the 60s to blend the “new” twentieth century communications media technologies - photography, film, audio, projectors. The presentation will feature rare documentary footage.
Robin Oppenheimer is an internationally recognized media arts consultant, historian, curator, writer, and educator who has worked in the field since 1980. She is a professor at the University of Washington. Ms. Oppenheimer was the first Media-Arts-Historian-in-Residence at Bellevue Art Museum, near Seattle (2000-2). As Manager of the Seattle Art Museum's Open Studio Project (1997-2000), she oversaw Web production and literacy training for almost 60 Seattle artists and arts organizations. She is also a former Executive Director of 911 Media Arts Center in Seattle (1989-95), and IMAGE Film/Video Center in Atlanta (1984-8), where she directed the Atlanta Film & Video Festival.
About the Curator
Bree Edwards, Co-Founder of Be Johnny: Video, Art & Design is an independent curator based in Los Angeles. Edwards has held the positions of Program Manager at the Mitchell Center for the Arts at the University of Houston and Curator of Public Programs at the Asheville Museum of Art.
Ticket Information
Tickets to each individual show are $10 in advance and $12 at the door. Aurora members can purchase tickets for $10 at any time. Tickets are available online at www.aurorapictureshow.org or by contacting Aurora at 713.868.2101.
About Aurora Picture Show
Founded in 1998, the Aurora Picture Show is the only facility of its kind in the Southwest. Art in America has called it “one of the most interesting and unusual new spaces in Houston.” Originally housed in a 1924 converted church building in the Heights, Aurora supports non-commercial independent and artist-made film, video and new media artists through fifty programs a year, an Aurora Video Library that is open to the public five days a week, and a DVD Label that is distributed nationally.
Aurora Picture Show is funded by its stellar membership, Houston Endowment, Inc, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Brown Foundation,Inc., Oshman Foundation, Nightingale Code Foundation, Texas Commission on the Arts, The City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance, and National Endowment for the Arts. Aurora Picture Show is a proud member of Fresh Arts Coalition www.fresharts.org. \_