CAP UCLA brings sonic artists William Basinski and Bethan Kellough to the UCLA Nimoy Theater
UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance (CAP UCLA), in partnership with Fulcrum Arts and Chapman University sparks a powerful conversation between art and science with William Basinski and Bethan Kellough Thursday, October 17, 2024, at the UCLA Nimoy Theater.
This event includes a pair of performances by artists William Basinski and Bethan Kellough as part of Energy Fields: Vibrations of the Pacific, which is part of PST Art 2024: Art & Science Collide.
With On Time, Out of Time, Basinki creates a one-of-a-kind sonic bed with recordings from the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) that captured billion year old sonic impressions made by two colliding black holes. Kellough’s Still the Fragments Move is a new composition that follows the journey of ocean waves from sea to shore. Both pieces explore the profound connection between sound, vibrations, and waveforms with the human body.
The performance will be followed by a brief panel discussion with artists William Basinski, Evelina Domnitch, Dmitry Gelfand, and experimental physicist Rana Adhikari, about their time together at LIGO at Caltech in 2016 and the artwork that resulted from this fruitful collaboration.
Co-organized by Fulcrum Arts, Chapman University, and CAP UCLA, Wiliam Basinski and Bethan Kellough is also part of 2024 Fulcrum Festival: Waves Upon Waves.
Energy Fields: Vibrations of the Pacific is among more than 70 exhibitions and programs presented as part of PST ART. Returning in September 2024 with its latest edition, PST ART: Art & Science Collide, this landmark regional event explores the intersections of art and science, both past and present. PST ART is presented by Getty. For more information about PST ART: Art & Science Collide, visit pst.art.
About the Artists
William Basinski is a classically trained musician and composer who has been working in experimental media for over 40 years in NYC and California. Employing obsolete technology and analogue tape loops, his haunting and melancholy soundscapes explore the temporal nature of life and resound with the reverberations of memory and the mystery of time. His epic 4-disc masterwork, The Disintegration Loops received international critical acclaim and was chosen as one of the top 50 albums of 2004 by Pitchfork Media. The Temporary Residence deluxe LP box-set reissue from 2012 was awarded best re-issue of the year and a score of 10 on Pitchfork. Orchestral transcriptions of The Disintegration Loops by Maxim Moston have been performed at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (NYC), Queen Elizabeth Hall (London) and La Batie Festival (Geneva, Switzerland), Dark Mofo Festival (Hobart, Tasmania), the Pitchfork Midwinter Festival (Chicago) with the Chicago Philharmonic, the Barbican Centre (London) with the London Contemporary Orchestra, and most recently at Le Lieu Unique (Nantes, France) with Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire. Installations and films made in collaboration with artist-filmmaker, James Elaine have been presented in festivals and museums internationally, and his concerts are presented to sold out crowds around the world.
Bethan Kellough is a composer and sound artist based in Los Angeles. Her EP “Aven”, released on Touch in 2016, combines her field recordings with strings, sound design and electronics, and has been described as “a film you watch with your ears” (Tiny Mix tapes), a “divine debut” (Boomkat), and “earthy and fantastical” (Norman Records)”. It was included in Rolling Stone’s 20 Best Avant Albums of 2016. Educated at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, Kellough was awarded a PhD in Sonic Arts in 2015, researching immersive sound-worlds, spatial aesthetics and the interactions between sonically and visually articulated spaces. Her work includes compositions, multichannel installations, film soundtracks, and ambisonic field recording, inhabiting the boundaries between music and sound design. She has exhibited and performed internationally including at Driftworks/Desert X, Palm Springs, U.S.A.; Ekko Festival, Bergen, Norway; Gallery of Russian Art and Design, London, UK; Jardins Efemeros, Portugal; The Global Composition, Germany; Symposium on Acoustic Ecology, UK; and more.
