[Microsound-announce] Wed, 12/28 BRINK presents Bruce Tovsky and Matt Davignon (in SF)

[Matt Davignon]

BRINK: Other-Minded Music series
presents Bruce Tovsky and Matt Davignon
Wednesday, December 28, at Hemlock Tavern in San
Francisco
(1131 Polk St., San Francisco; 21 and over only; $15
cover.)

San Francisco, CA (November 10, 2005) — BRINK:
Other-Minded Music, a new monthly concert series by
Other Minds, presents performances by New York
visual/sound artist Bruce Tovsky, and Oakland-based
experimental musician Matt Davignon.

Tovsky will perform his most recent video/sound piece
ETHER, which premiered at 106BLDG30 in the Brooklyn
Navy Yard in June 2005, and has been playing in
international festivals from Säo Paulo to Seoul. The
sound from ETHER was also featured recently in the
BBC4 radio documentary "Tracking the Lincolnshire
Poacher," a provocative and disturbing look at
shortwave numbers stations. With evocative sound and
visual elements, ETHER aims to create an immersive
environment of data decay. Images crackle and distort,
merging in and out of video noise. The hiss and hum of
sound thousands of miles away fills the room; snatches
of music and voices decompose into static. In a
darkened room, the video diptych is projected on a
flat white wall as the only illumination.

Bruce Tovsky earned his MFA degree in Multimedia
(Film, Video, Sound, Performance and Installation Art)
from Rutgers University in 1979. He began showing
video across the USA, Europe, and Japan in the early
1980's, and his work is in the collections of The
Kitchen and The New York Library Donnell Library
Center. He embarked on a diverse career as an audio
engineer/producer (Liquid Liquid, Lydia Lunch, Karen
Finley, Foetus) and video editor/designer of
commercials and music videos. For the past several
years he has been creating live video and sound
improvisations, often in collaboration with sound
artist John Hudak, in a variety of spaces around New
York City, including Diapason, Experimental
Intermedia, Issue Project Room, and his own
installation space 106BLDG30 in the Brooklyn Navy
Yard.

In the summer of 2003 Tovsky performed "for the time
being" with Hudak at Roulette's Festival of Mixology
at The Performing Garage. This performance was
released in October 2004 on Jason Kahn's CUT label,
and was reviewed in the February 2005 issue of The
Wire. In October 2003 Tovsky assembled a group of
improvisors--Beo Morales, David Linton, Michael
Schumacher, and Brooks Williams—to perform a piece for
the Réseaunances festival at Ircam in Paris.


Since 1993, Matt Davignon has developed a unique style
of music which focuses on textures, arrhythmic
patterns and musical imperfections. Combining acoustic
and electronic elements, he attempts to create
dynamic, biological music from seemingly limited
source material. Since 2004--after spending time
focusing individually on bass guitar, live sound
collage, consumer-grade electronics, prepared acoustic
guitar, real-time sampling/looping, experimental
turntablism, and field recording--he has been working
almost exclusively with a drum machine. Rather than
using it as a rhythm device, he plays the pads
manually while processing the sounds through an array
of effects devices and samplers, improvising music
composed of organic-sounding textures, hums, gurgles
and crackles. On some occasions he can still be seen
playing turntable, prepared guitar, cassette tape
recorders, looping devices, or an assortment of
household objects and toy instruments.

Davignon is also active in organizing experimental and
unusual music performances in the San Francisco Bay
Area. In addition to being responsible for such events
as The San Francisco Found Objects Festival and
Sound/Shift Oakland, and helping to launch the Field
Effects series, he is one of the curators for the
Luggage Store Gallery New Music Series.

In addition, Tovsky and Davignon will perform two
improvisational pieces together, one initiated by each
artist. Both will draw on recently accumulated
materials, and neither artist will know before the
performance what the other has at hand. Tovsky will
also incorporate recent video work that he has
assembled for this event.

Launched on April 27, 2005, BRINK: Other-Minded Music
is a monthly concert series providing an intimate
setting for performances by local, national, and
international musicians and composers, with a focus on
music experimentation. Held at Hemlock Tavern’s
recently renovated, 100-person capacity performance
space near downtown San Francisco, the series reflects
Other Minds’ commitment to the world community of
composers and sound artists, and presents a new
opportunity for developing “other-minded” artists, as
well as artists seeking a more intimate forum to
congregate and perform their works. Curated by Bernard
Francis Kyle and David Katznelson, along with guest
curators, the series runs the last Wednesday of every
month at 9:30 p.m.