Walking into an Unfamiliar Place You Already Know is a site-specific sound work and a meditation on what it means to listen by the Fall 2016 Sponsored Artist Cinchel. Live guitar improvisation, feedback, and audience participation are embedded within a quad-speaker sound system to create an interactive performance of sonic disorientation.
This presentation will blur the lines between performance and installation inviting those in attendance to actively participate in the hour long piece. Listeners are encouraged to clang the bells, hammer out notes on the xylophone, sing, tap the contact mic, walk around the space, or contemplatively listen. The performance only asks that you listen deeply and not be afraid to participate.
The result of Walking into an Unfamiliar Place… will be a decoupling of sound from image, the heard from the seen. The distinctive experience, similar to an interactive version of La Monte Young’s Dreamhouse, presents an opportunity to change our relation to others and the world at large and shape who we are as people and creative entities. In that way the process of positive change, self development, and relationships with others can continue to grow and prosper.
High Concept Labs (HCL) supports artists and facilitates dialogue between artists, audiences, and staff. This increases access and transparency to the artistic process and fosters transformational experiences in an environment of experimentation and discovery.
HCL is supported in part by the generosity of The National Endowment for the Arts, The Chicago Community Trust, The MacArthur Funds for Arts and Culture at The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, The Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, The Chicago Dancemakers Forum, The Martha Struthers Farley and Donald C. Farley, Jr. Family Foundation, N.A., The Norwottock Charitable Trust, The Samuel J. Baskin Charitable Trust, Mana Contemporary Chicago, and individual donors.