Human Resources
410 Cottage Home St.
Los Angeles, CA 90012
On the surface, a comparison might be hazarded between John Cage’s mid-eighties composition Ryoanji and the untitled work at the center of “Cosm, Organization-Construction, Second Instance,” the debut Los Angeles exhibition of Bay Area artist Anja Weiser Flower.
Indeed, both works share an interest in surfaces and their relationship to time. In Cage’s case, this arises through the musical transposition, via a graphic score, of the paths traced by fifteen moss-covered stones across the surface of a rock garden raked daily by Zen monks at the composition’s eponymous Kyoto temple. In Flower’s case, the intricate, primarily textile surface of the central portion of her work, painstakingly developed over several years, both conceals and reveals layers of materiality and meaning, as the visible articulation of the work evolves over the course of the show’s run. Both artists share an interest in the intermediate zone between physical and sonic space, as elaborated over the course of VOLUME’s event program for Flower’s exhibition.
As such, VOLUME and Human Resources are honored to present a performance of Cage’s Ryoanji by flutist Christine Tavolacci, co-founder and co-director of the celebrated Southland ensemble, and percussionist Ted Byrnes as the closing event of “Cosm, Organization-Construction, Second Instance.” This evening will present a unique opportunity to experience the final articulation of this important artwork in tandem with an interpretation of Cage’s composition by two leading figures in contemporary experimental music.
About the Artists
Christine Tavolacci is a Los Angeles-based flutist, composer, and educator specializing in contemporary and experimental music. She has traveled across the United States and Europe to study and perform, and has been involved in the premieres of many new works, including those by Alvin Lucier, James Saunders, Michael Pisaro, Chiyoko Slavnics, Carolyn Chen, and Catherine Lamb.
Christine is active as a soloist, improviser, curator, and chamber musician both in California and internationally. She is co-founder and co-director of Southland Ensemble, as well as a member of the Dog Star Orchestra and Gurrisonic. Her playing has been released on Orenda Records, Slub Music (Japan), and Tzadik. She has been a guest lecturer at both UCLA and CalArts, an associate instructor at UC San Diego, and has taught several workshops on contemporary music to children of various ages.
In 2006, Christine received her BFA in flute performance from California Institute of the Arts. She has also received her Diplôme de Specialisation with mention trés bien from the Conservatoire National de Region Strasbourg in Strasbourg, France, where she studied flute with Mario Caroli from 2006-2008. Christine completed her Doctorate (DMA) in Contemporary Music Performance at the University of California San Diego in the spring of 2017.
Ted Byrnes is a drummer/percussionist living in Los Angeles. An alumnus of the Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA, he comes from a jazz background and has since made his home in the worlds of free improvisation, new music, electro-acoustic music, and noise.
Ted primarily works in ad hoc improvisational settings, but has standing improvisational groups including: a group with John Wiese, a duo with Jeff Parker, a duo with Chris Cooper (AQH), a duo with Charlie Mumma, a duo with Sam McKinlay, a duo with William Hutson, a trio with Jacob Wick and Michael Foster, among others. Additionally, Ted has played in duo/trio/or ensemble settings with: Mazen Kerbaj, Matt Weston, Ingebrigt Haker Flaten, Charlemagne Palestine, Alfred 23 Harth, Arrington de Dionyso, Jaap Blonk, Torsten Muller, Kim Myhr, Jim Denley, Lloyd Honeybrook, Chris Schlarb, Mike Watt, Paul Masvidal, the LAFMS (including Smegma, Airway, Ace Farren Ford’s Artificial Art Ensemble, Rick and Joe Potts, Fredrik Nilsen, Tom Recchion, Vetza, etc), Sissy Spacek (the band), Maher Shalal Hash Baz, and more.
Ted’s recorded output oscillates between heavily acoustic music and harsh noise while keeping a similar approach. For a thorough overview of recordings, please visit the Discography page of his website.
Ted has also collaborated with/worked for a variety of visual artists: he has accompanied a Doug Aitken “happening,” scored and performed percussion for an Emily Mast performance, collaborated with Olivia Booth to play her glass artworks, collaborated with Dani Tull on a sound performance, performed with John Knuth and Bret Nicely at an installation in an empty pool, and has performed for FLUXUS artist Jeff Perkins on multiple occasions for his projector/light installations.
Currently, Ted is delving further into the possibilities and realities of solo drumset performance in addition to continuing to work with his existing projects.
Anja Weiser Flower is trying to stitch together a newly centralized aesthetic construction. Anja Weiser Flower wants to pull the unitary social mind together with you. Is modeling a point of concentration whose sheaves you can read through, feeling some of the patterns in which our Everything organizes itself. Is trying to get you to feel the underlying potential of a transsexual universality in human life, is here for the potential of an unwhite disabled queer feminine transcendent overcoming, the material human community. Coming to meet the still very real possibility of globally overcoming the capitalist social world and establishing communistic social relations. Coming to meet the cosmos.
She lives in San Francisco, California, attended the San Francisco Art Institute, and will have her work featured in an upcoming project by the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP) and Printed Matter, Inc.
