A Road with Trees is an evening-length immersive art and music experience combining designs of ambisonic 3D soundscapes, shadow and light animation, and electronic interactive devices.
Variety! Variety! Variety! is an evening-length program of video, performance, experimental music, wearable sculpture and beyond - presented by an interdisciplinary team of CMU and Pitt students. Featuring all-new work by Activated Anamorphs, Exploded Ensemble, and Pitt Studio Arts.
Sideband is an ever-evolving professional offshoot of the Princeton Laptop Orchestra, made up of internationally renowned composers and performers of experimental music. Through the use of individual hemispherical speakers, Sideband turns each member into a discrete sound source, recovering the acoustic presence of multiple instruments from the normally flattened world of electronic music.
Exploded Ensemble is Carnegie Mellon University’s hybrid music research wing, fusing traditional orchestral performance practice with experimental, electronic, multi-media and non-Western approaches to live music performance.
In this evening-length concert Sideband and Exploded Ensemble will jointly present a program of new works composed by the ensemble members.
A telematic performance of electronic music celebrating the 50-year anniversary of Canadian Electronic Ensemble featuring musicians around the globe. More info…
Saturday, April 30, 2022 - 9PM to 10PM EDT
Location: below the Randy Pausch Memorial Bridge, Carnegie Mellon University
Activated Expanses will be a multimedia performance event combining experimental music, performance art, wearable sculpture, and audiovisual video/light projections. In our one-hour performance, we will activate the valley below the Randy Pausch bridge with light, color, costumes, and choreography. The audience will be free to explore the open spaces between the Gates and Doherty buildings as they are immersed in music, visuals, and augmented performances.
https://www.twitch.tv/explodedensemble
Exploded Ensemble continues its research into remote music-making with F in the Chat, an interactive concert presented on Twitch.tv. Original works by the ensemble will explore the concepts of new beginnings and possibilities through audiovisual compositions, gestural communication, and performative objects. The audience is given the power to transform the sound, video, and musical structures of the pieces throughout the performance.
Note: The audience will need to register for a free Twitch account if they would like to interact with the performance. No Twitch account is required to simply watch the concert.
https://www.twitch.tv/explodedensemble
Make your voices heard! Exploded Ensemble presents Democracy in Action, an interactive, virtual concert juxtaposed with the 2020 U.S. election. Presented live on Twitch.tv, this concert breaks the wall between performer and spectator, allowing the audience to directly impact aspects of the performance through voting. Decide the performance order, control sound effects, and manipulate the video all by voting. This telematic performance is an exploration of democracy sonically and visually.
Exploded Ensemble presents a live remote performance featuring an all-star line-up of esteemed alumni, ensemble directors, and Exploded Collaborators. The music presented herein is in three parts, each of which is an improvised meditation reflecting on the last three months: April, May, and June 2020. Looking back on this recent history of course invokes some very serious issues that have arisen in terms of national leadership and racial, social, and economic equity. If any of you are so inclined the musicians performing tonight ask that you make a donation to an organization working towards positive change. We suggest considering a donation to any of the following groups:
#BlackLivesMatter was founded in 2013 in response to the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s murderer. Black Lives Matter Foundation, Inc is a global organization in the US, UK, and Canada, whose mission is to eradicate white supremacy and build local power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes. By combating and countering acts of violence, creating space for Black imagination and innovation, and centering Black joy, we are winning immediate improvements in our lives.
The Equal Justice Initiative is committed to ending mass incarceration and excessive punishment in the United States, to challenging racial and economic injustice, and to protecting basic human rights for the most vulnerable people in American society.
The Southern Poverty Law Center is dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of society. Since 1971, the SPLC has won numerous landmark legal victories that have toppled institutional racism and stamped out remnants of Jim Crow segregation; destroyed some of the nation’s most violent white supremacist groups; and protected the civil rights of children, women, the disabled, immigrants, and migrant workers, the LGBT community, prisoners, and many others who faced discrimination, abuse, or exploitation. Their Intelligence Project tracks and exposes the activities of hate groups and other domestic extremists, and their Teaching Tolerance program produces and distributes – free of charge – anti-bias documentary films, books, lesson plans, and other materials that reduce prejudice and promote educational equity in the nation’s schools.
Transgender Law Center is a multidisciplinary organization that advances the movement for transgender and gender non-conforing (TGNC) people using an integrated set of approaches, including strategic litigation, policy advocacy, educational efforts, movement building, and the creation of programs that meet the needs of TGNC communities.Transgender Law Center works to change law, policy, and attitudes so that all people can live safely, authentically, and free from discrimination regardless of their gender identity or expression. They envision a future where gender self-determination and authentic expression are seen as basic rights and matters of common human dignity.
American Civil Liberties Union
The ACLU dares to create a more perfect union — beyond one person, party, or side. Our mission is to realize this promise of the United States Constitution for all and expand the reach of its guarantees. Black people are being murdered and brutalized by police with near impunity. Act with us to end police brutality, demand racial justice, and defend our right to protest. Your donation will fuel our legal battles and urgent advocacy efforts.
The Bukit Bail Fund of Pittsburgh is a coalation of individuals and organizations striving to provide support for those incarcerated at Allegheny County Jail, located in Pittsburgh, PA. We hope to not just provide bail, but also to increase our capacity for supporting people after they have been released. We are working to get people released from jail as quickly as possible. We call for an end to cash bail in Pittsburgh and everywhere. We believe no one should be in a cage.
For 2019’s end-of-year happening Exploded Ensemble is creating site specific compositions, sound installations, and immersive experiences in a reborn library: Pittsburgh’s brand new Museumlab. Working in collaboration with video, performance, and installation artists from across CMU campus Exploded Ensemble has created an evening-length body of work based upon Jorge Louis Borges’ short story “The Library of Babel.” In this iconic text nameless librarians explore an infinite physical database in search of meaning amongst endless arrays of randomness and chaos. Using this prompt our musicians, composers, and visual collaborators are employing chance operations, generative techniques, and exploratory processes to create a transformative audiovisual environment.
The event is free and open to the public. Tickets are required for entry: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/exploded-ensemble-every-possible-utterance-tickets-85135102383
Pushing Air is an evening of music, soft-sculpture, and textile robotics presented in two parts. In the first section of the evening, presented in Kresge Hall, the musicians of Exploded Ensemble will be joined onstage by robotic performative sculptures designed by the students of Kinetic Fabrics. Together, Exploded Ensemble and Kinetic Fabrics explore concepts of oscillation, polyrhythm, and complex pattern-making.
In the second section of the evening, the musicians of Exploded Ensemble move to Alumni Concert Hall where they will be surrounded by architectural scale artworks designed by the students of Inflatables and Soft Sculpture. Together, the inflatable sculpture and abstract music/sound create an immersive space for the audience to explore and interact with.
Subsurface 2018 revisits the vast underground expanses of the former Kaylor 3 limestone mine with an evening of site-specific music, robotics, art, and performance. Visitors will be invited into the chambers of an industrial cathedral carved from solid rock to explore a dramatic underworld, twice the size of the largest building in the world. The audience will experience sights and sounds created by musicians, artists, designers, and performers from across the CMU community.
More info at: https://subsurface.site/
Nocturnal Electronic Music Amidst Inflatable Environments.
Sleep amidst giant inflatable artworks in an all-night, subtonal, subconscious experience! Carnegie Mellon’s Exploded Ensemble and the CMU Inflatables & Soft Sculpture course take the night shift for a midnight-to-sunrise concert featuring experimental electronic musicians Lesley Flanigan and R. Luke DuBois.
// **SLEEPING SPACES HAVE SOLD OUT** Limited sleeping spaces! • BYOSB (Bring Your Own Sleeping Bag) • $10 tickets required for sleeping spaces
// No tickets required for sitting/standing room
SNOOZEFEST features subconscious electronic music by the CMU Exploded Ensemble, including special guests Lesley Flanigan and R. Luke DuBois, and performances by student composers Sara Adkins, Stone Butler, Jonathan Cavell, Ryan Flint, Brooke Ley, Steven MacDonald, Alexander Panos, Travis Schwartz, Valerie Senavsky, Alexander Woskob, and Jeena Yin.
SNOOZEFEST is performed amidst inflatable environments and sculptural forms created by the Inflatables & Soft Sculpture course, featuring constructions by Roberto Andaya, Gabriel Bamforth, Ema Furusho, Patrick Gao, John Hewitt, Ankita Jha, Rachel Kim, Sun Min Kim, Elijah King, Tatyana Mustakos, Miranda Miller, Denise Nguyen, David Perry, Julita Przybylska, and Sommer Schneller.
Lesley Flanigan is an experimental electronic musician living in New York City. Inspired by the physicality of sound, she builds her own instruments using minimal electronics, microphones and speakers. Performing these instruments alongside traditional instrumentation that often includes her own voice, she creates a kind of physical electronic music that embraces both the transparency and residue of process — sculpting sound from a palette of noise and subtle imperfections.
R. Luke DuBois is a composer, artist, and performer who explores the temporal, verbal, and visual structures of cultural and personal ephemera. He holds a doctorate in music composition from Columbia University, and is the co-author of Jitter, a software suite for the real-time manipulation of matrix data. DuBois appears on nearly twenty-five albums both individually and as part of the avant-garde electronic group, The Freight Elevator Quartet.
The Exploded Ensemble, directed by Jesse Stiles & Lance LaDuke, is Carnegie Mellon University’s hybrid music research wing, fusing traditional orchestral performance practice with experimental, electronic, and non-Western approaches to live music performance. In SNOOZEFEST, the musicians of Exploded Ensemble will perform an overnight concert of subtle and immersive sound-worlds for a sleeping audience. The sounds presented are carefully articulated so as to induce, enhance, and uplift the collective audience dreamscape.
Olivia Robinson’s Inflatables & Soft Sculpture course focuses on the design, fabrication, and creative applications of sculptural and inflatable forms created from soft materials. For SNOOZEFEST — informed by a rich history of zeppelins, parade floats, and experimental architecture — the students in this course have applied techniques for turning flexible, flat materials into immersive, three-dimensional sleeping environments.
Subsurface is an evening of music, performance, and installation art presented in a gigantic limestone mine north of Pittsburgh, PA. The limestone mine is 50 million square feet, the size of nearly 1000 football fields, and contains 600 miles of underground roadways that connect thousands of cavernous spaces.
In Subsurface musicians, artists, designers, and performers from the CMU community will fill these spaces with sound, dance, light, and visual/performance artwork. As the audience explores the vast installation and performance spaces they will experience immersive environments in which color, sound, and concept transform the industrial space into dramatic audiovisual environments.
A fleet of shuttles will transport the audience from CMU to the performance site and back again. Tickets to Subsurface are currently sold out but join our mailing list for information about Subsurface 2018.
Subsurface: Site Specific Site and Sound is made possible thanks to generous support of the following organizations:
Carnegie Mellon School of Art
Carnegie Mellon School of Music
The Dean’s office at Carnegie Mellon College of Fine Arts
The Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry at Carnegie Mellon
IDeATe at Carnegie Mellon
This project was supported in part by funding from the Carnegie Mellon University Frank-Ratchye Fund for Art @ the Frontier
