presents
Inside of Inside

Installation and Event Series
January 9-February 7
Opening Reception: Friday, January 9, 6-9 PM
Gallery Hours: Wednesdays-Saturdays, 1-6 PM
(extended hours on Thursdays, 6-7 PM and by appointment)

The LAB and local artist and curatorial collective, The Big Ballyhoo, invite you to attend the groundbreaking exhibit Inside of Inside. In this historic show, the work of over 70 women artists from around the US as well as Italy and Canada will be exhibited to celebrate, challenge and dissect the reflexive relationship of art and the home. By featuring Inside of Inside in our celebratory 20th Anniversary programming and providing The Big Ballyhoo collective with a month-long residency to install the work, The LAB revisits a long history of support for women artists and their collaborations.
In the curatorial process, The Big Ballyhoo placed a call for entries to women artists ranging from closeted crafters to professionals with the intent of creating a dialogue about the notion of home. The response was overwhelming and the resulting culmination extraordinary. Out of the pieces made by the seventy selected women artists, the space at The LAB is transformed into a home conceived as one collaborative piece. Viewers walking through the house created for Inside of Inside will interact with many diverse voices and visions. Exile, imprisonment, environment, homelessness, ancestry, health, body image, war, and urban landscapes are some of the many interrelated themes presented. A prison cell created in collaboration with incarcerated women offers one view of home while an indoor landscape offers another. Viewers are invited to discover a teenage desk, snoop through laundry, read books and view films while knitting in an old armchair. Miniature rooms create opportunities for close observation while life size objects will surprise viewers once magnified.

The Big Ballyhoo is a feminist artist collective that began in 2001, inspired by the belief that art is a powerful tool in shaping dominant ideology and stimulating social change. Members of The Big Ballyhoo are Gracie Bucciarelli, Mary DeNardo, Kristen Dilley, Dusty Lombardo, Lisa Maurine, Corinna Press and Lena Wolff.

images by Lisa Maurine

Featured Artists:

Inside of Inside: Live Events
Thursdays, January 15, 22, 29 and February 5
@ Theater Rhinoceros and The LAB
2926 16th Street, San Francisco (next door to The LAB)
All events begin at 7 PM
$5-10 Sliding Scale Admission

The month-long exhibition, Inside of Inside, will coincide with four live events featuring feminist artists, writers, art historians and contemporary filmmakers. The first three events will take place on Thursday evenings from 7-9 PM at Theater Rhinoceros, with the last event held at The LAB.

Thursday, January 15
Ariella Ben-Dov of the MadCat International Women’s Film Festival will curate an evening of films. MadCat is a highly acclaimed international festival that exhibits independent and experimental films and videos directed by women from around the globe. Ariella Ben-Dov will emphasize work that is inventive and visionary and challenges our typical notions of home.

LOOKING FROM THE INSIDE
A selection of • animated • experimental •  and narrative films and videos from Korea • the UK • Canada • and the US.
Lisa Yu uses jello, clay and human hair to manufacture a domestic space gone awry in VESSEL WRESTLING. IRON MOUNTAIN (Jong Lim Ro) depicts a woman  who lives with her lover and child trying to find peace and beauty in a violent relationship. Louise Bourque’s JUST WORDS was called a “10 minute tour de force” by Toronto’s Globe and Mail. Using Beckett’s Not I this shocking gift incorporates optically printed home movie footage and an eerily slick close-up of a woman’s mouth as she rants at lightening speed words about home, family and the confines and alienation associated with being a woman. LOLO FERRARI (Hope Tucker) transforms an obituary from a list of public accomplishments to a revelation of Lolo’s most private moments. Plus films by Paula Froehle, Cade Bursell and Pearce Williams.
For info: 415 436-9523, http://www.madcatfilmfestival.org

See a list of films showing...

Thursday, January 22
Ballyhoo member and Bay Area writer Mary DeNardo will host an evening of readings by local writers Toni Mirosevich, Laura Walker and Tsering Wangmo Dhompa. Their diverse works locate the concept of home and the spaces that surround it.

Thursday, January 29
Activist Susan Greene presents collaborative community-arts work in the occupied territories of Palestine. The evening will include a slide show and presentation of her work as well as a panel of four additional artists exploring the terrain of exile and home.

Thursday, February 5 (@The LAB)
Local photographer and videographer Tammy Rae Carland will conclude the event series by facilitating an artists’ talk with Inside of Inside participating artists. The discussion will take place inside the exhibit allowing for a dialogue with and about participating artists and their work.

The LAB presents
Sound Rewound: Celebrating 20 Years of Sound Art
February 13, 18, 21, 25 & 28; all performances begin at 8 PM
$10-25 Sliding Scale Admission
(those paying $20 or more receive a free 20th anniversary CD along with their admission!)

at The LAB, 2948 16th Street @ Capp, San Francisco
for information and reservations: (415) 864-8855 Join the celebrated composer/musician Beth Custer to mark the release of our 20th anniversary compilation CD, produced as part of her Meet The Composer residency with The LAB. Throughout our history, from 100% Concentrated Music to the New Music Series to Sound Unwound, The LAB has championed music and sound art that pushes boundaries and plays with fire (sometimes literally.) Beth has invited a dazzling array of LAB alumni to perform over five unique evenings.

CD Release Benefit:
Friday, February 13
Toychestra will present new material as well as re-worked selections from the Concerto for Guitar and Toy Orchestra written by local composer/musician Dan Plonsey, which they originally performed with Fred Frith last May. The gals are gearing up for their concert at Cite de la Musique's Musique et Jouets festival in Paris and accompanying French tour. John Bischoff will perform Local Color, which combines computer-triggered bells, gliding noise, and tonal clusters. The performer initiates each element, inserts additional events, and triggers repetition along with occasional deflections in tuning. Barbara Golden is a multi-media artist dividing her time between SF and Quebec. Her bands include Gamelan Sekar Jaya, WIGband, & Shroomy.com. She also hosts Crack o Dawn, contemporary music show on radio KPFA. Cheryl Leonard will perform an excerpt from Instruments in Trees, a work for arboreal materials and strings. Composer Bob Davis will play the banjo. Kattt Sammon will perform two pieces, Untitled 2003—an electronic instrumental tone transport (collaboration with Kenneth Atchley) and In the Breeze: a pretty song with a delicate balance of verse & gibberish. Vocalist Laurie Amat will perform a special event-specific piece for The LAB - Time-History, Possession and Decision of Release, Sounding and Acoustic Solo Improvisation. Additional performances by composer/musicians Bob Davis, Guillermo Galindo, and Kathy Kennedy will also be featured.

Wednesday, February 18
Minnie Pearl Necklace,
featuring vocals by Rodney O’Neal Austin
Bob Davis
Kraig Grady
Cheryl Leonard

Minnie Pearl Necklace will feature Rodney O'Neal Austin channeling the voices from vintage victrolas and jukeboxes as he sings a medley of tunes from the 1920s to the 1970s. Steven Merritt will accompany him on guitar, ukelele and mandolin. Kraig Grady will be performing on a vibraphone microtonally retuned to an Indonesian style of tuning called Meta-Slendro. Performances on this instrument result in special beating patterns that exploit the acoustics of the performance space, often creating the illusion of sound occurring from different directions. Cheryl Leonard will premiere Light Put Carefully, a semi-composed/semi-improvised piece for three players on glass instruments (window panes, lamp covers, and wine glasses) and strings. This work draws its inspiration from phenomena in the sky, especially cloud formations and light-related curiosities such as halos, coronas, glories and sun pillars. Light Put Carefully features extended string techniques, a diverse repertoire of sounds from glass, microtonality, and beating patterns as fundamental elements of the composition. Performers include Tim Blue & A.L. Dentel. Bob Davis will be performing songs and poems with acoustic accompaniment, mostly banjos and guitar. He will play excerpts from his solo show BANJO and the premiere of a song called SHOW DOG.

Saturday, February 21
Mutilated Mannequins,
featuring vocals by Reginald Lamar,
piano by Mannequin
Sharpe, and chainsaws by Mannequin Loki
Kenneth Atchley
Blevin Blectum
Randy Nordschow

Mutilated Mannequins, a band featuring vocals by the charismatic, operatic singer Reginald Lamar, will perform. Kenneth Atchley will present de Quincy Levitation, a work that languors impassively at the intersection of installation, opera, memorial, and sound art. Guilt-ridden opium reveries, Industrial Revolution and Industrial Exclusion, a household built around eight-hour pastorales of tea, reading, and dreams are compressed and magnified into a static stream of flattened space where reference and surface coexist impenetrably. Vocals are provided by Kattt Sammon and Dean Santomieri. Blevin Blectum presents Keeki's Beak, an audio/video work. Seeing a parrot in your dream represents gossip. A message is being conveyed to you. It may also mean that you or someone is being repetitive. An object-oriented language mixes imperative and constraint-oriented features. Randy Nordschow presents Jammin' for Jesus. Rather than coping with his unhealthy obsession with televangelist Peter Popoff, Nordschow heals your spirit by converting sounds of late-night infomercials into a sublime chaos worthy of a Pentecostal revival. Armed with a vial of miracle spring water from Russia, a TV, telephone, and a mass of electronic gadgetry, Nordschow will riff on righteousness, groove the godly, and break it down for the born-again. Speaking in tongues is highly encouraged.

Wednesday, February 25, 2004
Donald Swearingen
Pamela Z
F-Space featuring Scot Jenerik, Aleph Kali, and Ethan Port

Pamela Z will perform solo works for voice, electronics and video. She will also join Donald Swearingen for improvised duets for voice, electronics, and sensor-based instruments. Donald Swearingen performs new electronic sound works utilizing an array of sensor-based control devices connected to a laptop computer. Swearingen has been involved for the last ten years in the design and construction of new and innovative musical instruments oriented to the unique environment of electronic music performance. F-Space (Scot Jenerik, Aleph Kali, Ethan Port), is an extreme experimental pyro-industrial art-punk rock-band project by Mobilization.com founders Scot Jenerik (23Five.org) and Ethan Port (Savage Republic), with Aleph Kali (Chrome) drumming with the ferocity of a runaway locomotive. The result conjures an apocalyptic, feral, destructive trance state implying a catastrophic act of nature, a march through the desert on the path to war, or an offender's mental state during a crime of passion. This particular F-SPACE performance promises to be more noise-based than usual.

Saturday, February 28, 2004
The Empire Ultra
The Empire Ultra is an event that brings together performance, sound, video and social critique from Bay Area artists to strain out the juicy toxins of living in the empire. Terror and wild humor are the essential tone of contemporary America during these horrific and ridiculous times. This performance includes Fuzzy Bunny (Chris Brown, Scot Gresham-Lancaster, Tim Perkis) in a software-based musical improvisation; Wigband (Johanna Poethig & Barbara Golden), Guillermo Galindo & Paula Cekola, Laetitia Sonami, and the Barrionics (Anne Perez, Johanna Poethig, Michael Trigilio, Gustavo Vazquez & Rico Reyes). The installation includes live radio transmissions by Brown and Galindo, video projection mix by VJ Love, costume, lights and stuffed animals. This performance will build upon The Post-Glamour Summit 2002 as the artists continue to explore the current state of affairs of corporate colonization through musical improvisation, video and performance.

Beth Custer's residency with The LAB, Joe Goode Performance Group and TILT (Teaching Intermedia Literacy Tools) is made possible by Meet The Composer, Inc. and its New Residencies program. Funding for New Residencies was provided by The Pew Charitable Trusts with additional support from the National Endowment for the Arts and other generous supporters.

››View list of Auction and Fixed Price Artists
››View images and details of auction items

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Left Coast Chamber Ensemble
Saturday, April 3, 8 PM
$10-15 Sliding Scale Admission

LAB composer-in-residence Beth Custer hosts members of the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble to celebrate the world premiere of her Bernal Heights Suite for String Quartet. In an alternative to our usual alternative, this evening will offer an opportunity to hear one of the Bay Area’s premier chamber ensembles perform in the intimate, informal and acoustically dramatic environment of The LAB’s space. Bernal Heights Suite for String Quartet is comprised of many short movements that reflect an area of San Francisco where Beth Custer has lived and worked for over a decade. Movements like Lundy’s Lane and The General of Godeus and Cafe Abo R.I.P. give musical homage to people and areas of Bernal Heights that have influenced her life in the last decade. Gyorgy Ligeti’s String Quartet No. 1 “Metamorphoses nocturnes”, written in Budapest in 1953-54, is also on the program. Its first performance was given in Vienna in 1958, two years after he fled Hungary. The quartet looks to Bartok and Beethoven for inspiration. While the melodies and harmonies revel in chromaticism, the form follows in classic tradition. The music is full of Ligeti’s ear for color, rhythmic verve and wicked humor. Members of the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble performing at The LAB include Anna Presler and Phyllis Kamrin, violins; Kurt Rohde, viola; and Leighton Fong, cello. Beth Custer’s residency with The LAB is made possible by Meet The Composer, Inc. and its New Residencies program. Funding for New Residencies was provided by The Pew Charitable Trusts with additional support from the National Endowment for the Arts and other generous supporters.

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25th Anniversary SURVIVAL RESEARCH LABORATORIES Celebration
Friday, April 9, 7 PM-Midnight
$5-10 Sliding Scale Admission

Prophets are rarely celebrated in their own town, but finally San Francisco is hosting a 25th Anniversary Survival Research Laboratories (SRL) Celebration, sponsored by RE/Search Publications and The LAB. This is the first comprehensive Survival Research Laboratories historical retrospective in San Francisco. 2500 linear feet of enormous, beautiful photographic blowups, plus poster art, will document every SRL performance to date, all over the world. Rare videos will play, there will be a Q&A panel, machines will be present, and there may even be a "surprise event" from SRL...

Some background: About 25 years ago Survival Research Laboratories pioneered violent, uncensored, large-scale machine performances (well before "Robot Wars"). SRL shows display a war of ideas involving the challenging of clichés and outmoded perceptions and beliefs. Iconography (often site-specific) in the form of large-scale dazzling graphic images, buildings, hand-crafted sculptures and other "props" may be burned to death, shot, ripped apart by claws, or otherwise "critiqued."


The SRL 25th Anniversary party will offer a rare opportunity to engage with SRL artists, including founder Mark Pauline. Beginning the evening, San Francisco Supervisor Matt Gonzalez will conduct a rare live interview with Mark Pauline, A Dialogue On Bay Area Cutting-Edge Performance Art & Social Change, moderated by RE/Search Publications founder V. Vale. Also included in the evening will be a very special "live" surround video projection of SRL’s recent U.C. Berkeley Art Museum Outdoor Performance, Nov 12, 2003 (by Scott Beale, Marian Wallace, and others). The evening will end with a performance by The Extra Action Marching Band.

Other surprises are still being planned. SRL will make available posters, videos, T-shirts and other impossible-to-find rarities. Admission includes a $5 discount coupon good toward the purchase of a RE/Search PRANKS! book, which contains a lengthy interview with Mark Pauline.

Also check www.srl.org and www.researchpubs.com for more details.

Featured Artists:
Didi Dunphy | Amy Franceschini | Nick Philip | Rex Ray | Donna Schumacher | Wayne Smith | Eefje Theeuws | Bruce Tomb | Kim Weller

2004 AD, an exhibition co-curated by Rex Ray and Allegra Fortunati as part of The LAB’s 20th anniversary season programming, is about the line or blur between art and design and asks the following questions: What are the differences and similarities between art and design, particularly around aesthetic issues? How does work in fine art inform design work and vice versa? What challenges and opportunities exist for those working on both tracks? Is it a workable combination or a livable life?

Rethinking Art & Design: A Livable Life?
An Artist/Designer Forum
Wednesday, May 5, 7 PM
$5-7 Sliding Scale Admission

A discussion featuring 2004 AD artists addressing the work practices, aesthetics and concerns of artists working to both earn a living and succeed in the fine arts. Art patrons, artists and designers are encouraged to come and participate in the dialogue.
2004 AD is made possible in part by a generous grant from the LEF Foundation.

PRINCIPLE and PARADOX
Bob Davis & Laurie Amat
Thursday, May 20, 8 PM
$7-15 Sliding Scale Admission

LAB veterans Laurie Amat and Bob Davis present a special evening of music and spoken word. Laurie and Bob will perform new works channeling such cultural luminaries as Samuel Beckett, Werner Heisenberg and James Dickey, create site-specific pieces reflecting the work exhibited in 2004 AD, and sing a few favorite songs from each of their repertoires with the assistance of special guests, pianist J. Raoul Brody, guitarist “The Reverend Screaming Fingers” (Lucio Menegon), and vocalist Cynthia Weyuker.

Mission Creek Music Festival
Wednesday, May 26, 8 PM
$7-15 Sliding Scale Admission

The LAB will host an opening night party for The 8th Annual Mission Creek Music Fest 2004, featuring special musical guests, deejays and Bay Area performers representing the best of local music and art scene. Go to www.mcmf.org for more details.

Instruments In Trees
Cheryl E. Leonard
plus Loren Chasse performing solo
Thursday, May 27, 8 PM
$7-15 Sliding Scale Admission

Cheryl E. Leonard is a composer, performer, and improviser of music and interdisciplinary works. Her ne w work, Instruments in Trees, is a semi-composed/semi-improvised work for arboreal materials and upside-down string quartet (two cellos, viola, and violin). Sticks, twigs, leaves, needles, pinecones, bark, and lichen are cultivated as sound sources in a performance that investigates cycles and processes inherent to trees. These materials are used raw, to prepare the strings, and in the creation/assemblage of new instruments such as the Long Twig, Driftwood Pipe Organ, Pine Cone Xylophone, Eucalyptus Curtains, and Autumn Bonsais. Throughout the work there is a special emphasis on exploring very quiet phenomena and the subtle intricacies of sounds not usually considered musical. Performers will include: Tim Blue - arboreal materials and violin; A.L. Dentel - arboreal materials and cello; Patty Liu -arboreal materials, violin and cello; Cheryl E. Leonard - arboreal materials and viola. For pictures and sounds from the tree instruments check out: http://www.allwaysnorth.com/IIT.html

Loren Chasse is a sound artist and educator living in San Francisco whose concern in both fields is with the individual experiences of the listener. As Director of Education for sound arts organization 23five Inc. and a teacher in the San Francisco public schools, Chasse has been developing curricula and teaching programs that introduce children to the means (conceptual, poetic, and technological) for actively and imaginatively listening--where sound may become a material for catalysing literary, social, scientific and artistic practices. In Chasse's recorded work, performances and installations, he begins with a treatment of a site and its inherent sounds as an instrument, using microphones as tools for composition. By engaging an entire performance space as a field, Chasse demonstrates the physicality of the gestures used to induce, record and recontextualize sound, often performing within intimate proximity to each listener’s ears. In addition to his solo work, Loren Chasse collaborates in the projects Coelacanth, Thuja, the Blithe Sons and the Child Readers, as well as with various artists on his own Jewelled Antler record label. Currently, he is editing a book regarding the history and practice of field recording in sound art.