1. Clinton Street Theater, May 14, 7 to 9 pm:

An Evening of Speculative Pragmatism at the Clinton Street Theater contains work by Mark So, Robert Blatt, and Mike Richard. This group show functions as a sort of 'diptych' with Mark So and Robert Blatt interspersing and overlapping their work together on the first hour, followed by Mike Richard filling the second hour, with Mark and Robert joining in on Mike's piece as performers. The two sections will transition into each other approximately towards the end of Mark and Robert's hour long overlapping/interspersed piece(s) as Mike begins his hour long piece.

TECHNICAL NOTE: If there is a program, perhaps the word "transition" would be denoted/connoted, rather than the traditional word, "intermission".

2a. Mark So will be performing from a set of material he has come to refer to as readings 54, for manfred (2016- ), involving a c20 cassette loop with instances of reading/recording from various reading lists. He will also play his tape with manfred, In my weather, merely local/20170 (2018-19), also c20 containing live reading with two tapes.

TECHNICAL NOTE: Mark's sound and stage set-up is as follows, a small amp/mic (i.e. not going through the board) on what will probably be some sort of tabletop station where he will be reading/writing/recording...


2b. Robert Blatt will be showing a video:

A Hand Out the Window (2017)
digital video (silent)

Consisting only of images made with a camera extended and tossed about with a hand out the window of a moving car while driving on routes between Miami and New York City, the film's shifts and breaks in tempo and rhythm function as a kind of visual music.

2c. Regarding performing, Robert's piece is:

The Things of a Landscape (2022)
object(s) and field recordings

A text score for making sounds with one or more objects found on site, the potential for recording such sounds and the environment in which they were found, and the possible playback of such recordings at the present or a different site.

Robert will present previously made recordings from the project on portable battery-powered amplifiers to be installed and moved through the space. He will also be performing and making new recordings at the Clinton Street Theater with objects found on site, which will likewise be presented in the theater space.

TECHNICAL NOTE: Robert's setup will consist of a table from which to work and a microphone to amplify quiet sounds made with objects found at the Clinton Street Theater (to be determined in the space). To better balance with Mark's setup, it's likely better to use something more isolated than the PA, like one wedge monitor or an amplifier. We'll need to determine this based on Mark's setup so things balance.

2d. All three of the above activities will occur simultaneously.

3. Mike will present a 66 minute long version his new work Adventures In Speculative Pragmatism. The score for the work is presented as projected text based on writing by Brian Massumi [for the full title of Mike's piece and the text credit, see below].

Mike will perform keyboard while he improvisationally speaks-sings the Massumi text and performs a 22 inch chinese chau gong. Mark and Robert will be performing on a collection of electric organs and synthesizers. This will all occur alongside a fixed bed of drones derived from electronic and natural sources.

Some of the concepts and descriptors Mike has in mind for the mode, mood, sound, aesthetik focuses of his piece as large scale work include: hypnotik, relaxing, therapeutik, dark, sensual, neurodiverse in terms of collectively ritualistik, sensory, synaesethesia kind of experiences involving proposed new ways of reading and listening, inclusive of Felix Guattari's concept of the 'three ecologies' which combine the mental, social, and environmental ecologies with further concepts found in Massumi's speculatively pragmatic oriented philosophies mixing an intuitive, feedbacking-feedforwarding, thinking-feeling intuitive process as, through, and beyond notions of event and experience...

composer/performer: Mike Richard; additional performers: Mark So and Robert Blatt

title of composition as text on screen:

_Adventures In Speculative Pragmatism [for any instruments, including acoustik piano/or keyboard, synth, organ, dark-ambient synth-drones, ocean-sounds, speaking-singing vocal-artist, dark-ritual-ambient percussion setup with gong as central resonance, and texts on screen as score.] 2023_

text by: Brian Massumi
"Extreme Realism in Sixteen Series"
from _Couplets: Travels In Speculative Pragmatism_ Duke University Press, 2019

TECHNICAL NOTES: At Clinton St Theater, Mike's piece is planned as a 66 minute long version of a piece he is performing two nights before at passages bookshop, as a 2 hour durational version [i.e. 66x2, i.e. 2 hours and 12 minutes at the bookshop event, as each slide is 4 minutes at the bookstore rather than the 2 mins at the theater.] at Passages Bookshop, an event series in which Mike, Robert, and Mark each have their own night as part of a series of events dealing with language and sound, called Works on Paper [see link for website flyer] curated by Robert and Passages Bookshop owner David Abel.

worksonpaper.ricercata.org

Mike's piece has a score which is presented as text on screen. the text is by Brian Massumi. [for the full title of Mike's piece and the text credit, see below]. Mike will be playing his 88-key keyboard controller into a sound module with an acoustik piano sound going stereo-audio-out into the mixer[s] , improvising piano performance live, while he improvisationally speaks-sings the Massumi text as seen on the screen, his voice processed via a Boss ve20 vocal processor into the mixer for enough reverb to fill the movie theater auditorium. He also will play a stereo-sound-reinforced 22 inch chinese chau gong with mallet every time each of the 16 series changes. there are sixteen series in the massumi text. and the slides total 33 pre-programmed slides presented by an app called libre office in pre-programmed 'transitioning' slide show mode on mike's first mac book pro. for the cst event the slides are pre-programmed at 2 minutes each so that 33 slides times 2 is 66 minutes, hence mike's piece at cst is planned as 66 minutes long. also a mix of backing tracks created in digital performer on his second mac book pro going audio out as 32 bit wav files put into itunes, is also pre-recorded with 3 kinds of drone sounds: 1. ocean field recording sounds, 2. four stereo and mono layered analog synth drones forming one large major ninth interval from an oberheim matrix 1000 sound module, 3. and further gong played by large yarn mallet doing repeated pulsations, and also a large super ball friction mallet for gong drones...

Mark and Robert will be performing on a small yamaha reface vintage organ with wave effects and casio type keyboards, both going audio out into the mixer[s]. They may bring additional electronic devices, such as an analog synthesizer.