ALTERED STATES, Curated by Jamillah James for Frontier Projects

Sunday April 5th, 2009
LOF/T Load of Fun Theatre
120 W. North Avenue
Directions
Tickets: $5
Doors Open: 8 pm, Performances begin at 9 pm

Live Performances by Lexie Mountain Boys, Soft Circle (ex-Black Dice/Lightning Bolt), Blues Control (Siltbreeze Records, Brooklyn), Ra Khuit Noor, and New Jedi Order.

Altered States examines the history of collective action, originating in the 1960s with communalism (made families in hippie and freak subcultures), and avant-garde performance, where elements were borrowed from traditional rituals and ceremonial spectacle. This rubric for performance and artistic practice champions a freedom from creative, economic, and social constraints, and de-emphasizes the singular, commodifiable art object as the end-all of cultural production.

The exhibition considers a renewed interest in the aesthetics and performativity of mysticism. Through idiosyncratic performance, borrowed iconography, and the creation of “invested” objects and spaces, the artists in Altered States re-contextualize alterity, or “otherness”, as a psychedelic state of being, and explore the secular, the sacred, and the creative space in between.

Artists:
Delia & Gavin (video)
EMR (Extreme Mature Respect: Math Bass & Dylan Mira) (video)
Forcefield (Matt Brinkman, Jim Drain, Leif Goldberg, Ara Peterson) (video)
Lexie Mountain Boys (performance on Sunday 4/5)
Zeljko McMullen & Severiano Martinez (video)
New Jedi Order (installation + performance)
Jimmy Joe Roche (video)
Caitlin Williams & Sarah Milinski (installation)
Erin Womack (objects + performance)

	Delia & Gavin (Delia Gonzalez & Gavin Russom: video) are multidisciplinary artists based in Berlin. Their practice encompasses video, performance, sculpture, and music.  They have been working collaboratively for the past seven years. Their work approaches the ecstatic atmosphere present in both initiation and celebration, mirroring the function of these rituals as simultaneous expressions of creative and destructive energy. A repetitive element is present both visually in meticulously sequined totems and modular Formica block sculptures, as well as in the sound produced by their electronic music synthesizers, provoking a state of trance. A minimalist aesthetic is used for its ability to generate an abstraction of reality within which many points of reference can interact. The work derives inspiration from such seemingly disparate sources as Greek tragedy, fascist architecture, Latin American mythology, 70’s horror films, and disco culture and it is particularly focused on historical moments of decadence and extremes. Their work has been presented at PS1 The Center for Contemporary Art (Long Island City, NY), Daniel Reich Gallery (NY), Jack Hanley (San Francisco), Peres Projects (Los Angeles), Galleria Fonti (Naples, IT), among other places.  They are also well known for their musical recordings on the DFA label, and have been the cover subject of Arthur magazine.
	EMR (Extreme Mature Respect: video) is a new collaborative entity, formed between interdisciplinary San Francisco-based artists Dylan Mira and Math Bass (formerly of the performance duo Marriage). They have previously collaborated on the Pilot TV Chicago convergence, and have shown individually at Mix NYC, Documenta 12, and in collaboration with LTTR, the celebrated colloborative queer feminist publication. Most recently, EMR’s work has been featured in Channeling: An Invocation of Spectral Bodies & Queer Spirits, a film and video exhibition curated by Latham Zearfoss and Ethan White, which has been screened internationally.
	Forcefield (video) were an art collective and band closely associated with Fort Thunder, an event space in Providence, Rhode Island between 1995 and 2001. Known for performing in colorful full-body knit-wear of their own design, Forcefield rarely performed outside of Rhode Island, but did one US tour with their Fort Thunder roommates Lightning Bolt. Members included Meerk Puffy (Matt Brinkman), Gorgon Radeo (Jim Drain), Patootie Lobe (Ara Peterson), and Le Geef (Leif Goldberg). The group become more widely recognized after being included in the 2002 Whitney Biennial, but dissolved shortly afterwards.  Third Annual Roggaboggas, the soundtrack accompanying their Biennial installation, was released as a CD by Load Records in 2003. Later that year, Bulb Records put out the posthumous Lord of the Ring Modulators. The work of Forcefield and other Fort Thunder-related artists has been chronicled in Artforum, the New York Times, and in the exhibition, Wunderground: Providence 1995 to the Present at the Rhode Island School of Design. Since its demise, members of Forcefield have exhibited internationally and have been published widely in a variety of projects.
	Zeljko McMullen & Severiano Martinez (video) have been collaborating for years, chiefly on projects related to their recording label Shinkoyo (also home to Baltimoreans Peter Blasser and Carson Garhardt). McMullen lives and works in Brooklyn, New York at the experimental performance and art space he founded, Paris London West Nile. Martinez is a published writer and musician based in New York. In July 2008, West Nile was the subject of an exhibition at D’Amelio Terras gallery in Manhattan, in which a portion of The Fool’s Journey was featured.
	Lexie Mountain Boys (performance): a many-limbed, many-voiced beast that lives in Baltimore. Founded in 2005 by Lexie Macchi, LMB have managed to escape all categorizing and most contextualizing. Relying primarily on their bodies as instruments, they recall 70s sisterfied female performance art met with the raucous collectivist spirit of the aughts, filed under experimental. They wail, stomp, whistle, giggle, clap, intone, incant, and always surprise. Their recordings and live performances have garnered critical acclaim in national music press. They have performed nationally and will embark on their first European tour in April. Shortly before their performance for Altered States, they will have their first institutional appearance, hosted by the New Museum in New York City.
	The New Jedi Order (installation + performance) is a radical open source copyleft new media conglomerate run out of Baltimore USA. As hybrid defenders of anarchic media all output from the conglomerate refuses any form of intellectual property ownership and views such concepts as counterproductive and delusional mentalities instilled in the general public by the systems that be. The collective aims to create new relevant dialog out of preexisting symbols. Work is broadcast as a means of channeling the decentralized forces of the information age toward the general erosion of outdated and fascist institutions. Work by the collective is unbiased in venue and form. Varying from performing at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Baltimore Contemporary Museum to performing, screening, and working anonymously in underground, DIY, cyber and public spaces. Borrowing elements from many different models the audio, video, and pictorial output of the NJO is often designed for and distributed over the internet, recycled analog tapes, photocopy zines and Compact Discs.
	Jimmy Joe Roche (video) is a Baltimore-based visual artist, filmmaker, and member of the Wham City collective. Roche’s work has been screened in venues and museums all over the U.S. and Canada, including the Corcoran Museum of Art, the Walters Art Museum, Anthology Film Archives, New York Underground Film Festival, Yale College, the Great American Music Hall, and San Francisco International Animation festival. His recent collaboration, “Ultimate Reality”, with musician Dan Deacon has gained national press attention. Recently, Roche’s short film “Baltimore Shopping Network” was featured on the New Museum’s website Rhizome, and his music video for Deacon’s “Crystal Cat” was featured on the front page of YouTube, garnering over half a million hits. In June 2008, Roche had his first solo exhibition, Totems, at New York’s R.A.R.E Gallery.
	Caitlin Williams & Sarah Milinski (installation) Caitlin was born and raised in or around Virginia Beach, VA. She is a fibers major at Maryland Institute College of Art.  Sarah was born in Oxfordshire, U.K., she is a video teacher. Sarah heard of Caitlin and was curious. Many years later, pretty much the stars aligned and art work was made. Their abiding interests are cats, Shakers, succulents, hand made ropes, woven imagery, wycinanki, lavender incense and making the world’s largest friendship bracelet together. They hope to meet you at Transmodern–otherwise, see you in the future. Keep it friendly.
	Erin Womack (objects + performance) is an artist working in print media, performance and film. Her narratives tell of a primeval reality where humanoids are left to wander vacant forests and deserts. She has recently exhibited at Space 1026 in Philadelphia and Mountain Fold Gallery in New York City. She has self-published a number of small books independently and with the Baltimore-based group Closed Caption Comics. For Altered States she will be performing with Ravi Binning as Ra Khuit Noor: “Together, they are ambassadors of new Egypt, creating charred feedback hymnals as an offering to the ancient ones.”

*Special thanks to Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), New York for the Forcefield videos and Delia Gonzalez, Gavin Russom, and DFA Records for the Delia & Gavin video.