JOSHUA LIGHT SHOW with SOFT CIRCLE and INVISIBLE CONGA PEOPLE May 31, 2008

Saturday, May 31 ELECTRONIC MUSIC Soft Circle (Hisham Bharoocha) and Invisible Conga People (Justin Simon, Eric Tsai), 8pm

ISSUE Project Room is thrilled to host pioneering multimedia artist Joshua White and his legendary Joshua Light Show for a week of unique audiovisual collaborations. The residency will involve White’s iconic projections alongside an incredible roster of musicians, with a different musical genre represented on each night of the residency. The Joshua Light Show involves a team of video and light artists, led by White and his senior collaborator, Bec Stupak (Honeygun Labs) to improvise live synesthetic visuals behind a giant rear projection screen, involving the “liquid light” techniques he developed at Bill Graham’s Fillmore East during the late 1960s. In addition, each performance of the light show will feature contributions from a different live-cinema artist, including Seth Kirby, Zach Layton, and Mighty Robot A/V Squad. The residency is curated and produced in collaboration with Nick Hallett and concludes a month of programming at IPR devoted to the Ecstatic Moment.

$20 General-admission floor seating (available at the door before each concert)
$30 Reserved chair seating can be arranged by email: reservations@issueprojectroom.org
All performances begin at 8pm

ISSUE Project Room at the (oa) can factory 232 Third Street at 3rd Ave, 3rd Floor, Brooklyn, NY 11215 F, G to Carroll; F, M, R to 9th Street-4th Ave (718) 330-0313 (venue)
www.issueprojectroom.org

Joshua White is a New York based multimedia artist and television director. He studied theater at Carnegie Mellon University and film at University of Southern California. He is well known for developing the lightshow at the rock venue Fillmore East, appearing with artists such as Jefferson Airplane, The Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, The Doors, Yayoi Kusama, and Led Zeppelin, among many others. During this time, he also created special effects for the film Midnight Cowboy. After the lightshow’s performance at Woodstock in 1969, White shifted to television. His directing credits include Seinfeld, The Max Headroom Show, Club MTV and Inside The Actors Studio. In the 1990s, White returned to creating fine art installations in collaboration with Michael Smith, and in 2004 developed a new lightshow with comic artist and designer, Gary Panter. His first show since 1969 billed as “Joshua Light Show” was performed in April 2007 at The Kitchen, which he followed up with a headlining performance at the annual Netmage live media festival in Bologna. His artwork has shown at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C., Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, Tate Liverpool, Kunsthalle Schim Frankfurt, Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, and the Kunsthalle Wien. The Center for Visual Music recently released a DVD of his “liquid loops.” He will perform alongside German electronic musician Manuel Gottsching for the US premiere of E2-E4 at Lincoln Center Out of Doors festival this summer.

Soft Circle is Hisham Akira Bharoocha, a founding member of the bands Black Dice and Lightning Bolt. Bharoocha plays "sonic vibrations" on live guitar and drums while chanting over electronic loops of his own creation. He works in various collaborations with Japanese band Boredoms--as the musical coordinator of last summer's 77 Boadrum event, playing in a side project with Eye, and as musical support on their recent tour. He is working on a split 7" with the band High Places for the PPM! label, in addition to his visual art, which has been exhibited in New York at Deitch projects and John Connelly Presents among other galleries. www.myspace.com/softcircle
Invisible Conga People, "aka Justin Simon and Eric Tsai, are a New York City duo who’ve recently made waves playing with such chattered-about types as the DFA and Simian Mobile Disco. Their music? Burbles and scrapes, gently-plinking tones hopping over washes of velvety noise, strains of psychedelia, and something ominous that feels German and electronic. Oh, and beats. Plus, they make some of their equipment themselves. Simon also runs the Mesh-Key imprint" (Detour). www.myspace.com/invisiblecongapeople

ISSUE Project Room's Joshua Light Show Residency is made possible through Presentation Funds from the Experimental Television Center. The Experimental Television Center’s Presentation Funds program is supported by the New York State Council on the Arts.

Official Website: http://issueprojectroom.org