Experimental Musical Performance and In-Depth Conversation Both Focus on Transformation of the Human Body to Achieve Greater Balance Our Environment
SAN FRANCISCO, CA, June 15, 2022 — McEvoy Foundation for the Arts is pleased to announce two in-person live events to be presented in conjunction with its current exhibition MYR (May 27 – August 27, 2022). These events thoughtfully supplement the artworks on view in a variety of media that creatively explore deep time, natural stewardship, and human existence. On August 6, electronic musicians Red Culebra will present a newly commissioned expansion of their ongoing multimedia performance Let Us Speak Frog. On August 27, exhibition artist Heather Dewey-Hagborg and writer Annalee Newitz will join us to discuss their shared interest in biotechnology as a place for important conversations about human futures, in art, fiction, and reality.
Guest curator Elizabeth Thomas notes, “Much like artworks in the gallery exhibition, Red Culebra’s performance posits an empathetic relationship to the natural world as a means for evolving together and repairing the damages humanity has wrought, bringing us to this point of climate emergency. Grounded in real science, Heather and Annalee both imagine futures that see biotechnology as both a way to augment the human body, and will offer an expanded discussion of the increasingly blurring lines between the natural and the unnatural, ethically, philosophically, and in practice.”
Visit mcevoyarts.org for tickets and information. At this time, face coverings are required to be worn at all times while inside the McEvoy Arts galleries for visitors two and older, regardless of vaccination status. Updates to health and safety policies can be found at mcevoyarts.org/visit.
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Let Us Speak Frog
Red Culebra
Saturday, August 6 • 7:00pm
McEvoy Foundation for the Arts, 1150 25th Street, San Francisco, CA 94107
$15 general admission / $12 students and seniors: https://www.mcevoyarts.org/event/red-culebra-let-us-speak-frog/
Let Us Speak Frog is an experimental music and multi-media performance. Responding to the Holocene extinction—the ongoing extinction event caused by human activity—electronic synthesizer duo Red Culebra uses generative composition to speak non-human languages and explore imagined ecologies. At this event, Red Culebra will premiere their two-hour durational performance during which time audiences will witness two musicians transform themselves, via sound, into flying snakes. As snakes, they will visit and attempt to apologize to frogs throughout the world. In addition, Red Culebra will collaborate with animator Christoph Steger and choreographer Gerald Casel to expand the telling of their story with interactive animated projection and live dance choreography.
Red Culebra is an electronic synthesizer duo and collaboration of Bay Area electronic musicians and performance artists gal*in_dog (aka Guillermo Galindo) and Cristóbal Martínez. Red Culebra’s performance art includes sound invocations, moving images, and movement by performers. Inspired by their complicated Post-Mexican backgrounds, Galindo and Martinez create and perform rituals based on cycles of repetition and uniformity. The sonic, graphic, and repetitive nature of their work requires both endurance and determination from their audiences, while denying participating publics the opportunity to fetishize ceremony. Founded in San Francisco, Red Culebra has performed throughout the Bay Area at venues including the San Francisco Art Institute, The Lab, BAMPFA, and Southern Exposure.
In Conversation: Heather Dewey-Hagborg and Annalee Newitz
Saturday, August 27 • 3:00pm
McEvoy Foundation for the Arts, 1150 25th Street, San Francisco, CA 94107
Free with registration: https://www.mcevoyarts.org/event/heather-dewey-hagborg-annalee-newitz/
Join artist and biohacker Heather Dewey-Hagborg and science writer Annalee Newitz for a lively conversation exploring the generative intersection of art and science. Dewey-Haborg’s 2019 installation Lovesick, on view in MYR, was made in collaboration with research scientists and depicts a custom retrovirus that increases production of oxytocin (the “love hormone”) in the human body. Newitz explores both science fiction and nonfiction in their award-winning articles, books, and podcasts. Together, the two will discuss the ethics of approaching science through the lens of art and other “unscientific” methods. This conversation is co-presented with the Exploratorium, where Dewey-Hagborg is Artist-in-Residence.
Dr. Heather Dewey-Hagborg is an artist who is interested in art as research and technological critique. Dewey-Hagborg has shown work internationally at venues including SFMoMA, the World Economic Forum, the Guangzhou Triennial, and the Walker Center for Contemporary Art. Her work is held in public collections at the Centre Pompidou and the Victoria and Albert Museum, among others, and has been widely discussed in outlets such as the New York Times and Artforum. Dewey-Hagborg is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Interactive Media at NYU Abu Dhabi and an Artist-in-Residence at the Exploratorium. She holds a PhD in Electronic Arts from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Annalee Newitz writes science fiction and nonfiction. They are the author of the book Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age, and the novels The Future of Another Timeline, and Autonomous, which won the Lambda Literary Award. As a science journalist, they are a writer for the New York Times and elsewhere, and have a monthly column in New Scientist. Newitz has also published in The Washington Post, Slate, Popular Science, Ars Technica, and The Atlantic, among others, and is the co-host of the Hugo Award-winning podcast Our Opinions Are Correct. They hold a Ph.D. in English and American Studies from UC Berkeley.
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MYR is a multimedia art exhibition exploring deep time, natural stewardship, and human existence. The artists on view bring science and speculation together to explore how deeper visions of space and time relate to contemporary existential anxieties, particularly the imminent climate emergency. Taking its title from the unit of measurement equaling one million years used in earth sciences and astronomy, MYR presents diverse creative approaches to depicting the intersection of time, space, and life. The result thoughtfully de-centers humanity and instead places Earth as the protagonist of its story. For more information, visit mcevoyarts.org.
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McEvoy Foundation for the Arts presents exhibitions and events that engage, expand, and challenge themes present in the McEvoy Family Collection. Established in 2017, McEvoy Arts creates an open, intimate, and welcoming place for private contemplation and public discussion about art and culture. Rooted in the creative legacies of the San Francisco Bay Area, McEvoy Arts embodies a far-reaching vision of the McEvoy Family Collection’s potential to facilitate and engage conversations on the practice of contemporary art. McEvoy Arts invites artists, curators, and thinkers with varied perspectives to respond to the Collection. Each year, these collaborations produce exhibitions in the Foundation’s gallery, new media programs in the Screening Room, as well as many film, music, literary, and performing arts events each year. Exhibitions are free and open to the public. For more health, safety, and admissions information, please visit mcevoyarts.org/visit.
Image credits: Red Culebra photos courtesy of the artists, Heather Dewey-Hagborg photo by Ana Brigada, Annalee Newitz photo by Sarah Deragon.