((audience))
new contexts for sound art

Empire Service

EMPIRE SERVICE is a New York project by ((audience)) to bring New York City and international artists to audiences in upstate New York. The first artist to be presented by ((audience)) Empire Service was Derek Holzer, an American sound artist based in Berlin who toured upstate New York in April and May 2010.

Holzer performed Tonewheels, an experiment in converting graphic imagery to sound, inspired by early inventions in electronic music. Transparent tonewheels with repeating patterns are spun over light-sensitive electronic circuitry to produce sound pulses and light textures. This all-analog set is performed live without the use of computers, using only an overhead projector as a light source and performance interface.

See our blog entry on Derek Holzer and Empire Service for more information and complete tour dates.

The second Empire Service artist will be Patrick McGinley (aka murmur), an American sound and performance artist who has lived and worked in Europe since 1996. In 2002 he co-founded framework, an organization that produces a weekly radio show on London's resonance104.4fm. His work concentrates on "the framing of sounds from our environment which normally pass through our ears unnoticed and unremarked, but which out of context become unrecognizable, alien and extraordinary." Murmer will travel to venues in Upstate New York in December 2010.

We would like to develop further station stops in the Finger Lakes, Capital District and Hudson Valley. And, given the small audiences for the artists that we present, we are also interested in finding non-traditional venues to work with, spaces for more intimate encounters -- in restaurants and, ideally, in private homes. If you might be interested in hosting a house concert, please contact us.