The Lab Announces its Next Adventurous Concert

Given yesterday’s announcement from City Hall and the cancellations of concerts that have ensued, it is a bit risky to be writing previews right now. However, the current round of cancellations will last until March 20. Rather than wait to see if and when it may be extended, I prefer to be optimistic and report about plans that, for now at least, remain in place. One of these will be taking place at The Lab and promises to be an adventurous experience.

It will feature two visiting artists, both working with sound as a medium without worrying about whether or not they are called “composers.” Francisco López will present his latest creation, basically an installation that was commissioned in 2018 for the 25th anniversary of the Sónar Festival. VirtuAural Electro-Mechanics is a creation developed from a myriad of original sound recordings of mechanical devices, electromechanical systems, and industrial environments. López has been collecting these sources for about 25 years and they reach back as far as sounds created by eighteenth-century automata. Rather than offer a concert experience, VirtuAural Electro-Mechanics provides an environment in which each of us can reflect on the phenomenology of our own capacity for hearing and listening.

In contrast to López’ approach, Barbara Ellison will give a performance of her new work, CyberSongs. However, like VirtuAural Electro-Mechanics, Ellison’s creation will explore what it means to be an engaged and attentive listener. As the title suggests, she works with different approaches to vocalization, including text-to-speech synthesis and real-time sampling of human voices. Rather than explore the nature of language and speech acts, Ellison works in the media of words, morphemes, phonemes, phrases, and speech particles, preferring the atomic to the molecular.

For those who do not already know, The Lab is in the Mission at 2948 16th Street. This is a short walk from the corner of Mission Street. The location is particularly good for those using public transportation, since that corner provides bus stops for both north-south and east-west travel as well as a BART station. The performing experience will begin at 8:30 p.m., and doors will open at 8 p.m. It is usually the case that a long line has accumulated before then. General admission will be $18, but members will be entitled to a discounted rate.