Performance
Saturday, March 31st, 2018

ISSUE Project Room
22 Boerum Place, Brooklyn

Saturday, March 31st, ISSUE presents Parisian-born artist Félicia Atkinson presenting a brand new performance involving an imaginary dialogue between the poems of Francis Ponge (1899-1988) and texts of her own, in French and in English, accompanied by electronics, voice and piano. The evening also features Afrikan Sciences & Sassacyprigo presenting a performance of nuanced soundscapes, mindful movements, and rhythms that conjure different temporalities.

Atkinson’s distinct practice incorporates diffuse poetic atmospheres and pointillistically rendered sounds that constantly suspend and re-introduce themselves. Often moving to emphasize the relationship between music and sculpture -- sound and its spatialization -- Atkinson’s work concentrates upon the implicit narrative of a “poetics of things” happening in sound. Here, like in the poems of Ponge, a profound “readymade” empathy toward objects, technology, and music emerges. Atkinson is also co-director for the label Shelter Press alongside Bartolomé Sanson, which has released works from Ben Vida, Gábor Lázár, Tomoko Sauvage, D/P/I, Stephen O’Malley, and others.

"La nuit parfois ravive une plante singulière dont la lueur décompose les chambres meublées en massifs d'ombres." The night sometimes revives a singular plant whose glow breaks down the room furnished in masses of shadows" -- Francis Ponge, The Candle (La Bougie) in Le Parti Pris des Choses / The Nature of Things, 1942

Emerging from a long lineage of musical structures born from the difficult social and political conditions of race relations, Afrikan Sciences uses electronic instruments as a medium for open-ended explorations of form and composition across the musical linguistic heritage of African-American music, while Sassacyprigo’s free-form dance stylings channel intuitive action and a continuous “soul survivalist” strength to live free.

“As a human being, I find that I’m at constant battle between the imposed power structure’s ways of looking at freedom and actually living free,” Sassacyprigo states. “It is within my search for personal voice and belonging that I create.”

This program is curated by writer and media theorist DeForrest Brown Jr. Concerned with speculative futures in performative contexts, Brown is part of the cataloguing space Elevator to Mezzanine and was ISSUE's 2017 Suzanne Fiol Curatorial Fellow.

Recorded by Bob Bellerue / Mixed by James Emrick

Félicia Atkinson - LIVE at ISSUE / March 31st, 2018

Disco, Boogie & 80s Electro

Upcoming
25.10.25 In-Store Session @ Studio Illegale (HB)

Past
07.08.25 Disc Jockels @ Pferdefestival
04.05.24 @ LAF (PF)
03.05.24 (A)I Tell You, You Tell Me @ ZKM (KA)
19.04.24 Semester Opening @ HfG (KA)
21.10.23 Buckle Up @ HfG (KA)
25.08.23 SCHLAG AUF BAU EIN @ ASF (KA)
29.07.23 Angrezi x irgendwo @ irgendwo (HB)
29.06.23 @ Gottesauer Eck (KA)
06.05.23 @ Studio Kanzlei (HB)
16.04.23 Muzak for Frogs @ radioangrezi.de (HB)
15.12.22 Winterbreak @ HfG (KA)
04.12.22 Indian Soundscape @ radioangrezi.de (HB)
20.08.22 Forsthaus Festival @ Fintel (ROW)
26.06.22 @ Letschebach Kunstverein (KA)
29.04.22 @ Forum HfG (KA)
24.03.22 @ Letschebach Kunstverein (KA)

Other Projects
Fake Experience https://fakeexperience.bandcamp.com/

ISSUE Project Room is a non-profit center for innovation, discovery, development, and presentation of new music, sound, dance, performance, literature, video, and film.

You can dance any rhythm, everyday, everywhere 💿

Compulsive collector of electronic listening vinyls: ambient, contemporary music, unhurried techno, experimental ...
Since some time ago, we can enjoy his series of sessions, "Breiko", mixed with neatness, where he offers us what his shelves hide.
Member of @calmamadrid and @espacioperpendicular

Félicia Atkinson - LIVE at ISSUE / March 31st, 2018

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