Superastral / Technical Reserve
At this concert from our electro music series, we welcome two excellent projects: Warsaw-based Superastral and Technical Reserve from the United States.
The SUPERASTRAL project was founded in 2021 at the PanDymińska arts space and since then has appeared in many venues, including the Audio Art festival in Kraków in 2021, where it was described as: “Steve Reich-style rhythmic loops invited inner seated dancing, and the incredibly creative, impeccably realized visuals took the mind somewhere into the deep orbits of inner universes. A magnificent flight!” — Glissando Magazine, 13 December 2021, Sangha Audio Art. Review of the 2021 edition, Wojtek Krzyżanowski.
SUPERASTRAL is a fusion of classical musical approach (Anna — an academic composer, student of Prof. Schaeffer) and free artistic flow (Kamil — a visual artist experimenting with sound).
The SUPERASTRAL concept draws on one hand from the tradition of 20th-century avant-garde, minimal music and contrapuntal thinking, and on the other from electronic ambient, exploration of rhythmic modules and sample mixing.
Elements of structuralism and modernism are also visible in the multimedia layer — the video art is based on repeatedly processed image fragments, creating unique and hypnotic visuals.
Technical Reserve is a trio of Hunter Brown, Dominic Coles and TJ Borden. Their unique improvisational language moves freely between clear rhythmic passages, precise, energetic sound and floating, misty abjection. This is music for lovers of jazz weightlessness and roadside madness. Come for a ride with us! Debut album: Technical Reserve — Personal Watercraft
Performers:
SuperastralAnna Jędrzejewska piano, electronics
Kamil Kowalski video, electronics
Technical Reserve
Hunter Brown electronics
Dominic Coles electronics
TJ Borden cello
Production:
Production: Agata Krystek
Visual identity: Aleksandra Ołdak
Sound engineering: Wojciech Błażejczyk
The Hashtag Lab Contemporary Music Space is co-financed by the Capital City of Warsaw. Media patrons: POLMIC.PL and Dwójka Polskie Radio.
About the artists:
Anna JędrzejewskaComposer, director and creator of multimedia projects such as installations and audiovisual spectacles. Considered one of the most versatile artists on the Polish art scene. Her work is rooted in improvisation and contemporary musical techniques. She completed composition studies in the class of Prof. Bogusław Schaeffer at the Music Academy in Kraków, studying under teachers such as Adam Kaczyński, Krystyna Moszumańska-Nazar, Marek Chołoniewski and Krzysztof Knittel. At the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków she studied multimedia sculpture under Antoni Porczak. Her projects, such as “Video Score” and “Energetic Resonance,” have been presented at prestigious festivals including Darmstädter Ferienkurse and Warszawska Jesień. Selected projects:
Korposzamanizm – an audioscenic work for performer and electronics (2020, Audio Stage, Warsaw)
Duszysko – micro opera for coloratura alto and electronics (2021, PanDymińska, Warsaw)
UMBRA – micro opera for soprano, electronics, piano and live video (2021, PanDymińska, Warsaw)
HYBRID – rap opera for rapper, performers and video (2022–2023, Prom Kultury Warsaw, Mózg Festiwal Bydgoszcz)
Puls Życia – audiovisual performance at Warszawskie Studio Eksperymentu (2023)
Kamil KowalskiVisual artist, graphic designer (Academy of Fine Arts Warsaw, multimedia specialization), painter and photographer. His day-to-day work is in applied graphics, while in his free time he creates painting and photography. His graphic style is characterized by economy of form, referencing modernism, futurism and unism. He photographs urban spaces and people in a reportage style. Selected projects:
Niewidzialne Miasta – solo painting exhibition (2021, PanDymińska, Warsaw)
Duszysko – set design for the micro opera (2021, PanDymińska, Warsaw)
UMBRA – visuals for the micro opera (2021, PanDymińska, Warsaw)
SUPERASTRAL – audiovisual project (Audio Art 2021, Kraków)
Visuals at the Syntezy Festival “Tribute to Schaeffer” (2023, Kraków)
Hunter Brown Composer, improviser and sound engineer from Chicago, Illinois. His work focuses on creating unpredictable, idiosyncratic and unruly interactions with digital technology. He is particularly interested in exploring the unstable material properties of digital systems through experimental machine-listening techniques and pushing the physical limits of digital technology to the point of failure. In Chicago he serves as technical director of Ensemble Dal Niente and runs the Party Perfect!!! record label focused on computer music, together with his collaborator Dominic Coles. He is currently a visiting assistant professor in computer music at Oberlin Conservatory of Music and a doctoral candidate at the University of Chicago. More information.
Dominic Coles Musician from Queens, New York. Through composition and improvisation he investigates interactions between place, identity and power as articulated in sound, seeking to intervene in these categories through specific acts of technologically mediated listening. Documents of his work have been released by Edition Wandelweiser, Tripticks Tapes, Spricht Editions and performed at venues such as Café OTO (London), KM28 (Berlin), Les Ateliers Claus (Brussels), Shift: FourOneOne (New York), Alyssa Davis Gallery (New York), Casa Del Popolo (Montreal), Indexical (Santa Cruz) and DIY spaces across the USA and Europe. Dominic has been a resident at Baldwin for the Arts and a Qubit Innovator Lab Fellow. He also runs the Party Perfect! label together with Hunter Brown. More information.
Tyler J. Borden A cellist who explores the limits and possibilities of his instrument. Originally from western New York, he now lives in Brooklyn, where he spends most of his time searching for ways to harness both the strengths and the weaknesses of his instrument and himself.