Sun Children: Call and Response

High Desert Test Sites presents a day of sun-sound performances on the summer solstice, led by Object Control, the Los Angeles based collaborative project of Matthew Horne and Mark X Farina.

Wednesday, June 20, 2012, 1 pm - sundown
Andy’s Gamma Gulch
Pioneertown, California

Using performance as conversation, Sun Children: Call and Response invites artists to explore the idea of spontaneous verbal and non-verbal interaction between speaker and listener, in which all of the statements (‘calls’) are punctuated by expressions (‘responses’) from the listener. In these planned or impromptu conversations, the sun calls via amplified radio signals received by an onsite radio telescope, and the artists respond through experimental music, dance, voice, or other performance.

The sun gives to the Earth without reciprocation. Plants photosynthesize - the process of converting solar energy into chlorophyll or plant food; other organisms feed. Therefore, all organisms feed from converted solar energy. The purpose of Sun Children is to pay homage to our singular provider parent: the sun. We give back through our participation of art actions. We want to put the active back in activities and encourage audience participation: all artists are participants and all participants are artists.

The sun gives to us freely, and so we attempt to imitate the sun’s generosity by giving freely to each other on the summer solstive, a day of celebration. These conversations and interactions could be thought of as a fun party dialogue with all of the awkward, humorous, and revealing moments one would expect.

Object Control began in 2008 as a series of investigations into solar cycle 24, an eleven-year period of solar weather with peak activity in 2012. The central tool for these investigations is a home-built radio telescope that receives radio signals transmitted by the sun. Past works have questioned the process of divination, the origin of language, and notions of autopoeisis. Sun Children: Call and Response is the final work in this series.

Performances by: Julie Tolentino, Christian Cruz, Matthew Horne, Erik Garant, Mark X Farina, Nuhura Montiel, and Daniel Muñoz