Sonic Garden

I’m beyond excited to go to Athens to show a new sound installation and perform in the beautiful garden of the French School.

This show is part of Sounds Now, a network of 9 European music festivals and arts centers that promote contemporary music, experimental music and sound art. https://www.sounds-now.eu/

I’ll be showing nomadic noises, a set of eight simple, tree-mounted shelters housing an assembly of motors teasing sounds from different materials.

It’s going to be fun!

More info here:

https://www.onassis.org/whats-on/sonic-stories/sonic-garden

I’m very excited to have been asked to teach a class at Bennington College in the Fall of 2019.

I’ll be taking the students on an adventure of instrument building. The course is “Sounding Physics” and there will be harvested materials, mechanical contraptions, motors and maybe an arduino or two. Fun!

Thank you so much to Nick Brooke for inviting me to be part of the amazing team of artists at Bennington.

Here’s the description of the class:

https://curriculum.bennington.edu/fall2019/2019/04/17/sounding-physics/

https://www.bennington.edu/academics/faculty/thessia-machado

Yes, this field is part of the campus!

Come celebrate the (hopefully) end of the mad heat with some cool and refreshing sounds, courtesy of the excellent Hey Exit, Viola Yip, Travis Johns and yours truly.

Sunday 8/25 @ Spectrum. Early show at 6pm!

70 Flushing Ave, Garage A
(entrance betw. Cumberland and Carlton), Brooklyn

https://www.facebook.com/events/418512178763478/

http://www.spectrumnyc.com/site/calendar.php

A refreshing afternoon of cool sounds at the New School!

Come chill in the AC with Crystal Penalosa, Jillion’s Guyon and yours truly.

I’m ridiculously excited about the closing performance for the show toward the unsound at the Arts Club of Chicago.

On April 26th from 4 to 9 pm I’ll be joined by an amazing group of sound-makers in a sound event, where we play in various configurations.

Merche Blasco, Viola Yip, Pedro Lopes and Jenna Lyle will join me in teasing sounds from 3D printers, light bulbs, a hydraulic lift, tuning forks, modified turntables, with emf capturing badminton racquets and much more!

info here:

http://www.artsclubchicago.org/the-unsounders-closing-performance/

After a lot of work and incredible support from the Arts Club of Chicago, my solo exhibition Toward the Unsound is up and running!

Many many thanks to Arts Club director Janine Mileaf, the awesome Jenna Lyle, who curated the show, and Adam Mikos & his tireless team for making this happen. It was quite the experience to be in Chicago for 2 weeks installing the show and I couldn’t be happier.

There’s a beautiful catalog designed by Sonnenzimmer and produced by Jenna Lyle and curatorial assistant H Daly Arnett. It has essays by Lyle and Mileaf and a USB drive as a sound appendix with sounds from the works in the show. Make sure to get one, it really is quite gorgeous (there’s even a felt page, for that extra tactile experience).

The show is up until April 27th. We will be doing a marathon of performances for the closing on April 26th. Merche Blasco, Pedro Lopes, Viola Yip and the Arts Club very own Jenna Lyle are scheduled to perform. It will be awesome sonic fun!

If you find yourself in Chicago in the next couple of months, please go and check it out.

More info here:

http://www.artsclubchicago.org/exhibition/thessia-machado-toward-the-unsound/

and here is a time-lapse of the installation process for river reverb:

60Hz cyclers – Sonic Experiments with Penelope Umbrico’s MONUMENT

January 3rd – 7pm

Bric Arts 647 Fulton Street, Brooklyn

I’m happy to start the new year in the good company of Ranjit Bhatnagar and Ed Bear (as the 60Hz cyclers) tickling interesting sounds out of Penelope Umbrico’s excellent show at BRIC Arts.

You will have had plenty of time to cure the all the parties hangovers and be ready for fresh buzzes, whirs, clicks and hums to usher in a wonderful year of sonic fun!

More info here: https://www.bricartsmedia.org/events-performances/60hz-cyclers-sonic-experiments-penelope-umbricos-monument

It’s been a busy time in the studio preparing for the Chicago show in just a couple of months! So excited!

here are some of the works getting ready for the trip :

Commemorating the prepping of the 100th felt strip (out of 133)

felt strips making the shape of a sound spectrogram

felt strip prepping station

so many disks of sheetrock! Thank you, Nick. This will make 2 sculptures of waveforms , each as tall as I am

dc motors playing bass strings on bridges and heads made of cast cement

arduino circuit for motors. laser goodness

… and there’s more…

keep an eye here for more info:

Thessia Machado: toward the unsound

I’m super excited to be preparing for this solo show at the beautiful Arts Club of Chicago. It will open on January 23rd, 2019 and it’s going to be epic!

I’m creating some brand new pieces and revisiting some older ones, including a large architectural intervention I had never had a chance/space to produce. There will be circuits, lights, sounds, cast cement and industrial felt.

Towards the end of the exhibition period we will have a mini-festival of sound performances that engage with the space and one of the installations.

Super grateful to the Arts Club and Jenna Lyle for giving me the space and resources to play big.

Keep an eye on AAC’s site for more info:

Thessia Machado: Toward the Unsound

A nice interview talking about the instrument ruby and sound-making in general.

Thessia Machado’s Handmade Instruments Turn Ambience into Music

And if that makes it curious about this instrument, well you’re in luck! I’ll be performing February 16th with ruby & the unsounds as part of the conference Precarious Sounds // Sounding Sanctuary, hosted by NYU’s FAS Music Department.

More info and full schedule here:

https://wp.nyu.edu/psss2018/

It’s been quite the eventful year so far!

I’m back from spending time in fabulous Berlin and you can find info about the trip and its contents below.

But first, here’s what’s upcoming this summer (in order of appearance):

DEEP TIME LIVE #1
music and video performances in connection with the exhibition curated by Tali Hinkis
June 28, 7 pm at Radiator Gallery
10-61 Jackson Ave, LIC, NY 11106

Featuring Thessia Machado, Becca Uliasz and Andy Pitcher, Howard Huang, and a special guest.

more info about the excellent exhibition here:
www.radiatorarts.com

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The Lacemaker’s Y(e)arn
Karen Ostrom and Thessia Machado

at BRIC Arts

June 30 – Aug 13, 2017
OPENING RECEPTION: June 29, 7-9pm

Curated by Jenny Gerow

The Lacemaker’s Y(e)arn is a visual conversation between two artists responding to the language of traditional lace construction. Karen Ostrom and Thessia Machado present a unique collaboration of animation and sound, filtered through traditional lace from Bahia, Brazil, and a repurposed fax machine.

BRIC Arts
647 Fulton Street
Brooklyn, NY 11217
www.bricartsmedia.org

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Where Do We Stand?

Two Years of Drawing with Open Sessions

at The Drawing Center

Aug 03 – Sep 17, 2017    

Where Do We Stand?: Two Years of Drawing with Open Sessions is the second whole-group exhibition of the Open Sessions program. It includes all thirty-six artists in the 2016-17 program, giving the first floor of the museum over to an exploration of contemporary drawing, encompassing video, sculpture, photography, and installation, as well as traditional drawing forms.

www.drawingcenter.org

THE DRAWING CENTER 35 Wooster Street, New York, NY, 10013

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And here’s some of the things I was up to this past winter and spring while in residence at the American Academy in Berlin.

a little video profile from the Academy:

Fellow Spotlight: Thessia Machado

A photo essay and some origin stories about the piece telix:

https://van-us.atavist.com/the-air-in-which-we-swim

info about the show at SomoS Gallery (more documentation coming soon):

http://www.somos-arts.org/thessia-machado-telix/

An interview in the newspaper Taz. (my German is so good..)

http://www.taz.de/!5405652/

A little gig in a phone booth in Schlachtensee:

dial:music, episode 8: analog synthesizer

I’m incredibly humbled and grateful to receive an Artists Grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. FCA was founded by John Cage, Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, so it’s a really special honor to be part of this legacy.

https://www.foundationforcontemporaryarts.org/recipients/thessia-machado

Also

I arrived in Berlin a week ago to start my 5-month residency at the American Academy in Berlin. I’ll be giving a presentation here on the 26th to discuss my work and give a short performance with ruby, my newest instrument.

more info here

http://www.americanacademy.de/home/program/upcoming

this presentation is part of the vorspiel programme of the Transmediale festival

https://vorspiel.berlin/

Back in the States, I have work in a couple of shows on view right now:

http://cindyruckergallery.com/exhibition/sound-two-mikhail-iliatov-thessia-machado

and

http://newhavenarts.org lustre-and-rust

I’m honored and thrilled to be participating in Ed Bear’s realization of this piece. I’ll be contributing a baby-monitor controlled synth. It’s going to be epic!

More info and tickets here:

http://issueprojectroom.org/event/after-9-evenings-john-cage%E2%80%99s-variations-vii%E2%80%9D-realized-ed-bear

Very happy to have a new installation in this show. The show is up July 15th through September 2nd.

More info at:

http://www.drawingcenter.org

A show in Governors Island with a great group of artists organized by Harvestworks. Come for the opening on Saturday May 28th 3 -5 pm and enjoy the bucolic setting.

Register for a workshop with Ed Bear and talk on June 4th.

It’s on an island!!

More info here:

[May 28 – July 25] Roomtone by Thessia Machado – The TEAM Lab: Artworks and Experiences

Some good things already happening this year!
Very excited to be an Artist in Residence at Harvestworks, where I’ll be developing a new instrument/installation.
More info here:
http://www.harvestworks.org/2016-new-works-residencies/

Also thrilled to be participating in the 2016/17 Open Sessions at the Drawing Center.
Info here:
http://www.drawingcenter.org/en/drawingcenter/574/open-sessions/1375/artists-2016-2017/1376/current-artists-2016-2017/

Stay tuned here and in their respective sites for more on the development of these projects.

If you find yourself in Boston later this month, please come and check out this show. I have a piece in it. It should be really fun!

Get the info here:

https://www.facebook.com/events/873163106092656/

Check out the interview here:
http://blog.propitup.com/thessia/

After many years suffering under the yoke of a flash site, my work is now finally available for viewing on smart phones and devices that gave flash the boot.

There are still a couple of things being adjusted, but sign yourself up for news and announcements and you’ll be in the loop.

Thanks for visiting.