Silo Solos Press Release, Thursday, September 17, 2020, 1 Press Release Silo Solos performances carry on the legacy of MIT’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies for the B3 „Hello Truths“ Extravaganza Virtuale, Frankfurt, Germany Performance: Silo Solos: a Series of Performances broadcast from the Goldring-Piene art farm in Groton, Massachusetts Event: B3 „Hello Truths“ Extravaganza Virtuale, B3 Festival Center, Astor Film Lounge Frankfurt, Germany Date: B3 Opening October 9, 2020, 4 pm EST US time (10 pm Germany) Website: https://b3biennale.de/ Artists: Silo Solos artists include former Center for Advanced Visual Studies Fellows Elizabeth Goldring, Aldo Tambellini, and Paul Matisse; CAVS/MIT graduates Ellen Sebring and Seth Riskin; musician David Whiteside; and artist Jessica Spira-Goldring and Sophie Matisse. Description: During the opening night of B3 on October 9 at the B3 Festival Center, Astor Film Lounge Frankfurt, artists and media professionals from all continents will share their take on the B3 main theme of "TRUTHS" via the Internet. There will be slam poetry, video and film performances, art, games, XR and AI, statements and live music acts. The B3 2020 „Hello Truths“ Extravaganza Virtuale is an artistic-political homage to the first international satellite broadcast, "Good Morning, Mr. Orwell", by Korean video artist Nam June Paik on January 1, 1984, while at the same time adapting it to our current times. A visionary, Paik said that soon, everyone would have their own television station. This prophecy has become a global reality, perpetuated lately by Covid-19: interactive video conferences in all social areas have become a new matter of course. In his novel 1984, Georg Orwell foresaw the television of the future as the main control instrument of the dictatorial "Big Brother" in a totalitarian state. Paik, on the other hand, wanted to show that satellite television can also serve the positive exchange between people, cultures and continents. With his live broadcast between New York, San Francisco, Paris and Seoul, made possible by satellite transmission, he reached over Silo Solos Press Release, Thursday, September 17, 2020, 2 25 million viewers worldwide. Artists like John Cage, Laurie Anderson, Peter Gabriel, Philip Glass, Allen Ginsberg and Joseph Beuys created their own works for the project. "The B3 2020 transports Paik's basic idea into the "Global Village" (McLuhan) of the 21st century. The Internet is more than fake news and propaganda, it is a central instrument of freedom of expression and a global stage for art, artists and cultural convergence. The B3 2020 „Hello Truths“ Extravaganza Virtuale wants to contribute to these qualities," says Bernd Kracke, Artistic Director of B3 and President of the University of Art and Design Offenbach (HfG), explaining the idea behind this global project. As MIT alumnus himself, Kracke refers to Paik’s longterm affiliation with the Center For Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS) and to the particular contribution of CAVS artists to this event. The project Silo Solos will be performed in the Light Silo and the Bell Silo at the Goldring-Piene art farm in Groton, Massachusetts. The twin silos have served as individual studios for contemplation and new works during the long quarantine due to the global pandemic of 2020. The participants include alumni of the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology during the period when German-born artist, Otto Piene, was director. The assembled group is part of a larger cadre of artists and former CAVS Fellows inspired by its legacy. The silo event celebrates the recent publication of Centerbook, the first history of CAVS by Elizabeth Goldring and Ellen Sebring, available through MIT Press. Silo Solos artists include former CAVS Fellows Elizabeth Goldring, Aldo Tambellini, and Paul Matisse; CAVS/MIT graduates Ellen Sebring and Seth Riskin; musician David Whiteside; and artists Jessica Spira-Goldring and Sophie Matisse. PROGRAM: Introduction by the artists at the Goldring-Piene Art Farm. Corona Journals (8:37 minutes) by Elizabeth Goldring, David Whiteside Writer Elizabeth Goldring reads excerpts from her Corona journals in concert with flutist David Whiteside's improvisations. The sounding of Paul Matisse’s bell sets the stage for their dialogue. 8ight Circles (7 minutes) by Ellen Sebring Ellen Sebring performs visual sounds: repetitive actions emerging from the physical isolation of the pandemic, mirrored by the Bell Silo—a tower of fairy tales where the protagonist is locked away. The revolutions suggest the suspension between time and time-wasting, mundane fantasy and the devastating reality beyond the walls. Star of David Light Ballet (1 minute) by Otto Piene. Piene’s “Star of David” is the center of the Light Silo immersive installation. Silo Solos Press Release, Thursday, September 17, 2020, 3 Collages (30 seconds) by Jessica Spira-Goldring From Concarneau, France, Jessica Spira-Goldring's projections in the Light Silo, together with Otto Piene's Light Ballet are a Fata Morgana floating between presence and absence. Jessica says of her quarantine collages, "I made [them] during the initial weeks of the confinement period in France. The collaging process evolved from a series of underwater, skyscape, moonscape, and train collages that I glued together with my son during morning home-preschooling hours....For me, the collages are remnants of a time of quiet contemplation just before the electric spirit of transformation took to the streets. Black TV (1968, 3 minute excerpt) by Aldo Tambellini Created in 1968, Black TV epitomizes the artist’s prescient and pioneering multimedia works, claiming and combining the period’s socially significant media and content. Black TV synthesizes violence of late 20th century television—Robert Kennedy’s assassination, police brutality in Chicago, the war in Vietnam—and physical manipulations of film—painting, drawing and burning clear film leader; scratching, perforating and chemically corroding the emulsion on black leader. Physical and electronic, visceral and political, Black TV portends the media-driven challenges of our time. From the CAVS archives at MIT: “With Black TV Tambellini clearly lays before the viewer the epochal changes then underway in media history and presents his dark vision of America’s future, marching towards black.” Red Breath Light Dance (3:30 minutes) by Seth Riskin Riskin uses light to extend subjective bodily experiences, on this occasion breath. Circles of red light reach from the artist’s body to the interior surfaces of the silo, and the space comes alive with movements of the heart and breath and the emotions they transmit. Combining with Riskin’s circles, Otto Piene’s Light Ballet creates a fabric of spatial expression. Debussy’s Syrinx (2-3 minutes) flute performance by David Whiteside in the Bell Silo Bell Silo (5 minutes) by Paul Matisse with Sophie Matisse Paul Matisse designed the bell which created the Bell Silo as an original artwork and haunting and evocative environment. He collaborated with his daughter, artist Sophie Matisse, to create the video portion of the sound work. Closing Conversation Several of the artists at the art farm in Groton will discuss the themes and the works. Silo Solos Press Release, Thursday, September 17, 2020, 4 ARTIST BIOS (alphabetical): Elizabeth Goldring, (B.A. Smith College, M.Ed. Harvard University) writer, poet, and media artist, has been an active participant in the CAVS community since 1975. She served as Fellow, Exhibits and Projects Director, Lecturer, Acting Co-Director, and Charlotte Moorman Senior Fellow. Her artistic research focuses on ways of seeing for people who are blind or visually challenged. Her poetry publications include Laser Treatment, Without Warning, Ey-, and The Light Silo/Das Licht Silo with Otto Piene. http://elizabethgoldring.com Jessica Spira-Goldring is an American artist and singer based in Concarneau, France. She has performed with the Ohio Light Opera, Kansas City Lyric Opera, the Caramoor Festival, the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, the Franz Schubert Institut, Eugene Opera, Liederkranz Opera Theater, Les Rencontres Musicales in Enghien, Belgium, The Hartford New Music Festival, The Kansas City Civic Orchestra and The New York Repertory Theater. Paul Matisse is an artist and inventor known for his public art installations, many of which are interactive. Matisse also invented the Kalliroscope. Matisse, who lives in Groton, is the son of famed New York gallery owner Pierre Matisse, (the youngest son of painter Henri Matisse), and Alexina Sattler. His mother later divorced Pierre and married artist Marcel Duchamp, becoming Alexina "Teeny" Duchamp. Thus Paul is both grandson of Henri Matisse and later the stepson of Marcel Duchamp. Sophie Matisse is an American contemporary artist. Matisse initially gained notoriety for her series of Missing Person paintings, in which she appropriated and embellished upon, or subtracted from, recognizable works from art history. Seth Riskin, light artist, is the manager of the MIT Museum Studio and Compton Gallery, a new program for research and education at the forefront of art-science- technology collaboration. Riskin came to MIT in 1986 to coach the women’s gymnastics team, and earned the Master of Science in Visual Studies degree in 1989 at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies under the direction of German-born artist Otto Piene, with whom he collaborated on light and technology-based art. http://sethriskin.com Ellen Sebring, video artist and musician, has been Creative Director of the Visualizing Cultures project at MIT since 2002. She earned the SMVisS degree at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at MIT, and PhD at the Centre for Advanced Inquiry in Integrative Arts, Plymouth University in the UK. She was a Fellow at CAVS, and Postdoctoral Associate at Duke University. She explores visual narrative and the syntax of images in an age of global digital archives. http://ellensebring.com Aldo Tambellini is a pioneer of video art and 1960s expanded media art, combining television, film, poetry, and performance.