Experimental turntablism from Pereuvian conceptual artist Maria Chavez and exploratory electronics from London's Jo Thomas.

MARIA CHAVEZ

"Over the last decade, (Chavez) has pursued pristine and thoughtful turntablist work."- Kurt Gottschalk, The WIRE, 3/2013

Born in Lima, Peru, Maria Chavez is mainly recognized in the art community as an improviser, curator and sound artist.

Her sound installations, visual objects and live turntable performances focus on the values of accidents and it's unique, complicated possibilities with sound emitting machinery like the turntable.

Influenced by improvisation in contemporary art, her work expands outside of the sound world straddling different disciplines of interest. This year, Chavez wrote and illustrated her first book object entitled, Of Technique: Chance Procedures on Turntable. The book serves as a how-to manual for those interested in learning the abstract turntablism techniques that she developed with the turntable. This book is considered the first sound related release by Chavez since her solo album release in 2004.

Chavez also works as an independent sound art curator in NYC, collaborating with various organizations and art spaces, helping to produce events and festivals that present the latest of what is being shown in the sound art world. Being an independent curator helps to expand Maria's artistic research when developing new projects for her own practice.

She was awarded the Jerome Foundation's Emerging Artist Grant by New York’s Roulette Intermedium in 2008, and in 2009 she became a recipient of the Van Lier Fellowship by The Edward and Sally Van Lier Fund of the New York Community Trust. Maria was an artist in residence with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, the Clocktower and the DIA:Beacon Museum. She has worked with Christian Marclay and the Whitney Museum of American Art in NYC as part of Christian Marclay: FESTIVAL and has shared the stage with renowned artists such as: Pauline Oliveros; Thurston Moore; Lydia Lunch; Phill Niblock and Otomo Yoshihide.

www.mariachavez.org

"Performance, Space, Idea" - Spring 2012 from Forest Christenson on Vimeo.

JO THOMAS

Jo Thomas is a London based composer of electronic sound. Thomas works live and produces studio based work . She won the Golden Nica for Digital Music's in 2012 for her work Crystal Sounds of a Synchrotron. Her work is emotive, sculptural and detailed.Her first two Albums ( Alpha E82) Nature of Habit (E142) have been with the uk label entr’acte. Her latest release Mermaids is with the Italian Label Holidays Records. The LP E82 Alpha was nominated for a Qwartz 7 Award (2011)

"…Mermaids creates a more tactile , if still fantastical sonic space, where the echoing , popping sounds of the title track suggest bubbles rising to the surface in a way speaking more directly to the imagination rather than the laws of physics…the album conjures up images of a chill , pressurised realm , whose borders are muffled and diffuse and where the world of detail shrinks to a few centimetres ' diameter…" - The WIRE

www.jothomas.me