Event Type: Performance

Composer, instrument maker, and performer Ellen Fullman has focused on the development of her signature project, The Long String Instrument, for over forty years. Using dozens of tuned strings, each over 50 feet in length, Fullman transforms physical space into a site-specific musical instrument.

Soundless is composed by Fullman and her longtime collaborator, cellist and guitarist Theresa Wong (b. 1976, Schenectady, NY). The work explores string resonance and its capacity to create a space of connection, empathy, and multiplicity. The spectrally undulating drones of the Long String Instrument combine with rhythms created by Fullman’s unique 'box bow' and 'shoveler' tools as well as Wong’s performance on cello and electric guitar, which is specialized through four-channel amplification. Together, Fullman and Wong create a work that responds to and is shaped by the industrial architecture of WAREHOUSE at MOCA.

Soundless was commissioned by room40 following the label’s critically acclaimed release of their album, Harbors.

Ellen Fullman and Theresa Wong, Soundless is presented at MOCA as part of Wonmi’s WAREHOUSE Programs founded by Wonmi & Kihong Kwon and Family.

Wonmi’s WAREHOUSE Programs is organized by Alex Sloane, Associate Curator, and is produced by Amelia Charter, Producer of Performance and Programs with Michele Huizar, Programming Assistant, The Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles.

Presented in partnership with CAP UCLA, this pair of performances by artists William Basinski and Bethan Kellough sparks a powerful conversation between art and science.

In On Time, Out of Time, Basinki creates a one-of-a-kind sonic bed with recordings from the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) that captured billion-year-old sonic impressions made by two colliding black holes. Kellough’s Still the Fragments Move is a new composition that follows the journey of ocean waves from sea to shore. Both pieces explore the profound connection between sound, vibrations, and waveforms with the human body. 

The performance will be followed by a brief panel discussion with artists William Basinski, Evelina Domnitch, Dmitry Gelfand, and experimental physicist Rana Adhikari, about their time together at LIGO at Caltech in 2016 and the artwork that resulted from this fruitful collaboration.

World Rhythms consists of a nine-channel diffusion and live performance including sounds of volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, radio waves, geysers and pools, and tree frogs. These sounds represent the physical energies that are often unnoticed yet affecting the natural rhythms of our bodies. The event features a completely revised version of Annea Lockwood's legendary work, first performed in 1975, remastered by Lawrence English under Lockwood's guidance. 

The performance will be diffused by Lawrence English and accompanied by Annea Lockwood on tam-tam.

Ian Wellman will perform a piece constructed of recordings of Southern California. The recordings, made in the Angeles National Forest, the neighboring deserts, and the streets of LA, represent shared listenings from our local environments that may unknowingly shape our daily lives.

Wellman is a sound artist currently residing in Pasadena, California. His work is constructed from field recordings, tape loop manipulations, and saturated tones. His latest album, The Night The Stars Fell, was released on Ash International earlier this year.

For Bone meets blade, sonified calling out. who what will utter back (2023), Jeneen Frei Njootli “sonified” the process of making a traditional hunting instrument out of a caribou shoulder bone. With the use of a Dremel grinder and a single-beam headlamp, Frei Njootli modified the bone’s central ridge while contact microphones, distortion pedals, and an electric guitar amplifier magnified the sounds of their craftsmanship—that is, the instrument’s becoming.