MOCA Welcomes OJO to Engagement Party
Collective’s First Event Will Be
Color Chorus
Thursday, June 4, 2009, 7-10pm
MOCA Grand Avenue
250 South Grand Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90012
For their three-month residency at MOCA, OJO will present the following projects. All events are FREE to the public and no reservations are required.
Color Chorus
THURSDAY, JUNE 4, 7-10pm
MOCA Grand Avenue
In Color Chorus, OJO will lead a participatory musical performance organized by the interplay of primary colors and the thump of an 808 drum machine. The audience will be divided into three groups, with each member having been assigned a color upon arrival. Choreographed projections of colored light on the crowd will cue different sections of the audience to emit specific sounds and syllables that, when coordinated or combined, will synthesize into one harmonious and cacophonous blissed-out evening. Cash bar.
Flesh Car Crash
THURSDAY, JULY 2, 7-10pm
MOCA Grand Avenue
For Flesh Car Crash, members of OJO will split into two groups, each of which will pack into a small car. Once there, they will make music both by utilizing objects and materials in the cars’ interiors and by playing instruments powered by the cars’ batteries. Audience members will be invited to assist with the composition. The cars will dance, glide, and narrowly miss each other in a choreographed game of chicken. The finale should be explosive! Cash bar.
Interactive Lecture Series
THURSDAY, AUGUST 6, 7-10pm
MOCA Grand Avenue
For this collective’s final Engagement Party event, OJO, along with special guests as well as members of the audience, will create an abnormal lecture experience. Presenting talks on various topics, members of OJO will take up position beside the lectern as the house band, using audio trickery to affect the audience’s reception of live speech. Focusing on specific words and phrases in order to induce listeners to react in all sorts of ways, their interventions should lead to a chaotic and memorable lecture. Cash bar.
OJO
Founded in 2005 by visual artists Joshua Aster, Justin Cole, Eamon Ore-Giron, Chris Avitabile, Moises Medina, and Brenna Youngblood, OJO is formed around a mutual interest in experimenting with acoustic guitars, electronics, musical spontaneity, freeform improvisation, and the boundaries between audience and performer. The group uses a wide range of instruments—drum machines, basses, guitars, synthesizers, salt, cars—as well as their own bodies and those of their audience, clapping, chanting, stomping, and singing to generate sprawling improvisations. OJO has created projects for Queen’s Nails Annex in San Francisco, Esthetics as a Second Language (available as a CD produced by James Welling), LAXART (available as an LP from laxart.org), BANK, Lizabeth Oliveria Gallery, and A+D Museum in Los Angeles. The group has also performed at the Hammer Museum, TRUDI, and Track 16, Los Angeles, and on KXLU 88.9FM.
Engagement Party
MOCA’s Engagement Party presents new artworks in the form of dynamic social events and performances by LA–based artist collectives. Engagement Party is made possible by a grant from The James Irvine Foundation.
Parking for MOCA Grand Avenue
Parking is recommended at the Walt Disney Concert Hall garage.
Parking is also available in surrounding lots.
MEDIA CONTACTS:
Lyn Winter
Tel 213/633-5390
lwinter@moca.org
Jessica Youn
Tel 213/633-5322
jyoun@moca.org
