LOOK + LISTEN FESTIVAL 2021 to Begin This May

Look + Listen's free annual festival returns for its nineteenth season in May 2021 with an "At Home Edition" designed to bring art directly into audiences' homes, in both digital and tangible forms. Curated and produced by guest Artistic Director Paul Pinto and Executive Director Grace Parisi, Look + Listen 2021 presents a startlingly ingenious response to our current moment. Along with captivating online performances, audiences will be treated to limited-edition physical artworks, delivered by mail (to US residents only). Registration for the festival is now open at lookandlisten.org.

Notes Pinto, "Four multimedia artists have created work for the next stage of the quarantine: where the dominant arts venue is still home, but our circles are larger, our attention is not solely on isolation, and our appetite is to not spend all day on screens." Last year's festival was canceled due to the pandemic; Look + Listen's 2021 offerings perfectly embody this fragile transitional point in time.

On three Saturdays - May 8, 15, and 29 - Sound, visual, and literature artists Mendi + Keith Obadike will play LULL: a sleep temple, an eight-hour sonic experience incorporating field recordings, analog synths, and acoustic instruments intended to create a field of sound for dreaming. The first 100 registrants will be sent a small "dream kit" containing a booklet, candle, and sachet. In order to accommodate sleepers around the world, the three streams will start at different times: May 8, 10 pm Pacific Time; May 15, 10 pm Lagos/Berlin time; and May 29, 10 am Eastern Time.

On Saturday, May 22 (4:00 pm Eastern Time / 1 pm Pacific Time / 10 pm Berlin time, UTC+1), Hong Kong-born, Berlin-based composer/performer/instrument builder Viola Yip joins forces with composer/vocalist/sound artist Ken Ueno, a professor at UC Berkeley, for the world premiere of an hourlong piece performed synchronously by the two artists from their home locations - a nine-hour time difference.

thingNY's collaboratively created Dear Nancine consists of mailed gifts to experience alone, and/or with your household or close friends. The work centers around cartography, land rights, colonization, and routine. Packages will arrive to the first 100 registrants on Saturday, May 1.

Audra Wolowiec, an artist whose work oscillates between sculpture, installation, text, and performance, has created Semaphore, a printed booklet exploring modes of communication across long distances, mailed to all festival registrants in the US. Semaphore will serve simultaneously as a festival program, conceptual art piece, and activity book.

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