Name: Cognitive Dissonance No. 2
Start: 2026-04-25T20:00:00-05:00
Location: Dissonant Works

Set your calendars for the second installment of the Cognitive Dissonance bi-monthly series — Saturday, April 25.
Cognitive Dissonance is a collaborative effort from the minds at MaxCorp Industries and Dissonant Works.
JoAnn McNeil is an incredible audio sculptor with a deeply idiosyncratic, bespoke electronic toolkit, paired with powerful poetry and spoken word. JoAnn has been performing experimental electronic music in St. Louis for over a decade, collaborating with numerous local artists — most notably with Nathan Cook as Nyfolt, with whom she performed at the Afrofuturism Now! Festival in Amsterdam. She has also performed at Bob Bellerue’s Ende Tymes Festival in New York City.
Chizmo.TV is the pseudonym of Chad Eivins, arguably St. Louis’s most notable (and notorious) live video artist. Chad has mangled and manipulated live video for Jandek, the Undercurrent series, and the Octarrarium installation with Kevin Harris at the Regional Arts Commision. For this installment, Chizmo will present selections drawn from the archival processing of his personal VHS archive — documenting years of live video manipulation and abstract experiments. What emerges is part document, part artifact, and part transmission, offering a rare glimpse into the evolution of his visual practice.
K Curtis Lyle is a genius poet, writer, creator, improviser, and professor — and a founding member of the Watts Writers Workshop. His poetry is biting, sardonic, and exquisitely composed. Lyle has performed with Damon Smith, Jaap Blonk, Ra Kalam Bob Moses, and perhaps most notably, his friend and St. Louis free jazz legend Julius Hemphill. He will be performing on this bill with the Belleville experimental music collective The Kingston Family Singers, utilizing quadraphonic sound.
Nadir Smith is something of a St. Louis enigma. Despite his high-profile endeavors (including coordinating and DJ’ing the long-running electronic music night/rave Materia), Nadir prefers to work in subtle washes of colored light, mirroring the dreamlike waves of ambience and noise he creates. Operating in a liminal universe of fractured footwork, Japanese theme music, and some of the best ambient tones since Aphex Twin and Brian Eno, Nadir is a St. Louis artist that those in the know NEVER MISS.
See you there!