Experimental Concert at the Robotic Church 5-6 pm

Please join us a the Robot Church in Brooklyn (Red Hook) for an electrifying evening of experimental sound & music with Steve Hubback, Bryan Day & Tania Chen, and the Robotic Church machines. The sound artists will come together in distinctive sets to explore novel soundscapes.

is a pioneer of distinctive gongs and cymbal sculptures, and touring percussionist from Wales, England, who continues to influence generations of sound artists.

is a sound artist, musical instrument designer, and conceptual artist based in San Francisco who repurposes found objects into constructivist sound sculptures. For this performance, Bryan will be collaborating with NYC pianist and found object improvisor extraordinaire .

The is a site-specific installation and performance series created by Chico MacMurtrie / Amorphic Robot Works, comprising 50 computer-controlled pneumatic sound sculptures.

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The Robotic Church is a fiscally sponsored project of the New York Foundation for the Arts. Please consider supporting the Robotic Church performance series. Donations are tax-deductible to the fullest extent of the law.

Please click or contact Luise Kaunert at [email protected] for more info.

Bryan Day

Bryan Day is a sound artist, musical instrument designer, and conceptual artist based in San Francisco. Using scavenged electronics, repurposed mechanical components, and amplified materials, he re-imagines them into constructivist sound sculptures. His work ranges from noisy electroacoustic improvisation to drony minimalism, which is showcased in his projects Euphotic (with Cheryl Leonard and Tom Djll), Collision Stories (with Michael Gendreau, Mason Jones and Jorge Bachmann) and Seeded Plain (with instrument inventor Jay Kreimer).

Day has performed, taught workshops, and built sound installations across Europe, Asia and the Americas. Since 1997, he has been running the experimental music label Public Eyesore and its companion label Eh?, with a combined output of over 275 releases of unusual music from across the globe.

For this performance, Bryan will be collaborating with NYC pianist and found object improvisor extraordinaire Tania Chen. From 2014-2019, Day and Chen performed together, along with percussionist and instrument inventor Ben Saloman, as the bay area weirdo improvised music unit Bad Jazz.

Tania Chen

Tania Caroline Chen stands uniquely at the intersection of notated contemporary music and free improvisation in today's musical landscape. As an innovative composer and improviser, her work encompasses solo piano, electronics, and multimedia installations. She has interpreted and been influenced by the works of pioneering composers such as Earle Brown, John Cage, Morton Feldman, Michael Parsons, Michael Nyman, and Luc Ferrari. Drawing from these inspirations, she creates interdisciplinary and long-form compositions, as showcased in her ‘Quiet Sound Concert’ series.

Her compositions, including ‘Strands’ and ‘Icons of Elegance’, have resonated at venues like the Strands Theater in California, the Kaohsiung Music Festival in Taiwan, and Iklectik in London. Among her many music albums, her Grammy-nominated work featuring John Cage's ‘Electronic Music for Piano’ highlights her dedication to indeterminacy and sound experimentation. Tania has collaborated with notable artists such as David Toop, John Tilbury, Wadada Leo Smith, and Ikue Mori. With performances spanning global stages like the Issue Project Room in New York, the Southbank Centre in London, Meakusma Festival in Belgium, and the Hamburger Bahnhof Museum in Berlin, Tania remains a pivotal figure in contemporary experimental music.

Steve Hubback

Originally from Wales, Steve Hubback was a touring and recording percussionist throughout the 1980’s, and signed his first record contract with Dossier Records in Berlin.

Hubback started gong and cymbal making in 1990 in Scandinavia. Within two years, the best Nordic musicians were playing his unique instruments. He pioneered distinctive gongs and cymbal sculptures which continue to influence generations. Additionally, Hubback’s creations include moving and site-specific metal sculptures. His work is respected world-wide for its originality and exceptional quality.

Steve Hubback continues to record, hammer, and create.

Chico MacMurtrie is internationally recognized as a pioneer of art and robotics. He has won numerous awards for his robotic sculpture, installations and performances. Immersed in the Bay Area’s Art and Technology Counterculture of the 1990s, he founded the interdisciplinary collective Amorphic Robot Works, dedicated to the research and development of his experimental, anthropomorphic, computer-controlled sculptures which evolved over the years into a “Society of Machines.” The artist’s more recent work has evolved from exploring the intersection of human and machinic motion, to creating large-scale, inflatable-robotic sculpture. MacMurtrie’s studio in Brooklyn, New York—a former 19th-century Norwegian Seamen's Church—is rechristened as the "Robotic Church," a permanent site-specific installation and public performance involving 50 percussive and musical robots.

MacMurtrie was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship in 2016 with his Border Crossers project, a public performance series on both sides of the US-Mexico border involving a series of inflatable, robotic sculptures.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Amorphic Robot Works studio, 111 Pioneer St, Brooklyn, United States