Thanks to drum machines, sound systems, repurposed warehouses and basements, 1980s Chicago House Music opened up a future that was black, brown and queer. DJs invented new ways of keeping and marking time in community. In the years since, computation has made music-making more accessible. What kinds of collectivities are still to come?
Presented by the Center for Concrete and Abstract Machines (CCAM), Futurhythmachines: House (FRM:House) reflects on social forms, expressive technics, and musical experience through Chicago House Music, discovering therein an art of forming fugitive publics and a science of probing sonic ecologies.
Black Arts and Decolonial Sciences Lab (BADS_lab) organizer Muindi Fanuel Muindi (philosopher & poet) moderates a panel with Dr. Thomas DeFrantz (Black social dance historian and technology theorist), DJ Duane Powell (House DJ and music historian), and Meida McNeal (multi-disciplinary performance artist and critical ethnographer) discussing the sonic and social architectures of Chicago House and their surrounds. The panel discussion situates Chicago House within a long lineage of antiphonal experiments in the Black arts that have gathered people in movement and in apposition to prevailing paradigms of capture, control, and containment.
Following the workshop and panel discussion, organizers at CCAM and the Fyrthyr invite the public to enjoy bites, refreshments, music, and critical conversations inspired by the day’s proceedings while learning more about the projects and missions of CCAM and the Fyrthyr and how to get involved.
A reception with BADSlab fellow DJ is girly*** follows at 6:00 p.m.
This program is supported by Hyde Park Art Center’s Artists Run Chicago Fund as part of Art Design Chicago.
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An initiative of the Terra Foundation for American Art in partnership with artists and organizations across the city, Art Design Chicago is a series of events and exhibitions that highlight the city’s artistic heritage and creative communities.
