When: 8 p.m., Friday, April 26, May 24 and June 7, 2002
    Where: 848 Community Space, 848 Divisadero (between Fulton and McAllister) in San Francisco
    Why: To showcase extraordinary artists and build a critical community of synesthesiasts
    How Much: $6-$10 sliding scale (no one turned away for lack of funds)

    Irrational Exuberance, Spring Series: April 26, May 24, June 7

    Irrational Exuberance presents a new series of multi-disciplinary performance events at 848 Community Space in San Francisco. The series will showcase musicians, scholars, writers and visual artists who work at the edges of their various disciplines, pushing their work into spaces where music, words, things and ideas bounce off and into each other. Our mission is to build a critical community of synesthesiasts, and to bring together extraordinary artists and outsider scholars. The Spring series of three events will take place April 26, May 24 and June 7.

    The upcoming May 24th event features new piano music by Eric Glick Rieman on prepared Rhodes piano, Jenny Bitner reading poetry backed by a PowerPoint presentation, a short lecture on Khlebnikov’s theory of language by Brent Cunningham, Old Time music by The Irrational Exuberance String Band, stamp art by Diana Mars and vocal improvisations by Capra J’Neva.

    The third performance of the series on June 7th will feature violin commentary by Markus Hawkins, Annalee Newitz speaking on monster movies and capitalism, Dan Plonsey composer/train engineer, Mary Burger reading poetry, Adam Tobin’s text-to sound translation machine and the photography of Stefanie Kraus. Plus gift art for everyone.

    Irrational Exuberance provides a space for the Bay Area post-dot-com renaissance. Despite Alan Greenspan's warning about the irrational exuberance of the boom era, we wish to show the city that there is still plenty of room for irrational exuberance without the greenbacks.

  May 24


    Eric Glick Rieman is a composer who performs structured improvisation on a modified and extended Rhodes electric piano.  Glick Rieman manipulates his seventies vintage Rhodes to create otherworldly textures not normally associated with the instrument, using mallets, rocks, screws, brushes, finger puppets, marbles, and other household objects. He's also installed a set of rods, which he bows to create whale-like tones. He has performed with Fred Frith, Lesli Dalaba, Ikue Mori, James Livingston, Marcello Radulovich, Jeff Karsin, and many other amazing musicians. His latest release, "Ten to the Googolplex", is available on San Diego's Accretions label.

    Brent Cunningham:  Milwaukee, WI (birth certificate), Chicago, IL (tabula rasa),Port Washington, WI (gestural fist-works in clay), Raleigh, NC (second language: cursive), San Ramon, CA (tales of disinherited princes), San Diego, CA (a prom, a melancholia), Redlands, CA (fake suicide poems), Madrid, Spain (green travel notebook), Wilson, NC (allegory of the alien), San Luis Obispo, CA (serial persona poems), Central America (blue travel notebook), San Luis Obispo,CA (creation myths for atheists), Buffalo, NY (insect drawings), Berkeley, CA (french object analysis), San Francisco, CA (the painted theater).

    Diana Mars has a background in fine art printmaking with a specific interest in the use of rubber stamps in or as fine art. Mars' work explores the intersection of life and work by emphasizing everyday objects, habits, and rituals that are often taken for granted or not considered art. She has been hosting dinner at her home every Wednesday night for over eight years as an ongoing performative act. She lives and works in San Francisco.

    Capra J'Neva is a singer, permacultural activist, artist, theatre designer, and sustainable living researcher. Her latest novel, The Tracker, is pending publication.

    Jenny Bitner is a writer/painter/performance organizer. She is writing an experimental, illustrated novel titled Notes to A Potential Lover. Bitner is also active in the cheap art movement, which means she sells art that you can probably afford. She is a contributing editor at To-Do List Magazine.  Her painting/collages are currently on display at Muddy’s on Valencia and at the Hotel Bedford.

    The Irrational Exuberance String Band plays traditional Appalachian old-time music in new-time California.

  April 26


    The first event in the series featured short performances by poet/playwright/fictionist Camille Roy (with DJ Ninefingerz), tape-manipulator Matthew Davignon (with several handheld tape-recorders), new-musicians Evidence Of The King (with percussive and stringed instruments), and poet Sam Tsitrin. Ray Davis delivered a short lecture on neuraesthetics and narrative. Artists KC Carlson, Liz Worthy and Jenny Bitner displayed their works.

     
    Camille Roy is a writer and performer of plays, poetry, and fiction. The SF Weekly has described her as "an engaging, rough treat of a writer; [who] shifts narrative and form with rigorous care, but never wanders far from the visceral stab of personal desire." Her plays have been called, "Abstract, unnerving, and hot as hell" (New York Press), and Girlfriends magazine wrote that she was "brilliant and horny as William S. Burroughs with his consciousness way raised." Two chapbooks recently published include CHEAP SPEECH, a play, from Leroy, and CRAQUER, from 2nd Story Books (both 2002 and available from Small Press Distribution). She is a founding editor of the online journal Narrativity, and her work is available online at www.grin.net/~minka. She has taught experimental fiction and playwriting at San Francisco State University and has conducted a private workshop for several years.

    DJ Nine Fingerz performs hektik elektrik scratch hiphop with the group Peace Time Phunk.

    Evidence of the King is a conglomerate of ethnic musical traditions and popsicle flavors. By day, Mandloinist/Violinist Sandy Alese is a lighting designer. Cellist/Sazist Mark Schirmer is an ecologically minded architect. And Percussionist Jay Schwartz is overly ambitious and underemployed.

    Sam Tsitrin emigrated from Russia to live in San Francisco. He has a low-paying job as a line cook, and plays in a band (the Ebb and Flow). He has recently been published in Watchword, Exquisite Corpse, and Beekiller. 

    Matthew Davignon collects sounds on a tape recorder he carries with him everywhere. Birds chirp, audiences clap, big trucks drive by, and, later, reappear in Davignon's improvised music. He has performed at venues across California and Massachusetts, including Artists Television Access, 964 Natoma, and The Luggage Store Gallery. You can hear a sound sample at http://www.mp3.com/field_recordings (choose Tape Recorder)

    Ray Davis blogs at www.bellonatimes.com. His shaggy-dog cultural criticism has also been published in The New York Review of Science Fiction, Ash of Stars, Bright Lights Film Journal, The New Blind Date, and Dark Carnival. A book named for a poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson included his story named for an album by the Jungle Brothers.