Fata Morgana was a three-day series of films, performances, and conversations that took place on 3-5 October 2019. It explored the ways in which we imagine and experience the modern world–our aspirations, our fears, our technologies, our institutions.
Featured artists included Onyx Ashanti, Scott Deal, Aurie Hsu, Steven Kemper, Margaret Lancaster, Elainie Lillios, and Forward Motion Ensemble. Films explored topics including race, gender, sexuality, surveillance, and colonialism.
Fata Morgana Gallery
performers
Onyx Ashanti, self-described “cyborg” musician, inventor, and programmer who builds prosthetic synthesizers that create music in response to his movements. His posthuman, kinesthetic compositions are at the cutting edge of experimental art.
CandyStations, an interdisciplinary artist, who has partnered with musicians such as Sufjan Stevens, St. Vincent, and Bang On A Can with performances at Coachella, Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Museum of Modern Art, Madison Square Garden, and more, will improvise video compositions each evening.
Scott Deal is a percussionist who has premiered solo, chamber and mixed media throughout North America, Asia, and Europe. Deal’s recordings have been described as ”sublimely performed” and “soaring, shimmering explorations of resplendent mood and incredible scale.” Deal is the founder of the Telematic Collective, an Internet performance group comprised of artists and computer specialists.
Forward Motion is the only ensemble of its kind in Indianapolis. Forward Motion pioneers the city’s New Classical culture by bringing innovative performances to audiences old and new. Forward Motion is an ensemble of emerging artists who focus on performing works by living composers.
Aurie Hsu, a composer, pianist, and dancer, performs in collaboration with composer Steven Kemper will present a fusion of movement, sound, and technology using musical, dancing robots. Her works have been presented around the U.S. at ICMC, SEAMUS, SIGCHI, Pixelerations, Third Practice Festival, Acoustica 21, and abroad at the Logos Tetrahedron Concert Hall (Belgium) and the Cite International des Arts (France).
Steven Kemper is a composer, music technologist, and instrument designer. As a composer, Steven creates music for acoustic instruments, instruments and computers, musical robots, dance, and video. He is a co-founder of Expressive Machines Musical Instruments (EMMI), a collective dedicated to designing, building, and composing original music for robotic instruments.
Elainie Lillios is an electroacoustic composer who creates works that reflect her fascination with listening, sound, space, time, immersion and anecdote. Acclaimed as one of the “contemporary masters of the medium” by MIT Press’s Computer Music Journal, her compositions include stereo, multi channel, and Ambisonic fixed media works, instrument(s) with live interactive electronics, collaborative experimental audio/visual animations, and installations.
Margaret Lancaster works as an actor, dancer, and amateur furniture designer and has built a large repertoire of interactive, cross-disciplinary solo works that employ electronics and mixed media. Recognized for her fearlessness and versatility–described as a “new-music luminary” by The New York Times and a “leading exponent of the avant-garde flute” by the Village Voice, Lancaster has performed at the Lincoln Center Festival, Spoleto Festival USA, Santa Fe New Music, and the Edinburgh Festival.
