$15 GA / $10 Student
ALEX CUNNINGHAM
Alex Cunningham is a violinist, improviser, and visual artist based in St. Louis, MO. His recorded output spans free improvisation, drone, noise, and minimalist composition. Cunningham has recorded with Lisa Cameron, Damon Smith, claire rousay, Chris Trull (under the Apathist! moniker), and Mark Shippy (U.S. Maple). Past collaborations include the groups Vernacular String Trio, Hess/Cunningham Duo, and Hardbody. Cunningham has released music on Close/Far Recordings, Personal Archives, Already Dead Tapes and Records, Fort Evil Fruit, Working Man Lay Down, and Astral Spirits.
LISA CAMERON
Austin-based percussionist and multi-instrumentalist, Lisa Cameron, is well-respected in the noise and free-improv scenes, and has played with everyone from Brave Combo (Cameron was a member of the original late ‘70’s lineup) to Roky Erickson, Jandek, and members of Faust and Guru Guru, and she has opened for many others, such as Psychic TV and various incarnations of Hawkwind, plus the bands growing out of the Hawkwind diaspora. She has also been a member of such seminal groups as ST 37, Glass Eye, Three Day Stubble, and other Texas cult-acts.
Cameron’s approaches to creating noise/drone on her percussion instruments are rooted in the extremes of the original psychedelic era and influenced by Velvet Underground’s White Light White Heat (which she bought as a child in Winfield, Kansas, and says changed her life).
Ongoing collaborators include Sandy Ewen, Raquel Bell, Claire Rousay, and a trio with Alex Cunningham and Damon Smith. She also currently plays with the Texas groups ST 37 as well as Suspirians.
David Hurlin received his BFA in photography and tabla (hand drums of the Hindustani classical music tradition) and his MA in studio art from Maharishi International University (MIU), including time abroad in India studying with tabla master Anup Ghosh. His photography took him around the United States photographing his favorite poets (James Tate, Charles Wright, Cole Swenson and others) which informed his own writing. His first book of poems Zero Gravity Funk Libido was released in 2019 by Blue Light Press in San Francisco. In addition to writing, Hurlin has extensive experience as a drummer and percussionist playing for Apocalypso Tantric Noise Choir, Soulmath, Annalibera, Dana T, Elizabeth Moen and most recently with Mike Dillon Band and Nolatet.
Currently he is working at the intersection of sound art, sculpture, installation and performance, pursuing instrument building, movement and sound-based performances, and the construction of sculptural sonic networks, vehicles, chime clouds, wearables, non-traditional music scores and collaborations that investigate the exploration of tuning and objecthood, allowing for a wild freedom of rhythmic expression that smashes conventional time keeping and grid-based thinking, to partially outsource musical authorship to chance and elements beyond control, interfacing with fluctuating parameters in real time improvisation to broaden the scope of materials and expression into what John Cage calls the “all sounds music of the future.”
Recent works include performances at Joey Fauerso's exhibition, Inside the Spider's Body, at Bemis Center in Omaha, Sound is a Body Held, a sound and movement collaboration with Tony Orrico at Signs & Symbols Gallery in New York City, as a percussionist in the Nakatani Gong Orchestra at the Englert Theater in Iowa City, in addition to local performances at Hancher, PS1, Feed Me Weird Things Iowa City at Trumpet Blossom, Gabe's, Parking Spaces Project, Climate Fest, Sculpture & Intermedia Open House and the Visual Arts Building in Iowa City.
Hurlin lives in Iowa City with his family and is an MFA candidate in Sculpture & Intermedia at the University of Iowa.