Poetry &
Poetry &: Presence, Absence, and Hallucination with Brenda Iijima and Johann Diedrick
Friday, May 17, 2024, 6:30 pm, Dia Chelsea
Event details
Friday, May 17, 2024
6:30 pm
Dia Chelsea
537 West 22nd Street
New York, New York
Free; register for the event here.
Presence, Absence, and Hallucination is a performance, reading, and sound activation of space-time dimensions in order to pressurize modes and forms of reality (in its glitchy, elusive, shapeshifting capacity) as it is perceived, experienced, and documented—ecologically, historically, sociologically, philosophically, and ever more frequently using artificial intelligence. Three prose texts by Brenda Iijima act as reference points for a collaboration with sound artist Johann Diedrick that opens pathways and trace resonances into the prismatic densities of the past, present, and future.
Brenda Iijima is a poet, novelist, playwright, choreographer, and visual artist. She is the author of nine books of poetry. Her artistic and conceptual interests occur at the intersections and mutations of genre, mode, receptivity, and field of study. In her current work she engages with submerged and occluded histories, other-than-human expressiveness, and telluric awareness in all forms. A novella, A roundtable, unanimous dreamers chime in, written in collaboration with Janice Lee, was published by Meekling Press in 2023. In 2024, two of Iijima’s works have been published: the play Daily Life in China with elis press, as well as the novel Presence with the University of Georgia Press. Iijima is the founding editor-publisher of Portable Press @ Yo-Yo Labs. She lives in Brooklyn.
Johann Diedrick is an artist and engineer who makes listening rooms, spaces for encountering new sonic possibilities off-the-grid. He works to surface resonant histories of past interactions inscribed in material and embedded in space, peeling back layers to reveal hidden memories and untold stories. He shares his tools and techniques through listening tours, workshops, and open-source hardware and software. He is the founder of A Quiet Life, a sonic engineering and research studio that designs and builds audio-related software and hardware products. He is a 2023–25 Just Tech fellow and 2023–24 Performance AIRspace Resident at Abrons Art Center, New York. His work has been featured in The Wire and Musicworks and presented at the Ars Electronica Festival, Linz, Austria; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; and MoMA PS1, Queens.