NON:op's immersive platform for virtual performance and participation
volume 5:3
Please Join Us
as we investigate alternative futures
through music, art, poetry, performance, and observation
SHARE. INTERACT. COLLABORATE.
AND SUPPORT OUR PROGRAMMING WITH A DONATION.
|
|
|
Welcome to the December 2024 issue of NON:onLINE!
|
|
2024 Mid-Holiday Roundup and Ask
Christophe Preissing
This year has continued the tremendous growth and support for NON:op, its mission, and its projects. NON:op is on the cusp of realizing our vision of serving all Chicagoans with creative participatory projects that use the arts to create a more just society.
PROGRAMMING
 L'sGA: Lincoln's Gettysburg Address
In 2024 we presented three Chicago performances of L'sGA and fourth performance in New York City. To meet our goal of engaging with diverse Chicago neighborhoods, we presented L'sGA at the Reva and David Logan Center Penthouse as a Logan Center Community Cultural Arts Partner, the Epiphany Center for the Arts Sanctuary, and Theatre Y in North Lawndale. The New York City production was underwritten with additional funding from New Music USA and co-produced by Resonator Arts. Thank you to our commission artists, Willie "Prince Roc" Round, Kao Ra Zen, Ja Nelle Davenport-Pleasure, and AJ McClenon, our host venues, and New Music USA for their continued support- op -
SAY THEIR NAMES
On May 21 we publicly launched our SAY THEIR NAMES project at Experimental Station. SAY THEIR NAMES is a memorial and interactive map that tells the stories of the lives of Black Americans killed by police: Who were they? What were their lives like? SAY THEIR NAMES documents incidents that likely would not have resulted in the death of white Americans given the same set of circumstances. Click below to view a short video of the public launch. Video by Jason Boulware.
|
|
|
|
|
SAY THEIR NAMES Public Launch at Experimental Station, May 2024.
|
|
|
- op -
Listening Across Neighborhoods
 With new funding from the Driehaus Foundation and additional support from the Chicago's Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, NON:op launched the first year of Listening Across Neighborhoods. Listening Across Neighborhoods is a new sound and public speaking project in which Chicago youth work together to learn critical listening, audio recording and editing, storytelling, and public speaking skills as they learn about each other’s neighborhoods and how gentrification impacts the sound and feel of their neighborhoods. Thank you to this year's teaching artists, Mallory Qiu and Sam Anthem, and to our partner organization Midwest Society for Acoustic Ecology.
- op -
- op -
STRATEGIC PLANNING & BOARD DEVELOPMENT
During the summer NON:op participated in multiple strategic planning workshops with DCASE and with New Music USA. With the support of New Music USA executive artistic director, Christophe Preissing, has received mentoring support from Collaboraction's Anthony Moseley. Thank you Anthony!
In 2024 we bid a fond farewell to board member Kao Ra Zen. Kao has been an invaluable member of the NON:op family, bringing his production and curatorial experience, his talents as as a spoken word poet and hip-hop artist, and his social media expertise. We wish Kao all the best with his upcoming and future projects. Find out more about Kao HERE. We also wish to welcome new board member Jason Boulware to the NON:op family. Jason is an African American visual artist based in Chicago working in documentary and experimental documentary formats.
We are also very, very excited to be finishing a year-long web development project and will be rolling out a interactive website where individuals may directly participate in multiple NON:op projects. Here's a peek at the home page...
- op -
2025 Performances and Events
We are excited to announce the following projects and events for 2025:
- February 2025: Hear Below, Listening to Chicago Underground, our annual partnership with the Midwest Society for Acoustic Ecology. Stay tuned for details and routes.
- March 29, 2025: STN FEED Salon at Experimental Station in Woodlawn. This kickoff salon and gathering will include an announcement of our first STN commissions, feature live painting artists, a demonstration our new STN map, and food and beverages in a relaxed and engaging setting.
- May 2025: Feed Salon with performances and location to be announced.,
- August - October 2025: Season two of our Listening Across Neighborhoods
- October 2025: Performances of Christophe Preissing's RE|ambiguation and IS : SI NG, a collaboration with visual artist and poet Matt Bodett. Venue to be announced.
- Other collaborations with Andy's Music and Theatre Y are in the works and will be announced soon.
- op -
 If you support our mission and programs please consider making a donation, volunteering, or joining the NON:op board of directors. Thank you!
Christophe Preissing
Founder + Artistic Director |
|
|
2024 Performances and Installations
Christophe Preissing
In addition to directing NON:op’s activities, Christophe has kept busy with personal projects in 2024 and beyond. In January of 2024 he was a fellow at the Virginia Center for Creative Arts where he recorded another set of piano improvisations—listen to INSIDE on BandCamp; continued work on Thousand Times Broken, a large-scale composition based on three books by Henri Michaux for 12 voices, string quartet, brass quartet, two percussion and fixed audio; and began work on a film project with Natasha Maidoff called Motherboard, a four “movement” experimental film and performance. Earlier this year, a two-and-a-half minute excerpt from Becoming an Oyster, a collaboration with animation team Michael Covello and Liz Schneider, was posted on Covello’s website and may be viewed HERE.
- op -
Tigris
Christophe Preissing and Amanda Love
23 concrete vessels with book pages submereged into them laid out as a river.
20 speakers and transducers attached to walls, ceiling, and mounted in the river.
"The Tigris River ran black with the ink of Books." Robert Fisk, journalist
Opening in the fall of 2023, and currently installed at the Springfield Museum of Art in Ohio, Christophe Preissing and Amanda Love's Tigris, is a collaborative installation based on the destruction of the Baghdad Library in 1258 and 2003. The work features a 20-speaker/transducer audio system and 23 concrete vessels with book pages submerged into them. All of the installation’s elements are laid out as a river with speakers and transducers attached to walls, ceiling, and mounted in the river.
Click on the video below to view and listen to brief excerpt from Tigris.
|
|
|
|
|
Tigris at the Springfield Museum of Art, Springfield Ohio
|
|
|
Historically, books, scrolls, tablets, codexes, stones, and walls have been destroyed during power transfers, war, colonialism, and community fractures. Books and the buildings that hold books—libraries, museums, religious centers, governmental spaces, and homes—continue to be targets of suppression and destruction. People and cultures are deprived of their identity and heritage when their books are destroyed. Tigris remembers the destruction of the Baghdad Library in 1258 and 2003 and points to current attacks on freedom and censorship in the United States and around the world, warning of future losses of individual freedoms and cultural history.
- op -
|
|
|
Chopping Block & DIS|ambiguation
Christophe Preissing
6-channel installation and performance, March 1-2, Steppenwolf Theatre
16-channel installation, April 12, CLEAT Series, Elastic Arts
Chopping Block & DIS|ambiguation feature texts, sounds, voices, and instruments written, edited, deconstructed, reconstructed, reconstituted, remade, removed, etc. from source texts by Ludwig Wittgenstein, Andrew T Royal, and Christophe Preissing for the purpose of relocating, reinstating, reforming, and recreating meaning in the individual spectator. Recorded vocal performances are by Julian Otis and Tina Fakhrid-Deen.
Click below for the complete 10-minute performance of Chopping Block at steppenwolf Theatre.
|
|
|
|
|
Chopping Block at the Steppenwolf Theatre.
|
|
|
- op -
Lost Words
Amanda Love & Christophe Preissing
4-room installation at Alma Gallery, Fall 2025
multi-channel sound installation, books
Following Tigris, Christophe and Amanda's next collaboration, Lost Words, is a four-room, immersive, participatory audio-visual installation that takes direct aim at censorship in the United States and internationally. Lost Words raises awareness of current and likely book censorship, historical attacks on the freedom to read, and the possible future of the book. Those in power control the narrative, while minority and marginalized voices are silenced. Lost Words exposes this asymmetrical power dynamic. Lost Words is scheduled to open at Alma Art and Interiors in the fall of 2025.
|
|
|
IMPACT THE ARTS AND HUMANITIES
|
|
NON:op is growing, and like many organizations coming out of the pandemic, we are growing with projects, installations, and performances. It's quite an exciting time for us! Are you savvy about one or more aspects of running a non-profit? Join our board of directors. Do you have a passion for planning engaging events and projects? Join our programming committee. For more information, contact Christophe at non [at] nonopera [dot] org. And to find out more about NON:op Open Opera Works and our initiatives visit our WEBSITE.
• • •
Governing and Programming Board Positions
Do you believe in the work we are doing? If so, please contact non [at] nonopera [dot] org to find out how you can support NON:op as a Board member. NON:op is seeking creative, passionate, and inspired individuals to join our board of directors in one of the following roles:
Programming Committee
The programming committee meets monthly with the artistic director and is responsible for supporting current programming and devising and producing future programming and events.
Governing Committee
The governing committee is responsible for finances, governance, and legal matters in support of the organization and its programming. The governing committee meets once per quarter and is joined by members of the programming committee.
|
|
|
Thank You to Our FundersWe would like to thank the following funders for their support:
- Richard H Driehaus Foundation for two-year funding for our Listening Across Neighborhoods project and to support a board development project
- Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events Chicago Arts Recovery Program and CAP Grant to improve our digital and technical infrastructure, create a new website and to support general operations
- Field Foundation A Road Together to support general operations
- ComEd/Powering the Arts for a series of three L'sGA concerts in three Chicago neighborhoods
- Field Foundation Funding to support the continued development of the SAY THEIR NAMES Project and a public launch of the updated interactive map and database
- New Music USA New Music INC grant to support general operating and organization development, and to fund a New York performance of L'sGA
- Illinois B2B grant to support general operations
- MacArthur Fund for Culture, Equity, and the Arts at the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation to support programming and general operations
- Robert H. and Terri L. Cohn Family Foundation for their generous support of our programming and general operations
- Illinois Arts Council Agency grant to support general operations
- Illinois Humanities to support our SAY THEIR NAMES project
- Hyde Park and Kenwood Interfaith Council to support our SAY THEIR NAMES project
• • •
 Volunteer, Intern, and Other OpportunitiesNON:op is seeking volunteers, interns, participants, assistants, artists, and all who have creative ideas and who would like to work with NON:op to implement a shared vision. Please contact Christophe at non [at] nonopera [dot] org if you would like to find out more and join us as we create an alternative future.
• • •
SUPPORT NON:op by purchasing NON:op merch!
Click here to order and support NON:op and its artists. |
|
|
Thank you for taking care of each other by staying indoors and practicing social distancing.
We hope you and yours are well and staying safe as we work to create an alternative future.
SHARE. INTERACT. COLLABORATE.
Christophe, Saba, Theo, Arlene, Kao, Ja Nelle, Kyle, and all of NON:op's creatives, staff, volunteers, and interns
NON:op is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
Please consider supporting NON:op's program initiatives, creatives, and mission with a donation today.
All donations are tax deductible according to federal guidelines. Thank you.
|
|
|
|
|
With new funding from the Driehaus Foundation and additional support from the Chicago's Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, NON:op launched the first year of Listening Across Neighborhoods. Listening Across Neighborhoods is a new sound and public speaking project in which Chicago youth work together to learn critical listening, audio recording and editing, storytelling, and public speaking skills as they learn about each other’s neighborhoods and how gentrification impacts the sound and feel of their neighborhoods. Thank you to this year's teaching artists, Mallory Qiu and Sam Anthem, and to our partner organization 
Volunteer, Intern, and Other Opportunities
