About the Project
Performed on June 12, 2021 at
Carbondale Community Arts
Carbondale, IL
Adaptive Response is a work for micro-FM and live performance that considers the ways we respond to an ever-shifting landscape of risk and adaptation during the pandemic. Drawing from regionally gathered, pre-recorded stories, live music, and audience commentary, artists Jay Needham and Honna Veerkamp live-compose an evolving radiophonic stream. Designed to be performed in community parking lots, Adaptive Response imagines the interiority of the automobile as a new space for socially-distanced listening and isolated civic-engagement. Listeners are invited to tune in locally on their car stereos or join virtually from anywhere in the world. Adaptive Response is a part of Viral Silence: Community Portraits in Response to Covid-19, a statewide series by NON:op Open Opera Works.
Program Notes
Due to inclement weather, Adaptive Response was performed inside Carbondale Community Arts, instead of in the parking lot as planned. The performance was broadcast to radio receivers in the gallery as well as the parking lot.
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, we have suffered great loss and have also experienced change on a scale and pace that we have seldom seen or heard. We have created this piece over the course of 9 months, and after prolonged isolation, we find ourselves suddenly reintegrating with friends and family and standing on the edge of change once again, adapting and responding.
—Jay Needham and Honna Veerkamp
June 12, 2021
About the Artists
Jay Needham
Jay Needham is an artist, musician, writer-editor and cultural producer who utilizes multiple creative platforms to produce his works, many of which have a focus on sound and site specific field research. As a hearing-divergent person, Needham makes work that often involves sensing and experiencing sound across many modalities. His sound art, works for radio, visual art, performances and installations have appeared at museums, festivals and on the airwaves, worldwide. Needham is the founding co-editor of Resonance: The Journal of Sound and Culture, published by The University of California Press. He is a Professor in the Department of Radio, Television and Digital Media at Southern Illinois University and he received his MFA from The School of Art at California Institute of the Arts.
Honna Veerkamp
Honna Veerkamp is a community-oriented artist and educator. Her specialties include audio and video documentary, painting, and socially engaged art. Honna’s work explores natural and human-made environments and celebrates creative resistance—from tiny interventions to grassroots social justice movements, and the stories in between. Honna earned a Media Arts MFA at Southern Illinois University in 2015 and a diploma in Audio Engineering at the Institute for Audio Research in 2002. She was a CAT fellow in 2017-2018 and currently serves on the alumni advisory board. She has taught audio, video, writing, and fine art at university and community settings.
Musicians
Eunice Koh
Cello
A versatile cellist, Eunice Koh has performed with The Singapore Lyric Opera, Metropolitan Festival Orchestra, Singapore Youth Chinese Orchestra, The Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestra of the Music Makers and Asian Cultural Symphony Orchestra. Eunice is also part of two ethnic chamber ensembles in Singapore – Stringwerkz, an award winning quintet that presented recitals in Singapore and Minnesota and Open Score Project, a multi-ethnic ensemble that performed in Singapore, Shanghai and Hanoi. Eunice graduated in 2021 with a Masters of Music from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale and will be pursuing her Doctor of Musical Arts this Fall at University of South Carolina.
Mason Brown
Viola
J. Mason Brown is a composer, multi instrumentalist, and filmmaker who specializes in music, sound, and video. He has composed and collaborated on works for solo piano, chamber ensembles, and large ensembles, primarily focusing on experimentation with remixed and found sound/video. Mason graduated with a BA in Cinema, Audio Engineering, and Viola Performance from Southern Illinois University Carbondale in May 2021. He is currently based in Los Angeles, California.
Jonas Sanderfer
Bass
Jonas Standerfer is a musician, artist, and student of sound, focusing on the fields of audio engineering and music production. His body of work includes musical performance, audio narrative, audio documentary, remix, and sound for film. In May 2021, Jonas graduated from Southern Illinois University with a BA in Radio, TV, and Digital Media. He is currently based in Chicago, Illinois.
Kevin Ohlau
Electronic Piano
Kevin Ohlau is a professional multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, composer, and band leader. After having toured the country and living, performing, and recording in Chicago, Kevin has been based out of Carbondale, IL since 2014. While he has been filling instrumental roles in various bands around the region, both live and on recordings, his main focus has been his jazz trio, The Jewels, and a pet project that was created in 2017, Cave Futures. As far as his future goes, plans for a solo album under the moniker, Karve, is presently in the works.
Dakota Holden
Pedal Steel Guitar
Dakota Holden is an audio engineer and musician based in Southern Illinois. He received a Bachelor’s degree in Radio, TV, and Digital Media from Southern Illinois University while performing guitar and pedal steel with various bands in the area. His goal is to contribute to other artists and bring their visions to life by recording and performing music based in genres of Americana, country, and rock n’ roll.
Tyler Horn
Guitar, audio recording
Tyler Horn is a musician and artist who works with a variety of mediums including sound, video, installation, sculpture, and performance. He is currently pursuing a MFA at SIU Carbondale in the school of Mass Communication and Media Arts.
Additional Collaborators
Daniel Rodríguez
Interviews, videography
Daniel Rodríguez is a third year MFA student at SIU Carbondale. His current work lies in a participatory approach to documentary production, exploring subjects around indigenous futurism, immigration, and the environmental crisis. Previous work as a filmmaker based in Mexico City includes projects for UAM (Metropolitan Autonomous University), the Mexican Fine Arts Institute, The Langdon-Down Foundation, Contra El Silencio Todas Las Voces Film Festival and The Mexico City International Documentary Film Festival (DocsMX), in which he won the Audience Award, in 2015. His two documentary short films have been translated to seven languages and screened in thirty-three venues across twelve countries. His thesis film, centered in Purepecha communities in Southern Illinois, is currently in production.
Andrew Beyke
Audio Engineer
Andrew Beyke is a multimedia artist that utilizes sound and light to create installations and ambient compositions. Coming from Southern Illinois he got his start in experimenting with audio by disassembling and repairing broken audio equipment to use to make instruments and DIY recordings. This theme of recycling and repurposing of technology would continue on and become the basis for his sound installations, which use broken or redesigned tape machines to process and replay audio. Using eurorack synthesizers, shortwave radio, tape loops, and handmade instruments he works with themes of memory and the way the human brain remembers and processes these memories into dreams.
Story Tellers
Gabe Bonansinga, Brandon Lanning, Danny Connolly, Atticus Jennings, Renee Davis, Joe Bashram, Paige Fanning, Calais Mullins, Schell Voges, María Bartolo, Azalia Amezquita, Evalia Amezquita, Jennifer Amezquita, Ma. de Lourdes Amezquita, Saxon Metzger, audience members
Spanish Translations
Martha P. Osornio
Live Streaming
Theo Economides
Viral Silence development and artistic direction
Christophe Preissing
Coordination, promotion, and support for Carbondale Community Arts event
Hillary Chandler, Kari Woolsey, and Chuck Benya
Thank you all!
This program is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency.
