I am posting in a room different from the one you are in now

May 13, 2021 6:18 PM

To celebrate Alvin Lucier's 90th birthday, over the next 27 hours Issue Project Room will livestream 90 different performances of I Am Sitting in a Room.

Performers include Steve Reich, Thurston Moore, and Meredith Monk. Also, Yo La Tengo will be murdering this classic, individually. Stream is already in progress, schedule in the link.

posted by phooky (33 comments total)

I didn't have any sense at all of what this might be like but I'm really digging it.

It was actually kinda moving to watch Lucier's performance, and the four (so far) that have followed have has various degrees of ambient sentiment as well.

Who knew deep reverb could be moving?
posted by ardgedee at 6:22 PM on May 13, 2021

As an aside, I'm fascinated by the video component of this event-- how will the performer choose to behave during the bulk of their (mostly passive) performance? So far we've had:
* performer closes eyes to focus on sound
* performer keeps very straight face while trying super hard not to look at watch
* performer freezes frame after they Say The Thing
* performer reads book beside cozy crackling fire
posted by phooky at 6:23 PM on May 13, 2021

* performer twiddles thumbs and occasionally tweaks mixing board
* performer plays audio over a birthday photo
posted by ardgedee at 6:52 PM on May 13, 2021 [1 favorite]

Wow. big thanks for drawing attention to this.
posted by Ahmad Khani at 6:58 PM on May 13, 2021

I nearly jumped out of my skin at the very end of that last one, when the photo switched over to video, started blinking, and blew the viewer a kiss. And now:
* performer wanders a museum as video glitches and breaks down
posted by phooky at 7:03 PM on May 13, 2021 [1 favorite]

I caught the beginning of Anna Pangalou's rendition, with the looped and distorted video. Very neat! (The audio is freaking out my cat, though.)
posted by mersen at 7:14 PM on May 13, 2021

* performer appears increasingly worried
posted by solarion at 7:17 PM on May 13, 2021 [1 favorite]

Wandering in, to a still face, and unfamiliar with the piece, I had no way to know if their zoom had frozen or what. This performance is, for me, a perfect capstone to the pandemic.
posted by joeyh at 7:47 PM on May 13, 2021 [2 favorites]

Bob Bielecki, who taught Laurie Anderson to meditate, is meditating.
posted by 3.2.3 at 8:08 PM on May 13, 2021

No fair. Charles Curtis has a purring cat in his lap and it's part of the recording.
posted by 3.2.3 at 8:16 PM on May 13, 2021 [1 favorite]

This one's got a cat in his lap. I suspect that this cat is not going to have a good time.
posted by phooky at 8:16 PM on May 13, 2021 [1 favorite]

Ah, the video loops. I knew there was no way that cat was going to stay chill for that long.
posted by phooky at 8:30 PM on May 13, 2021 [1 favorite]

I always used to use the original recording as an example of resonance when I was teaching phonetics. Such a great way to illustrate the concept!
posted by k8bot at 10:12 PM on May 13, 2021 [3 favorites]

Oh how cool. I took a class from Lucier in college. I am glad it will be archived for watching later.
posted by gingerbeer at 11:06 PM on May 13, 2021 [1 favorite]

I learned about this from a history of electronic music class I took in college in the late 90s. Have a few copies and recommend it to people with broad or esoteric tastes, or like historical documents.

It's quite soothing.
posted by lkc at 11:55 PM on May 13, 2021 [1 favorite]

Also, please for the love of god make this HQ downloadable later. If this dips into some internet memory void I'll sound like a luncatic trying to explain it to people later.

edit: I love that the artists are in alphabetical order.
posted by lkc at 12:16 AM on May 14, 2021 [1 favorite]

I read somewhere that the livestream will be archived and available for view in the future, so we should be able to catch up with the performances we missed. Not seeing information on the website about that, though.
posted by ardgedee at 3:14 AM on May 14, 2021

Jung Hee Choi is doing some neat generative visual art. Stepped in toward the end so I don't know how this fractal animated mandala thing developed, but it's nice.
posted by joeyh at 6:48 AM on May 14, 2021

Just jumping in and out now, but I'm really liking the pieces that are explicitly performed in spaces with large, resonant objects. There was the interior of a piano on display earlier; now there's one in a small room with a large steam radiator. It's nice to be able to associate objects with sounds so clearly.
posted by phooky at 6:59 AM on May 14, 2021 [1 favorite]

I did a thing last night where I had a speaker inside a big plastic tote box play some synthesized speech while a separate mic recorded it. Probably shouldn't have used Bluetooth for the speaker, but it dissolved into unintelligible chirping in around 10 iterations.
posted by scruss at 7:38 AM on May 14, 2021 [2 favorites]

I Am Shitposting In A Room
posted by egypturnash at 9:42 AM on May 14, 2021 [1 favorite]

I'm pretty sure you could algorithmically construct my entire 41K-song iTunes library taking only "I Am Sitting In A Room" and "In C" as inputs, so this is life to me. Happy birthday, Alvin, and thanks.

Also, Matthew Evan Taylor's take is [d]evolving into the most amazing sound ever.
posted by multics at 9:51 AM on May 14, 2021 [1 favorite]

I’ve been popping into and out of this since this morning and find it meditative and soothing. Thanks for sharing.
posted by Sublimity at 10:24 AM on May 14, 2021

I just saw this. I can't wait to listen to more performances once the stream is archived!
posted by magstheaxe at 11:27 AM on May 14, 2021

Nestor Prieto is using cassette decks rather than digital recording and is generating an amazingly complicated noise piece from them.
posted by ardgedee at 11:46 AM on May 14, 2021 [1 favorite]

I am very eager to have random access to specific performances!
posted by Nelson at 12:01 PM on May 14, 2021

I wish I could see the full extent of the apparently cavernous room Oren Ambarchi is sitting in. It sounds huge.
posted by phooky at 12:49 PM on May 14, 2021

Petr Kotik changed the script! That's cheating!
posted by ardgedee at 1:41 PM on May 14, 2021

Steve Reich's was one of the harshest-sounding.

Sumarsam's is incredible. Who could have guessed that performing this in a room full of gamelans would induce some *amazing* resonances?
posted by ardgedee at 4:12 PM on May 14, 2021 [1 favorite]

A video variant on YouTube
posted by Morpeth at 5:20 PM on May 14, 2021

You are sitting in a room, different from the one I am in now.
(Disclaimer: I don't yet know if this website works)
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 9:03 AM on May 15, 2021

Previously on AskMe.
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 9:35 AM on May 15, 2021 [1 favorite]

Just an update: the entire event is now archived and available as a set of videos at the original link. Go nuts!
posted by phooky at 7:31 AM on May 18, 2021 [3 favorites]