co-incidence festival

the co-incidence festival is a gathering of experimental composer-performers at Washington Street Gallery in Somerville, MA.

this project is based on an expanded view of what constitutes art, music, and the traditional concert. following the example of the revolutionary arts community Black Mountain College, it will bring together a group of radical artists operating in the boundary-zones of their practice to take part in a festival curated as ‘social sculpture.’ reflecting the values of experimental music, co-incidence will be allowed to grow organically, strongly influenced by the artists who attend: the directors simply provide a time, space, and loose framework.

if you have any questions, please email us at: coincidence.festival@gmail.com.

check out some media from our 2017, 2018 or 2019 season.

OUR 2020 SEASON

january 10—18, 2020, at Washington Street Art Center in Somerville, MA

We began thinking about this year’s festival with a gut question, an intuitive uneasiness: “So, what?” Followed by an implied: “So, what - now?”

We are all active, serious, intense, dedicated (and angry, frustrated, impatient) - of course. We create art. We write. We perform. We protest. We organize festivals, gatherings, concerts, meetings, events. But then what? Things aren’t necessarily getting better; they’re hardly getting different.

After the demonstrations/actualizations of our ideas have passed, what are the effects? What are the actual results of (these) political acts? Something does occur. Often quite beautiful, wonderful things. But how are we considering, critiquing, progressing-with, challenging, etc. what does happen? Is there a way that we can think of consequence as something that challenges objective-driven modes of being - the logic given to us by capital?

It is easy to point out what won’t work. We know what hasn’t worked. So what will?

We (aaron & luke) are interested in creating a space dedicated to the development of the creative and experimental movement of the human being. We want to discuss, learn, and discover with others how we might be able to think/act/compose towards/with/alongside possibilities that we can’t yet imagine - whatever the result may be. If we are able to find/create these cracks in our everyday logic, these possibilities, then how can we experience them more vividly? Can we condition them (ourselves perhaps) to see them more clearly, to realize their potential more readily?

With social and political theorist John Holloway, we will explore topics relating to these questions about the consequences of art, cracks (in capital), political movements, disruption, antipower, non-action, and others.

We invite those interested to join us in this attempt to think, act, do, critique, and be together.

applications due october 1st || results sent by october 9th

COLLABORATORS

Hosted by

Washington Street Gallery

Washington St. is home to 20 artists who work in a broad range of media. from sculpture to paper cutting, painting to book binding and everything in between - the collaborative houses a cornucopia of creatives from many different backgrounds. with its own photo lab, Washington St. also hosts photography members who share the darkroom and photo studio. additionally, Washington St. has served for many years as an experimental music venue, directed by composer/performers Michael Rosenstein, Jesse Collins, and Morgan Evans-Weiler.

pictures of the space.

In Partnership with

Non-Event

Non-Event is a Boston-based concert series devoted to the presentation of the finest in experimental, abstract, improvised, and new music from New England and around the world. founded in 2001, Non-Event has presented over 260 concerts in and around Boston in a wide variety of venues from coffee shops, galleries, and loft spaces to former movie palaces, university lecture halls, museums, night clubs, 19th-century ballrooms, a Victorian-era pumping station, and inside Boston's iconic City Hall. in addition to working with numerous venues and organizations over the past 15 years, Non-Event organizes a longstanding series of informal monthly coffee house concerts featuring local musicians and sound artists, held at Café Fixe in Brookline and made possible in part by the Brookline Commission for the Arts.

Resident Artist

John Holloway

John Holloway is a Professor of Sociology at the Instituto de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades in the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, Mexico. He has published widely on Marxist theory, on the Zapatista movement, and on the new forms of anti-capitalist struggle. His book Change the World Without taking Power (Pluto, London, 2002, new edition 2010) has been translated into eleven languages and has stirred an international debate. His recent book, Crack Capitalism (Pluto, 2010), takes the argument further by suggesting that the only way in which we can think of revolution today is as the creation, expansion, multiplication and confluence of cracks in capitalist domination.

ABOUT

over coffee in Maine in the Summer of 2015, Luke and Aaron had a far too grandiose idea: "let's do our own music festival!" (un)fortunately, they don't know when to stop. and here we are, with the co-incidence festival which kicked off its first season in January 2017. we wanted to fill a perceived gap in support for experimental composer/performers in the U.S. with a music festival focused on experimental music and built as an experimental composer might build a piece.

press:
Boston Globe || Somerville Media Center Video || The Somerville Times || WBUR
In-Depth Interviews with Jennie Gottschalk (Sound Expanse) [Aaron, Luke, Jennie, Sarah]

please feel free to reach out: coincidence.festival@gmail.com

(the) co-incidence festival