Efraín Rozas — The Kitchen OnScreen

Efraín Rozas: Still

In Residence at Queenslab: March 22–April 18, 2021

Installation Viewing Hours at Queenslab, 1611 Cody Avenue, Ridgewood, NY: April 16–18, $10 (to purchase a ticket, click here)

Tickets are necessary and grant access for the one-hour duration of the installation Still. Tickets are available for the following times:

Friday, April 16: 6pm and 8pm EDT
Saturday, April 17: 4pm, 6pm, and 8pm EDT
Sunday, April 18: 5pm and 7pm EDT

During a residency hosted by The Kitchen at Queenslab, Peruvian composer, performer, and software developer Efraín Rozas will create a new sound installation titled Still. Rozas developed the conceptual framework for Still during a global pandemic that has disturbed Western thought at its core, radically reorienting the ways that we structure life according to capitalist demands, and proving the unsustainability of human life at its prior pace. These changes made clear the need to rethink the ways that the foundational concepts of our existence are reliant upon a conception of linear time. For Rozas, being—rather than a condition which solely relates to life and death—has to do more with expansive biological and emotional networks that come before us and will last after us. Rozas asks us to consider what we can achieve if we acknowledge the realities of cyclical, pendular, parallel, static, and virtual time. Still aims to generate a synesthetic experience of silence in which the act of listening is not isolated from other senses. The installation will include lighting design by Madeline Best.

Throughout the residency, Rozas will extend his research through conversations with biologist Carlos Carmona-Fontaine, philosopher Alejandra Borea, percussionist Brian Adler, and historian Yukyko Takahashi, all of which will be shared in Spanish and English on The Kitchen OnScreen.

Curated by Lumi Tan.

Conversations on Still

Rozas will participate in conversations with four invited guests over the course of his residency. Below the artist shares notes on the subjects that he takes up with each guest. The first two conversations are linked below, with text in English and Spanish. The remaining conversations will be published the week of April 12.

Linear time is real, but it is not the most important way of thinking time. It is more difficult to teach a child the concept of linear time than to teach them how to add or subtract hours. It is important that we rethink our concepts of time. Western thought maintains the illusion that linear time is the only way to think about reality. However, in human experience we are constantly faced with the cyclical, nothingness, and eternity. For more on linear time and Western thought, click here to read a conversation with philosopher Alejandra Borea.

The timeline that connects life and death of our bodies are definitely important aspects of being. But being has to do more with large biological and emotional networks that come before us, and will last after us. Ecology is the symbiotic equilibrium of life and death. Excessive life and fear of death have been motors of our ecological disaster. For more on life and non-linear time, click here to read a conversation with biologist Carlos Carmona-Fontaine

Fixing points in history is a pedagogy of linear time. Capitalists utopias are pinpoints in the future. Idealized indigenous utopias are pinpoints in the past. When we look closely at them, we see that both utopias are idealizations that help us maintain linear time in the midst of the cyclical and paradox. Arts that promote futuristic utopias and idealized exotic pasts are also ways of educating our minds in the kingdom of linear time. For more on utopias and cyclical history, click here to read a conversation with historian Yukyko Takahashi.

Western arts are also a pedagogy of linear time. Let's think of music. Melody, a linear sequence of sounds. Harmony and rhythm have structures that imitate the linear greek dramaturgy: a beginning, a climax and a release. What is music informed by non-linear time? For more on non-linear time in music, click here to read a conversation with percussionist Brian Adler.

Production Team

Installation

Lighting Designer: Madeline Best

Sound Supervisor: Ian Douglas-Moore

COVID-19 Supervisor and Stage Manager: Randi Rivera

Lighting Assistant: Shana Crawford

Conversations

Translator: Lucia della Paolera

Editors: Kathy Cho, Lumi Tan

Photo Documentation of Still

Efraín Rozas: Still is made possible with endowment support from Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust; annual grants from The Amphion Foundation, Inc., The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Howard Gilman Foundation, The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, and Joseph and Joan Cullman Foundation for the Arts; and in part by public funds from New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Season programming is also made possible with support from The Kitchen’s Board of Directors and The Kitchen Leadership Fund. To learn more about the Leadership Fund, click here.