Andrew C. Smith’s curatorial essay for Carolyn Chen’s work The Language of Birds examines the role of stories and social interaction in her new work. To RSVP for the performance and “guided tour” in Santa Cruz, visit indexical.org. In the Fáfnismál — one of the Norse texts making up the…

Manfred Werder in conversation with Andrew C. Smith, December 3, 2019 Get tickets to Manfred Werder’s performance in Santa Cruz on Feb. 8, 2019. A: I’d like to talk a little bit about some of your recent work, particularly these two series of works [to be performed in Santa Cruz…

Carolyn Chen in conversation with Laura Steenberge (November 26, 2018) L: When did you first become self-aware of your voice and its particular characteristics? C: I think growing up speaking Mandarin at home and English at school made me conscious from an early age of having a different vocal personality…

Note: This essay is a preview for Language as a Wilderness, running Jan. 12 — Feb. 8 at Radius Gallery in Santa Cruz. Visit indexical.org/events for the full schedule. Language is not a function of frontal and explicit communication and has far more to do with locating oneself in an…

Over the years we have watched so many projects develop. From the very beginning, Indexical has been committed to providing artists the time, place, space, and community to work through new ideas and develop new projects. Usually, this involves a lot of conversation; yet, a single performance, or even a…

Over the past two months, we’ve had meetings with new supporters in Santa Cruz and old friends in New York, all centered on one question: how can we keep up this pace of concerts? At the start of 2017, we developed a plan around the belief that an intense few…

Over the past six years, we’ve accumulated lots of recordings. Hours — days — of premiere performances, first-time collaborations, and conceptual chance-driven audience participation events. And they’re all over the place. We’ve got three hours of Jürg Frey up for download on the Free Music Archive, “Remarks on Color” by…

Experimental music is not just about producing a couple high-profile concerts. It’s about the scene. It’s about a committed audience, and a community of artists who understand one another’s work. Building this community takes time and frequency, and is at the core of Indexical’s mission. In 2017, Indexical has presented…

A few thoughts on our upcoming performance of Antoine Beuger’s piece …of being numerous In the 1930s, shortly after setting up The Objectivist Press with Louis Zukovsky and Charles Reznikoff with support from Ezra Pound, George Oppen abandoned poetry for activist work with the Communist Party in Brooklyn. Oppen was…