"You Can Unmute Yourself": Open Lab Summary, 01/13

WELCOME TO OPEN LAB. Welcome to the internet. Welcome to this blog post, if you are indeed reading this.

Ironic, because our unofficial open lab theme of the day is HEARING. With your tiny little eardrums. VIBRATE THOSE EARDRUMS and do things with that sensory information.

An ear, if you've never seen one before. This style is usually attached to humans.

So how did we Open Lab on this fine day, a week after THE INSURRECTION and attempted undermining of American Democracy?

STEP 1: MEDITATION WITH KURT

Feel your breath. Pay attention to your breath. Think about how nice it is not to have COVID and be able to do this. Breath is air, but your air will feel different now that you're paying attention to it.

PSYCH. Now you won't be able to stop thinking about breathing and you'll have to consciously control your breath. Isn't that annoying? Heh.

(But if you need some breath meditation, Kurt is YOUR MAN.)

STEP 2: JAM IT UP

We did a quick jam where we all unmuted our mics and tuned into those noises that we were all making. No music – just the noises of existing at the same time.

As someone (Alex?) pointed out, the little subtle environment noises helped bring us into each other's environment. That's one aspect of in-person interactions we were missing!

Our most lovely Doga led us through an exercise

You can do so here: https://musiclab.chromeexperiments.com/Shared-Piano/#N5uTtLU2K and as long as everyone is in the room, you can all play on the same piano at the same time, virtually. A sure way to create chaos.

STEP 4: ALSO SING.

We kept jamming – some were humming to "G" (the pitch) and some of us were dancing on our screens and deliberately reacting to the humming with movement also singing at the same time. I wish I could share the audio with you of what we sounded like (ie. slightly out of tune, all of us) but you probably don't, so I won't.

Did someone also teach us some hand movements or something? My zoom was being extremely laggy so I actually didn't see anything. However, lots of fun movement and reacting to noises that we were all making.

What a bunny would look like if it was attending open lab.

STEP 5: JAMBOARD AND SING OR MAKE WEIRD NOISES

Ya had to be there... (literally. This jamboard session was made of ephemeral "laser"-style strokes so they never stayed on the board for longer than a second or two.)

STEP 6: ????????

A necessary step to allude to a meme format.

STEP 7: PROFIT

Just kidding. This is art-related and art doesn't make anyone a profit like ever. God bless good old American capitalism.

Well, if you want to stay up to date with us (us being Kinetech Arts), you can subscribe to our meetup group is here and pop on by to experiment with sounds and dance with us between 6-7:15 PM Pacific time on Wednesdays!