ÿþ <!-- This document was created by Ben with considerable difficulty! --> <HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE>Sound Currents</TITLE> <META NAME="Author" CONTENT="Ben Houge"> <META NAME="description" CONTENT="Sound Currents presents innovative music and arts events in Shanghai."> <META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="new music Shanghai contemporary classical experimental electronic concert series"> </HEAD> <BODY BGCOLOR="#ffffff" LINK="#157545" VLINK="#401070"> <FONT FACE="verdana,arial"> <TABLE BORDER=0 CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=LEFT WIDTH=750> <FONT COLOR="#000000"> <TR> <TD ALIGN=RIGHT VALIGN=TOP WIDTH=110> <A HREF="index.html"><IMG ALT="sound currents home" SRC="LogoSmall.jpg" BORDER=0></A> <BR> Home<BR> <A HREF="bios.html">Bios</A><BR> <A HREF="program.html">Program</A><BR> <A HREF="about.html">About</A><BR> <A HREF="press.html">Press</A><BR> <BR> </TD> <TD WIDTH=50> </TD> <TD ALIGN=LEFT> Sound Currents presents<BR><BR> <IMG ALT="Sound Currents 4" SRC="SHT3.jpg"> <BR><BR> <B>Sound Currents 4: Ben Houge</B><BR> Tuesday, May 17, 2011, 8pm<BR> <A HREF="http://chapelspace.blogspot.com/">Chapel Performance Space</A>, Good Shepherd Center<BR> 4649 Sunnyside Avenue North, fourth floor<BR> Suggested donation: $5-$15<BR><BR> <FONT SIZE="-1"> <I>After six years in China, digital artist Ben Houge returns to Seattle for an evening of ambient, multichannel soundscapes at Chapel, while his video piece </I>Shanghai Traces<I> is unveiled at e4c gallery.</I> <BR><BR> After an eight year hiatus, the Sound Currents concert series hosts the return of <A HREF="http://www.benhouge.com/">Ben Houge</A> to Seattle, where he will present an evening of ambient, electronic soundscapes at the <A HREF="http://chapelspace.blogspot.com/">Chapel Performance Space</A> in Wallingford on Tuesday, May 17, 2011, at 8pm. The program includes compositions for solo performer and laptop, in addition to slowly evolving, multichannel works initially exhibited as sound installations. Composer/provocateurs <A HREF="http://www.seattleschool.net/">Seattle School</A> will reprise one of their earliest performances, Ben s <I>A Reading from _____</I> (2003). The common theme is the exploration of non-linear form in real-time systems, a primary preoccupation of the artist, bridging his experience in open form new music and videogame audio design. <BR><BR> Ben is also active as a visual artist, and his generative video piece <A HREF="http://www.benhouge.com/shanghaitraces.html"><I>Shanghai Traces</I></A>, a response to Shanghai s massive beautification campaign in preparation for hosting the World Expo in 2010, will be unveiled at <A HREF="http://www.4culture.org/e4c/">e4c</A> gallery in Pioneer Square during the First Thursday Art Walk on May 5. <I>Shanghai Traces</I> is an evolving, algorithmic collage, cobbling together the wares of Shanghai street vendors who were banned from the city center during the Expo. The unpredictable manner in which these objects intersect and overlap mirrors the happenstance interactions that define urban life. <I>Shanghai Traces</I> has been exhibited at <A HREF="http://www.ovgallery.com/">OV Gallery</A> in Shanghai, True Color Museum in Suzhou, the <A HREF="http://axiomart.org/">Axiom Center for New and Experimental Media</A> in Boston, and, having been shortlisted for the <A HREF="http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/interact/participate/youtube-play">Guggenheim s YouTube Play Biennial</A>, in kiosks at Guggenheim museums around the globe. <BR><BR> Other appearances during Ben s visit to the Seattle area include a presentation at the <A HREF="http://www.composersalon.com/">Seattle Composers Salon</A> on May 6 and a lecture on videogame audio sponsored by the <A HREF="http://www.seattlecomposers.org/">Seattle Composers Alliance</A> at <A HREF="http://www.seattlesymphony.org/soundbridge/">Soundbridge</A> on May 11. <BR><BR> The program of Ben s Chapel concert surveys his output during the past six years he spent living in Shanghai, China. During this time, he became actively involved in the underground sound scene, performing and exhibiting in a wide range of venues, including the <A HREF="http://www.benhouge.com/writings/?p=704">Shanghai eArts Festival</A>, the <A HREF="http://www.flickr.com/photos/7286111@N07/sets/72157623485429198/">Hangzhou 2Pi Festival</A>, Beijing s D-22, the Zendai Museum, the <A HREF="http://www.benhouge.com/writings/?p=238">Today Art Museum</A>, the <A HREF="http://www.benhouge.com/writings/?p=581">True Color Museum</A>, the <A HREF="http://www.benhouge.com/writings/?p=348">Shanghai Conservatory</A>, and various bars, clubs, cafes, galleries, karaoke parlors, and subway cars throughout western China, alongside artists as varied as <A HREF="http://www.noishanghai.org/">Torturing Nurse</A>, <A HREF="http://www.yanjun.org/">Yan Jun</A>, Li Jianhong, Elliott Sharp, Nosaj Thing, and Owl City. <BR><BR> Since 1996, Ben has been designing audio for the videogame industry, where issues of non-linear structure in digital systems are a matter of day to day business. For seven years, he remained at Sierra in Bellevue and later spent four years at Ubisoft in Shanghai. His string quartet score for the computer game <A HREF="http://www.benhouge.com/arcanum.html"><I>Arcanum</I></A> (2001) was praised by Melinda Bargreen in the <I>Seattle Times</I> as,  sophisticated enough to pass muster on its own as an extended string quartet. More recently, Ben served as Audio Director of <A HREF="http://www.benhouge.com/endwar.html"><I>Tom Clancy s EndWar</I></A> (2008), praised by <I>GameSpot</I> for its  fantastic audio. <BR><BR> From 1996 to 2004, Ben Houge was extremely active in Seattle s new music community, with work presented at the Seattle Art Museum, Consolidated Works, On the Boards, Capitol Hill Arts Center, Cornish College of the Arts, Polestar Music Gallery, and Town Hall. Ben was an enthusiastic member of the Washington Composers Forum and served the Seattle Composers Alliance as vice president. He was a founding member of <A HREF="http://www.seattleschool.net/">Seattle School</A>, winners of <A HREF="http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/seattle-school/Content?oid=19628"><I>The Stranger</I> s Genius Award</A> (2004) and <A HREF="http://www.seattleweekly.com/2005-05-11/music/the-trophy-case/"><I>The Seattle Weekly</I> s Experimental Music Award</A> (2005). His music has been performed by The Esoterics, odeonquartet, Sorelle, and the Northwest Girlchoir. Ben earned his Master of Music degree in composition from the University of Washington, studying with Juan Pampin and Richard Karpen. <BR><BR> Sound Currents is the concert series founded by Ben Houge, Korby Sears, Mike Min, and Geoff Ogle in 2001. The first Sound Currents concert featured Seattle School s inaugural performance. Sound Currents was honored by the Seattle Weekly for  Most Tasteful After-Concert Reception in 2003, and Christopher DeLaurenti writing about the post-show waffles in The Stranger mused,  Who says contemporary composers don t want to connect with the public? After two successful shows in Seattle, Ben took Sound Currents with him to China, where he presented performances by Audrey Chen, Tatsuya Nakatani, Yao Dajuin, Wang Changcun, and Xu Cheng. <BR><BR> For more information, please contact <A HREF="http://www.benhouge.com/contact.html">Ben Houge</A>. <BR><BR> </FONT> <FONT SIZE="-2"> © 2002-2011 Sound Currents. All rights reserved. </FONT> </TD> </TR> </FONT> </TABLE> <BR><BR> </FONT> <script type="text/javascript"> var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? 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