Alejandro Acierto performs 'Transmit,' a performance installation for voice and breath mediated through an 8-channel speaker system in multiple rooms. //  Allen Moore's work converses with the signifiers of African American and popular culture, bringing to view the underlying themes of our racial and emotional experiences. Moore creates experimental sounds and objects that parallel his own biographical narrative, casting inverted recordings (graphite and adhesive) from popular vinyl records from his childhood.

Anil Çamci's 'Temas,' which generates purely electronic sounds, stochastically traverses the fine line between the organic and the synthesized, forming contacts with representationality. //  Focus Group LLC is a new ensemble of musicians formed by composer Ethan T. Parcell to perform Parcell's long-form performance texts and text-based works by epochal composers-poets. The group seamlessly fuses a rich acoustic drone-centric sound and acute attention to detail with a theatrical gusto to accompany the spoken and sung centerpieces of their repertoire. The music takes inspiration from the music-theatre of Robert Ashley, John Cage, and other composer-performers and distills it into a intense, almost private-seeming series of meditations on language, singing, and the creation of sound.

Rested Field is a Boston-based experimental trio, invested in exploring alternative modes of music-making that integrate both deterministic and improvisatory strategies. Taking their name from agricultural allegory, Rested Field fosters an interdisciplinary action, striving to cultivate meeting-places for the creative practices of its participants, collaborators, and peers. Rested Field is Chuck Furlong (clarinet, electronics), Clifton Ingram (guitar, electronics), and Daniel Lewis (percussion, electronics). //  JCSpaceRadio will present a frequency sculpture using light, live radio broadcast, and movement scores exploring electromagnetic energy at the physical level. Part performance lecture, part dance, and part meditation – we will put you in our sonic womb and hold you close.

Hermann Hesse’s groundbreaking novel Steppenwolf treats the figure of Harry Haller, a man torn between the confining parameters of civilized life and his submerged instinctual self, as a symbol of the struggle between one's own often opposed aspects: those of both the exterior and culturally-predetermined human, and the obscured yet never-sleeping wolf. For their performance, Bill MacKay and Katinka Kleijn will draw on musical motifs from various experimental traditions to illustrate these polarities, their inevitable conflict, and the redeeming power of their eventual convergence. (Photo by Paul Crisanti)

Grykes is Shawn Decker and Mark Booth. Grykes utilizes analog modular synthesis, raw and processed field recordings, electronics, pre-­composed ambient textures, violin, guitar, and audio collage in their live performances. Their open form works have a fixed progression and structure, and a closed set of materials, but are variable in the details of live performance. Grykes is named for the unusual fissures in the limestone pavements of the Burren, Ireland that support arctic, Mediterranean, and tropical flora in the same ecosystem.

The selected artists in OSCILLATIONS 2014 represent a gamut of disciplines, including generative and conceptual sound art, contemporary chamber music, audio/video synthesis, and improvisations and performances by virtuoso instrumentalists and vocalists.

OSCILLATIONS is the newest addition to ESS’ regular programming (SummerSonic, Outer Ear, Florasonic, Audible Gallery, &c.). In this eclectic series, presented artists were sourced from submissions received in abundant response to an open call for proposals addressed to creative musicians and sound artists from Chicago and beyond. The eight selected artists operate in a diverse array of genres, from contemporary composition to experimental folk to ambient improvisation; each night features a bill of two complimentary or contrasting artists selected from the submissions we received.

OSCILLATIONS is the newest addition to ESS’ regular programming (SummerSonic, Outer Ear, Florasonic, Audible Gallery, &c.). In this eclectic series, presented artists were sourced from submissions received in abundant response to an open call for proposals addressed to creative musicians and sound artists from Chicago and beyond. The eight selected artists operate in a diverse array of genres, from contemporary composition to experimental folk to ambient improvisation; each night features a bill of two complimentary or contrasting artists selected from the submissions we received.

OSCILLATIONS is the newest addition to ESS’ regular programming (SummerSonic, Outer Ear, Florasonic, Audible Gallery, &c.). In this eclectic series, presented artists were sourced from submissions received in abundant response to an open call for proposals addressed to creative musicians and sound artists from Chicago and beyond. The eight selected artists operate in a diverse array of genres, from contemporary composition to experimental folk to ambient improvisation; each night features a bill of two complimentary or contrasting artists selected from the submissions we received.