This is a repost from the touch label blog and site. I will be lecturing about bees during the event concerning their lives, habits and beauty of form.

My Queen and I:
An introduction to the bees and their closest relatives.

The Bee Symphony

The Rymer Auditorium, York 17th December 2010

October 21, 2010 » Permalink: The Bee Symphony | The Rymer Auditorium, York 17th December 2010

The Bee Symphony
Celebrating the bee in science and art
Friday 17 December 2010 at 7.30pm
Rymer Auditorium

The Bee Symphony, consisting of recordings of bees by Chris Watson ('The Life of Birds', 'The Life of Mammals', 'Life in the Undergrowth' and 'Life in Cold Blood'), Mike Harding (Touch) and a vocal score by Marcus Davidson (Spire) will be performed live by Chris Watson and five singers from the University of York, conducted by Marcus Davidson. The Symphony was originally commissioned as part of Pestival and performed in the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London. Updated details of the full programme can be seen on the The Bee Symphony microsite
"The theme of the evening is really for people to become immersed in the sounds and rhythms of the insects." Chris Watson
In addition to The Bee Symphony the programme will feature other sound performances and talks by scientists on current research on bees and the current perils that they face, including:
Irene Moon - My Queen and I: An introduction to the bees and their closest relatives, also a special episode for TouchRadio

Buy tickets at www.yorkconcerts.co.uk
The Bee Symphony microsite
www.marcusdavidson.net
www.chriswatson.net

Irene Moon lectures for the North Carolina State University Department of Entomology

Entomology in Contemporary Art and Music
Monday, October 25, 2010

Irene Moon & Katja Seltmann

The public is welcome. All seminars are held at 11:15am in 3503 (Stevens Room) Thomas Hall unless noted otherwise .
Refreshments are served at 11:00am in the adjoining lobby.

Maladresses ou la Figure de l’Idiot

An exhibition of Snowflake will take place this month at the Institute of Social Hypocrisy in Paris

with Mathis Collins, Michele di Menna, Petrit Halilaj, Justin Meerkel, Irene Moon, Annette Ruenzler.

Video soundtrack by Darker Florida (Irene Moon and Christopher Cprek)

Some thoughts about the idiot from curator Fanny Gonella:

The word idiot defines a category of people and, consequently, is part of a normative system, which sorts out individuals according to their mental condition. It seems some categories have a hard time finding their place in society, and the idiot, because of his supposedly inappropriate behavior, is kept on the margins of this system.

Although this figure is hardly visible in daily life, it can be encountered easily in literature or films. The context of fiction allows for the complexity of the true idiot’s figure to unfold. He does things out of confusion rather than according to personal interests. This character, being partly dispossessed of himself, offers the possibility to reflect the „landscape“ around him. He functions as a vehicle for other people’s stories. The transparency of his actions, due to his absence of strategy, turns him into a catalyst on the people surrounding him. The idiot brings along a degree zero of intention.

His actions are generated by the position of the others, but he totally ignores their expectations, or what they would normally consider as suitable. Though he acts without following social rules, his behavior does not contain any provocative intention or judging attitude. His genuine thoughts, being expressed without any secondary objectives, offer a clear view on the most complex situations because he does not act according to the potential consequences of what he says or does.

Within our environment, which is overloaded with strategies, the idiot opens unseen perspectives and appears as an existential figure. He develops his own path according to personal beliefs and regardless of decency, which makes his actions incommensurable to everyday logic. His thoughts do not unfold according to prejudices or norms and in this sense, the true idiot sometimes appears as the hidden face of the genius. Reciprocally, knowledge seems to function as a scholarly repetition of norms from the past that have been taken for granted. The idiot’s ignorance suggests an odd form of beauty, without relation to classical harmony but rather to apparently insignificant things and clumsiness.