Artists Space

Abasement #81

Concert
October 20, 2025, 7pm

Performances by Rubber (() Cement, Demsyl, Weston Olencki, and Mephitick Ooze. DJ Sandy Smiles. Visuals by Cable Visions. Projections by Bradley Eros.

Magazine cut-outs and ink drawings are collaged together on a background of beige, yellow, pink, turqoise and red paper. Small pieces of paper with red typewritten text listing the performers and event details are scattered around the flyer.
Flyer by Joe Frivaldi. [Magazine cut-outs and ink drawings are collaged together on a background of beige, yellow, pink, turqoise and red paper. Small pieces of paper with red typewritten text listing the performers and event details are scattered around the flyer.]

Coalescing into a specific burning vision in 1994 Rubber (() Cement was put together as a direct idea for a super science future that will happen. The next technological breakthroughs are realized in a zero-tech way with the emulation of the unrealized 'next step' with the actual "vision" existing in the present (picture a cargo cult with stats on NASA industries). Historically Rubber (() Cement came out of a few shows: one in L.A. with Speculum Fight, and a Japan tour where there was going to be 10 tape release, all at once, with stacks of comics, action figures, trading cards all from the closing of "Comics and Cosmos" who filled up their sales bins with nickle items. Wanting to redistribute this mega closeout overseas with easy "scientic" visual medium and a tape. The mainstage giant stage computer, CIMEVOX 30084, could shake and twirl it's reel to reels while playing some of the most tortured synthesizer sounds. The Genetic Rack Pack is a conglomeration of different grown & manufactured mediums. A newer head, grown three times, produced triple bat faces with sensitive 'bat-radar' eye-ears and 'teeth' that are actual mini map memory bluebrass tooth sticks of every place that the Gene-rack has been, and the list of every note that was played at every show set. For more than 30 years, the Cimevox & Genetic Slub noise anomaly known as Rubber (() Cement has been the mutant poster child of the San Francisco Bay Area's bizarro music community. In that time, Rubber (() Cement has toured Europe, Japan 13 times, and the USA as the Ape Canaveral freaked-out flagship act, having shared the stage with such acts as: Wolf Eyes, Mayuko Hino, Nautical Almanac, Boredoms, Runzelstirn & Gurgelstock, Smegma, Speculum Fight, Comets on Fire, playing live together with Karla LaVey (First Satanic Church), Violent Onsen Geisha, CCCC, James Twig Harper, Keiji Heino, Hado Ho, Hair Stylistics, and many more." Two LPs & a dozen CDs make them fresh veterans skin removal and skeletroning for the top high speed electronic cardbaord or entertainment events in your neck of the Errth.

Demsyl is an experimental metal project with rotating members. It was formed by American writer/musicians Stephanie LaCava, Mark Iosifescu and Max Lawton. Stephanie LaCava is a writer based in New York City. She is the author of The Superrationals (2020), I Fear My Pain Interests You (2022), and Nymph (2025). Mark Iosifescu is a writer, musician, and editor from New York City. His writing has appeared in LCD, The Brooklyn Rail, and The Whitney Review of New Writing, and is forthcoming in n+1. His music has been released on labels including Ecstatic Peace!, Big Love, Hundebiss, and Night People. He is working on a novel called The Soft Exclusion. Laszlo Horvath is a composer and interdisciplinary artist based in New York City. He released his debut solo album, I Don’t Have That Problem, in January 2025, prior to which he fronted the band Laszlo and the Hidden Strength. His work has been exhibited locally and internationally, including the 15th Baltic Triennial. His writing has appeared in publications such as Heavy Traffic and Triple Ampersand Journal. He will serve as music director in Diane Severin Nguyen’s upcoming Performa Biennal commission in November. Jack Callahan is a composer and audio engineer based in NYC. He is best known for his solo work under the moniker die Reihe and collaborative project with Jeff Witscher, Callahan & Witscher. He is a founder of the music platform Nina Protocol. Max Lawton is a writer, musician, and translator. He has translated many works by Vladimir Sorokin and is currently working on translations of works by Michael Lentz, Antonio Moresco, Stefano D'Arrigo, and Louis-Ferdinand Céline. His first novel PROGRESS is forthcoming from Verso. He lives in Los Angeles, where, when he isn't writing, he plays heavy metal.

Weston Olencki is an artist and musician from South Carolina, living now in Berlin. Their projects position musical instruments as sites of cultural inscription, working fluidly between experimental sound, traditional musics, and their various space/time(s). Weston has previously performed at the Borealis Festival, Counterflows, Donaueschinger Musiktage, Lampo, Musica Nova (as a soloist with the Helsinki Philharmonic), Märzmusik, Black Mountain College, philharmonie luxembourg, HKW, Festival Musica, the American Academy in Rome, Roulette Intermedium, Jalopy Theatre, Fylkingen, Pioneer Works. They were awarded the Kranichsteiner Musikpreis from the 2016 Darmstadt Ferienkurse. They have held guest residencies at the University of Huddersfield, Harvard, NYU, Columbia, Princeton, Stanford, Northwestern, and have been a visiting artist at CalArts (2018), Stoveworks (2023), suddenlyLISTEN (2024), and EMS Stockholm (2025). Various recording projects have been released by HatHut, Sound American, Full Spectrum, New Amsterdam, Clean Feed, Longform Editions, Dinzu Artefacts, SUPERPANG, Tripticks Tapes, KAIROS, Lobby Art, Sound Holes, Astral Spirits, PAGANS, Out of Your Head, and more. Weston is an active member of RAGE THORMBONES and APPARAT, and performs in many contexts on low brass instruments, winds, banjo, and electronics. They also run events and sound at KM28.

Mephetick Ooze is the satanic deathsport & radioactive wizard responsible for the legendary LandOfTuh web crypt. Doubling as human kickbag for Metalux & hard rock drummer for Hogwind, M.Ooze excites his 'own sound' with a self crucifixion & video samplings of his followers rituals which involve VHS & cave porn. Here we see his darker side...

Working primarily with video synthesizers and bygone broadcast equipment, Cable Visions explores the chaotic and colorful nature hidden in feedback loops and anachronistically analog signal paths.

Bradley Eros, as always, (since the very beginning of Abasement (.001), 80+ months, or sessions, ago) will project their "hand-made" analog slides, and/or film ~ all night long! *** "eau de cinema", 'musique plastique', "philosophical jaywalker", "Eros C'est L'amour!" Eros has a rare exhibition @ Microscope Gallery (525 W 29th St, Tuesday-Saturday 12-6PM): hystèry in every media. Involving 7 mediums, including collage, slides, posters, film & video, books, sound & expanded performance with material dating from 1980 to the present. Exhibition up until Oct 25th, with a rare night-time High Line projection performance & indoor screening this coming week. More info, go to Microscope’s site. Also, upcoming very soon, 3 nights of their film and video, both solo and collaboration, dating from their teenage years to the present, covering 55+ years! On Friday, Nov 7th thru Sunday, Nov 9th @ Anthology Film Archives.

Sandy Smiles is a witch from Florida who studied music in the badlands back behind Kennedy Space Center. Sandy Smiles, Monkhammer and Sandy Spectral are three current bands that Sandy plays in.

Abasement has been curated by Joseph Frivaldi and Robert Mayson since 2015.