Exploratorium's 'Resonance' Series Brings Experimental Sound Back to the Museum

Exploratorium After Dark and the California Academy of Sciences NightLife offer adult after-hours date-night experiences with drinks, DJs, and hands-on activities. Exploratorium’s Resonance series adds experimental sound performances to the weekly Thursday events. The series restarted after a long hiatus and runs from Aug. 21 to May 28, featuring artists such as Evicshen and Circuit des Yeux. Performances aim to give audiences sounds they have not heard before, including experimental musicians, music from unfamiliar cultures, new instruments, and unfamiliar methods of making music. Artists can collaborate with museum fabricators and scientists, and audience participation encourages experimentation beyond regular sets. Most shows take place in the Kanbar Forum with a high-end Meyer sound system.

"Wayne Grim, a longtime Exploratorium employee and the curator of the series, says the shows are all about offering audiences something they haven't heard before. "Whether it's through someone doing something more experimental, or through music from a culture that they're completely unfamiliar with," he says, "or instruments that they've never seen before, or a process of making music that most people are completely unfamiliar with.""

"Artists are invited to work with the museum's fabricators and scientists. Play, essential to the spirit of the Exploratorium, is welcome. "When we invite people, we say ... 'Would you like to experiment? What would you do if you could do anything you wanted to - you don't have to do your regular set or your regular thing,'" Grim says."

"For Evicshen's season opener last August, San Francisco artist Victoria Shen unleashed her self-described "chaotic sound" in the museum's observatory, manipulating conventional and handmade instruments as the sky darkened around the Bay Bridge behind her. The performance used the observatory setting to frame the sound with the evening view."

"Despite Shen's foray onto the observatory deck, most Resonance performances happen in the Kanbar Forum, a 200-seat theater with a deluxe Meyer sound system. According to Grim, "It's a small, intimate space t"

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