Sunday May 12 * 1-3pm * Free / donations * RSVP

Palestine and Puerto Rico share a profound history of colonial occupation, economic exploitation, and cultural resistance, despite their geographical distance and unique cultural identities. Join this teach-in to gain a deeper understanding of the historical connections and parallels between the Palestinian and Puerto Rican freedom struggles. Learn how to support initiatives fighting for the liberation of the land and people in both regions.

Presented by the Diaspora Pa'lante Collective - Our goals are to support our people in the liberation of our country and to create relationships in solidarity with all oppressed peoples - in the struggle for liberation that is here, now, globally.

Monday October 30 * 6pm * RSVP (Suggested donation $5)

Join us for a discussion with invited guest composer Agustín Castilla-Avila and local composer Lewis Krauthamer on their journeys in microtonality and nonconventional instrumental techniques.

Agustín Castilla-Avila: “Between Silence, Microtonality and Instrumental Techniques' Interchange”
In 1996, during my guitar studies, I read for the first time about microtonal guitars. I was so fascinated about it. Trying to experiment to hear microtones in my instrument, I created a 36EDO scordatura system, which I have been using now for more than 25 years. In this lecture, I would like to present my ideas in a personal and biographical way about how I decided to create my 36-divisions system and to compose with it. I would also like to explain about the challenges and the decisions I took as a composer during this time.

Lewis Krauthamer: “Microtonal Demonstration and Hearing Experiment”
I have been working (like Dr. Castilla-Avila) in a 36EDO/sixth tone system for a long time. People not used to microtonal music sometimes find the sound world perplexing. I’ll demonstrate how I’ve adapted the guitar to play sixth tones. I’ll also engage the audience in a “hearing experiment” where we compare microtonal and nonmicrotonal versions of the same music, side-by-side, to see if the microtonal versions have anything special to offer. Maybe I’ll prove the value of sixth tone microtonality or maybe the experiment will backfire. As an artist I’ve never worried too much about others’ feedback – my aim is to follow my own conscience, and it doesn’t sit well that I’d rewrite my music to sound more conventional and familiar then invite people to prefer the easier alternative… but it’s worth trying at least once. Maybe you’re also curious to see what happens.

Monday January 14 * 6:30-8:30pm * Free (small donation for the space encouraged)

SPACE IS LIMITED AND AN RSVP IS REQUIRED. PLEASE RSVP HERE

At a death cafe, people gather to eat cake, drink tea, and have a group discussion about death. The aim is to “increase awareness of death to help people make the most of their (finite) lives.” What's on your mind about death and dying?

Coffee and desserts will be provided! This is a discussion group rather than a grief support or counseling session.

Discussion hosted by Sarah, founder of Death Positive DC and local end-of-life doula

Saturday Jan.12 * 3-430pm * $5-15 suggested domation

ChucK is a free, powerful, and flexible programming language for creating and modifying sound and music in real time, by creating chains (oscillator/envelope/filter/LFO/delay, etc), manipulating audio samples, and working with time, pitch, and timbre. This clinic introduces the basics of coding in ChucK to produce music using only a laptop and the free ChucK interface. We'll start by coding a simple sound-generating routine, then learn how to launch multiple copies and modify it to produce varying textures.

No prior knowledge of coding or music is necessary. Participants are encouraged to load the free ChucK software ("mini Audicle") on a laptop and bring it to the clinic so they can code along with the instructor.

More about ChucK, including a link to download the software: http://chuck.cs.princeton.edu/

About the instructor: Charlie Kramer (under the name "NorthWoods") performs live coding in ChucK, creating soundscapes of ambient, experimental, industrial, funk and EDM.

Monday Nov. 19 * 730-930 pm

FORTNIGHTS - Rhizome's communal learning series is untaught and unled. Our discussion/action groups are an opportunity for people to learn about a topic by reading, discussing, and then experimenting with the ideas that grow out of our discussions.

During the 2016-17 season Rhizome DC’s Fortnights held a reading and discussion group on Gilles Deleuze/Felix Guatari and Guy Debord’s Situationist International. The 2018/19 sessions will employ an even more participatory format, which will encourage everyone to present an author or reading of her/his choice in the area of social justice. Readings are available here: https://rhizomefortnightsdc.wordpress.com/

At this meeting we will discuss the essay, “Cultivating Community Economies: Tools for Building a Liveable World” by J.K. Gibson-Graham & the Community Economies Collective. The essay comes out of the author’s Diverse Economies project in which they* contemplate the possibility of alternative forms of economy and politics outside of capitalism or socialism. To do this they “imagine ‘the economy’ differently—as something that is created in specific geographical contexts and in historically path-dependent ways.” The project “outlines a strategy for taking back the economy, for representing it in a way that dislodges the discursive dominance of capitalist economic activity and reclaims it as a contested space of representation.” To accomplish this requires a deep accounting of history and ethnography to devise a kind of taxonomy of alterative economic forms based upon a variety of alternative values and relationships such as reciprocity, gift giving, cooperative labor, and self-provisioning. [*J.K. Gibson-Graham are actually two authors publishing under a single pen name: feminist economic geographers Julie Graham and Katherine Gibson]

Monday September 17th  , 6:30-8:30pm. Free (small donation for the space encouraged)

At a death cafe, people gather to eat cake, drink tea, and have a group discussion about death. The aim is to “increase awareness of death to help people make the most of their (finite) lives.” What's on your mind about death and dying?

Coffee and desserts will be provided! This is a discussion group rather than a grief support or counseling session.

Discussion hosted by Sarah, founder of Death Positive DC and local end-of-life doula

Thursday June 14th     8PM     

We know that sounds can be broken down into their component sine waves,images to the intensity of their pixels. Mathematicians refer to such building blocks as "basis functions" - if you know these, you can generate other works from them. In this talk, we'll see how this idea arises in a variety of contexts - not just in the finite element method, used to solve engineering problems, but even fiction! We'll also briefly look at some other connections between the two fields I work in: writing and applied mathematics. 

Manil Suri is a mathematics professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. His fiction (including the novels The Death of Vishnu, The Age of Shiva and The City of Devi) has been translated into 27 languages. He is a frequent contributor to The New York Times, writing op-eds on mathematics, India and LGBT rights. He is in the process of completing a new novel, The Godfather of Numbers, which explains mathematics to non-mathematicians

Monday June 11th , 7-9pm. Free (small donation for the space encouraged)

At a death cafe, people gather to eat cake, drink tea, and have a group discussion about death. The aim is to “increase awareness of death to help people make the most of their (finite) lives.” What's on your mind about death and dying?

Coffee and desserts will be provided! This is a discussion group rather than a grief support or counseling session.

Discussion hosted by Sarah, founder of Death Positive DC and local end-of-life doula

Do butterflies dream of evolutionary free-jazz and genetic tattoos

Let us go deep into the study of the greatest art show on Earth, and explore these principles using the visually stunning features of butterflies and their wing patterns. How does the scientist approach these simple questions: how does DNA instructs pattern formation on the wing? and the diversification of shapes and color motifs therein? Can we manipulate these patterns, and shall we? What are the ethical limits of the modification of nature, are we harnessing it, or interrogating it, can it strengthen our relationship with it, or alienate us from it? 

Arnaud Martin is an Assistant Professor at the George Washington University since 2016 and has been carrying research in the field of Evolutionary Developmental Biology for the past 12 years at the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon(France), UC Irvine, and UC Berkeley.

Come learn about Salvia divinorum!

Join us for a discussion with Salvia experts.

Special guests include:
• Dr. Thomas Stanley
• Twig Harper
• Dr. Fred Barrett (of Johns Hopkins University)

Thomas and Twig will share their knowledge on Salvia, and Fred will discuss Johns Hopkins' upcoming study on Salvinorin A. This will be followed by a Q&A with the audience.

 

This month at Rhizome, Women Uncorked is facilitated by sexual empowerment educator, Reba the Diva. Let's talk about communication. How do you tell a sex partner what you want - or what you don't want? What are the things you wish you could say to them, but don't? We'll talk about why it's so hard, and what you can do about it, strategies for starting the conversation - and what happens next.

Come enjoy a supportive group of womyn in a no-judgement zone -- and no one saying "that's TMI!" Women Uncorked is a gathering for women only, talking about sex - the science, the social, the politics, the personal. It's a safe place to break free of cultural taboos on talking honestly and personally about sexual topics. We talk about about desire, love and relationships, our bodies and our sexuality. We talk intimately about living and loving as womyn today. We share wisdom with understanding and acceptance, and wine.

We are a diverse group of people who identify as womyn, with different orientations and relationship styles, different ages and life experiences, sharing perspectives and experience about the most intimate of topics. You can just sit and listen, and only talk if you feel comfortable. There will be an opportunity to write anonymous questions on index cards for group discussion, if you have something you want talked about but don't feel comfortable bringing it up.

Join us!


 

FORTNIGHTS - Rhizome's communal learning series is untaught and unled. Our discussion/action groups are an opportunity for people to learn about a topic by reading, discussing, and then experimenting with the ideas that grow out of our discussions.

We propose "Reading Rhizome" in order to explore the ideas of Gilles Deleuze, who was one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century, and whose writings seem increasingly relevant today.

We'll begin with a short introductory session where we'll discuss Deleuze's overall philosophical project and some key concepts such as Multiplicity, Assemblages, the Body without Organs, Nomadic Space, etc. We will also view selections from 'Deleuze's Abecedaire', an interview-film produced near the end of his life.

In subsequent sessions we will read and discuss several short works such as The Rhizome (the introductory chapter of Deleuze & Guattari's 'A Thousand Plateaus'), Deleuze's 'Postscript on Societies of Control', and other works as chosen by the group. We will also discuss how Deleuze's affirmative philosophy of difference & emphasis on 'becoming other' may point the way to new modes of interacting outside existing social structures & organizations.

Rhizome's communal learning series is untaught and unled. Our discussion/action groups are an opportunity for people to learn about a topic by reading, discussing, and then experimenting with the ideas that grow out of our discussions.  In Readings in Radical Education, we will explore the myths and politics surrounding conventional pedagogy, and engage with the possibilities raised by works such as Jacques Ranciere’s The Ignorant Schoolmaster, Paolo Friere’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, and Bell Hooks’ Teaching to Transgress.