EAR Forest Programming
Civilipoli - John Niekrasz
World Premiere: Apr 3, 2025, 5:30pm
Lewis & Clark College, EAR Forest
Join us April 3 2025 at 5:30pm for the world premiere of John Niekrasz’s solo composition, Civilipoli, a 35-minute outdoor sound-art performance for acoustic drums, Sensory Percussion technology, and the 16-speaker woodland array at the heart of Lewis & Clark College’s Experimental Art Research (EAR) Forest. John Niekrasz’s most ambitious solo composition to date, and his first to reach into the realms of musique concrète, this work melds Niekrasz’s passion for drum set, poetics, and performance, and enacts the tensions between human culture and wilderness. Created during Niekrasz’s tenure as EAR Forest Artist-in-Residence, Civilipoli is an elegy for the unsocialized self, it is a bittersweet reckoning with wrong civilization and the toll it takes on its subjects, and it is a celebration of the shards of visionary spirit that remain.
APRIL 3, 2025 - performance starting at 5:30PM* (Rain date: Apr 17). Click here for directions. Event is free, all ages.
* Note: Observers are free and encouraged to wander the EAR Forest trail during the performance. Each observer will have a unique listening experience. No two spots sound the same. The EAR Forest is a trail in the woods, with uneven terrain. For those who can not access this kind of site, we will have some headphones for remote access available in front of the Fields art building (a space that is wheelchair accessible), and a binaural recording of the event will be made accessible in the week following the performance.
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The audio piece that was made by our previous artists-in-residence Beth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle is still available for public listening. For those who can’t access the walk, that audio is available on Sound Cloud.
Past EAR Forest Events
Civilipoli by John Niekrasz
EAR Forest Artist in Residence John Niekrasz’s debut performance of Civilpoli, a 16-channel piece for Lewis & Clark College’s EAR Forest
Visiting Artist - John Niekrasz
John Niekrasz, 2024 EAR Forest Visiting Artist will be speaking as part of the 2024 Visiting Artist and Lecture Series
Celebration! EAR Forest Artists-In-Residence, Beth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle, Debut a New Sound Installation at LC
Come take a walk in the EAR forest and celebrate the new sound installation created by LC’s artists in residency, Beth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle!
BYO Lunchtime Picnic During Partial Solar Eclipse With EAR Forest Artists-in-Residence: Beth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle
Lunchtime picnic to meet LC’s artists in residence, Beth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle, who are internationally recognized for their multi-media art projects about love, sex, eco-activism, and queer ecologies. The picnic will take place during a partial eclipse and we will be providing viewing glasses!
Students, faculty, and staff are welcome. Bring your own (BYO) lunch and sip on some beverages with us!
Water Makes Us Wet: Screening and Talk by EAR Forest Artists-in-Residence, Beth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle
Come join us for an evening with Beth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle as they premiere their new film, Water Makes Us Wet. With a poetic blend of curiosity, humor, sensuality and concern, this film chronicles the pleasures and politics of H2O from an ecosexual perspective. Travel around California with Annie, a former sex worker, Beth, a professor, and their dog Butch, in their E.A.R.T.H. Lab mobile unit, as they explore water in the Golden State. Ecosexuality shifts the metaphor “Earth as Mother” to “Earth as Lover” to create a more reciprocal and empathetic relationship with the natural world. Along the way, Annie and Beth interact with a diverse range of folks including performance artists, biologists, water treatment plant workers, scholars and others, climaxing in a shocking event that reaffirms the power of water, life and love.
EAR Forest Artists-in-residence: Beth Stephens & Annie Sprinkle
Lewis & Clark College’s Experimental Art Research (EAR) Forest welcome visiting artists Beth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle.
EAR Forest Grand Opening
The Art Department is excited to announce the creation of the EAR (Experimental Art Research) Forest!