The next installment of our FLAK Performance Series features High Concept Labs, an organization that provides Chicago artists with flexible, affordable space. Join up for an artistic dialogue and unforgettable experience with High Concept Labs.

Click here to learn more about High Concept Labs!

Mariel Harari is a multimedia artist working in installation, fiber, video, sculpture and performance. She utilizes bright, tactile materials reminiscent of childhood, employing playful splendor as a lure. Harari creates immersive environments that blend autobiographical and fantastical narrative, often utilizing herself as a subject in conjunction with imagined creatures or landscapes. Using meticulously beaded encrustations on nuanced human skin or stuffing heaps of unruly yarn in shiny, clear encasements, Harari’s work balances between containment and chaos. She explores the relationship between societal constructs and uninhibited experience, with a focus on expectations placed on women and the internalized battle between pure and manipulated behavior.

Harari earned her B.S. in Studio Art from Skidmore College, where she received the Marguerita Mergentime Award in Fiber Art. Her work has been exhibited at venues including A.I.R Gallery and has been reviewed in publications including Brooklyn Magazine. Harari attended residencies at the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, the Vermont Studio Center, and she is currently a sponsored artist at High Concept Labs. Harari co-founded of the Chicago chapter of Lady Art Nation, an intersectional and gender expansive feminist collective of creatives. She was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY and currently lives and works in Chicago, IL.

Peter Maunu A recent transplant from the Los Angeles music and studio scene, guitarist Peter Maunu has toured, performed and recorded with a long list of diverse musicians including Charles Lloyd, Mark Isham, Jean luc Ponty, Tony Williams, Billy Cobham, Nels Cline, Archie Shepp, Airto Moriera, Egberto Gismonti, Bobby McFerrin, Patrick O’Hearn, Group 87, Grace Slick, Claus Ogerman. He performed live nightly for five years with the Arsenio Hall Show Band, accompanying legends such as Madonna, Wayne Shorter, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Ringo Starr, Warren Zevon, Ray Charles, jamming with hip hop artists like NWA, Public Enemy, Boogie Down Productions. Additionally, Peter has worked with numerous composers, contributing to the soundtracks and film scores of countless television series, documentaries and feature films including Crash, The Secret Life of Bees, Bobby, Food Inc., Chicago Hope, CSI New York, Chuck, and Arrested Development. Since relocating to Chicago, he has performed live and recorded with improvisers Jim Baker, Avreeyal Ra, Ed Wilkerson, Frank Rosaly, Tim Daisy, Michael Zerang, Keefe Jackson, Mars Williams, Tomeka Reid, Katherine Young, Ayako Kato, Paul Hartsaw, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Dave Rempis, Jason Roebke, and many others…

In addition, he founded, curates and performs at the Splice Series, a bimonthly improvised music series at the Beat Kitchen in Chicago.

Andy Slater is a blind musician, performer, audio engineer, and author. He is the founder of the Society of Visually Impaired Sound Artists and a loud-mouthed advocate for folks like himself.

Andy began composing experimental music as a teen in the early 90s. Andy has a large catalog of recorded music dating back almost 30 years that includes robotic synthesizer music, art-metal, acid-rock, electro-acoustic headache sounds, as well as scoring and sound design for film. He also heads the experimental funk septet, the Velcro Lewis Group. He currently performs live soundtracks to videos made by long-time collaborator, Frank Pollard. These videos consist of manipulated footage appropriated from sci-fi movie VHS tapes. Slater performs to the projected video using vocoder, Micro-Moog, and Yamaha DJX-IIb providing an alternative score to a movie you’ve probably forgotten about.

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Tags: Andy Slater, Chicago, FLAK Performance Series: High Concept Labs, Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art, Mariel Harari, Peter Maunu, West Town