Chris Duncan is an Oakland-based artist who employs repetition and accumulation as a basis for experiments in visual and sound based media. Often in flux between maximal and minimal, Duncan's work is a constant balancing act of positive or negative, loud or quite, solitary or participatory and tends to lead towards questions regarding perception, experience and transcendence. Outside of his studio practice he organizes events and runs a small artist book press and record label called LAND AND SEA with his wife. Duncan earned his BFA from the California College of Arts and Crafts and his Masters Degree in Art Practice from Stanford University.  Under the moniker OFFING, Duncan creates open ended sound paintings rooted in the accumulation of simple tones made from tuning forks and harmonicas combined with field recordings of natural phenomena. Duncan has performed and exhibited nationally and internationally at galleries, project spaces, living rooms and museums.  

Sarah Rara is a Los Angeles-based artist working with video, performance, and installation who recently completed the spring residency at Headlands Center for the Arts. She is opftent known as one of the members of Lucky Dragons. Her recent work focuses on human-technology relationships and the tension between human-built environments and wild ecologies. Sound-image relationships in particular are integral to her work. Sound, with direct correlation to social themes of harmony and dissonance, forms an ideal platform for translating and exploring modes of cooperation and individualization, as well the multiple forms of attention built into any viewing (or living) scenario.

Rooted firmly in solo acoustic composition, Smith has – over the past creatively fruitful decade – adopted electric instruments and devices to further his search and study. Improvisation is now an equal component to composition in his work. LFZ is Smith’s current musical endeavor. Guitar is at the heart and synthesizers come into play at times, all manipulated by a vast array of analog and digital devices. The music is emotionally driven and rides the line between composition and improvisation. There is a deep experimentalism captured in the music of LFZ – all executed by tangible means. LFZ is exploratory of sights, sounds and the phenomenological. Smith is also the owner and operator of the record label, Stimulus Progression.