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Established in 2006, Machines with Magnets hosts experimental music performances, sound and art exhibitions and installations, performance art, film and video screenings, cultural and community events, private events, and fundraisers. Past performances include The Body, Dan Deacon, Mirah, Etran de l'Aïr, Braveyoung, Lydia Lunch, Lightning Bolt, Brown Bird, Container, and Mdou Moctar.
Upcoming Events + Tickets
All ages unless otherwise noted, 21+ with valid ID to drink
Otherworld
Wednesday, July 9, 2025
6:00 pm
to
9:00 pm
This exhibition is a love letter to the ways we create ourselves and each other, again and again, across thresholds both visible and unseen. Eli Kauffman and J Rowen O’Dwyer bring together vivid, psychologically charged paintings that explore the threshold between the physical and the mythic, the home and the holy. Their work charts the sacred rituals of queer life — from moments of pleasure to acts of care, devotion, and transformation. The home becomes a site of alchemy, the body a threshold, and queer experiences a mirror and a myth in constant renewal. The outside world serves as a mirror, a set on which to explore new versions of ourselves, and fill unexpected roles. Images drawn from play, intimacy, domesticity, and community shift between documentation and dream, honoring both the rawness and the magic of trans and queer existence. Otherworld refers to myths and realms in legends, but also to the term “Otherworldly” describing the uncanny nature of otherness, leaving the door open to new realms, for those considered outcast.
This exhibition is a love letter to the ways we create ourselves and each other, again and again, across thresholds both visible and unseen. Eli Kauffman and J Rowen O’Dwyer bring together vivid, psychologically charged paintings that explore the threshold between the physical and the mythic, the home and the holy. Their work charts the sacred rituals of queer life — from moments of pleasure to acts of care, devotion, and transformation. The home becomes a site of alchemy, the body a threshold, and queer experiences a mirror and a myth in constant renewal. The outside world serves as a mirror, a set on which to explore new versions of ourselves, and fill unexpected roles. Images drawn from play, intimacy, domesticity, and community shift between documentation and dream, honoring both the rawness and the magic of trans and queer existence. Otherworld refers to myths and realms in legends, but also to the term “Otherworldly” describing the uncanny nature of otherness, leaving the door open to new realms, for those considered outcast.
Laura Cetilia graduated with distinction from the School of Music at Indiana University and received her Master's degree in cello performance from Wichita State University. In addition to her solo work, she is a member of the electroacoustic ensemble Mem1 with partner Mark Cetilia, and performs avant-garde chamber music with violist Robin Streb in their duo Suna No Onna. Mark Cetilia is a sound / media artist working at the nexus of analog and digital technologies. Exploring the possibilities of generative systems in art, design, and sound practice, Cetilia’s work is an exercise in carefully controlled chaos. He is a member of the media art group Redux, recipients of a Creative Capital grant in Emerging Fields, and the electroacoustic ensemble Mem1, described by The Grove Dictionary of American Music as “a complex cybernetic entity” whose “evolving, custom-built systems are as important an aspect of the duo’s achievements as their ever-innovative sound.”
Immediately following 1/4 Volume Noise Lounge with Ed Osborn. LESLEY FLANIGAN is an experimental electronic musician inspired by the physicality of sound, she builds her own instruments using minimal electronics, microphones and speakers. Performing these instruments alongside traditional instrumentation that often includes her own voice, she creates a kind of physical electronic music that embraces both the transparency and residue of process — sculpting sound from a palette of noise and subtle imperfections. MARIA CHAVEZ is mainly known as an abstract turntablist, sound artist & DJ. Influenced by chance & improvisation in contemporary art, she has collaborated with Christian Marclay and the Whitney Museum of American Art, performed alongside Pauline Oliveros, Thurston Moore, Phill Niblock and worked with Merce Cunningham prior to his passing as a sound artist in residence with the DIA:Beacon Museum in Beacon, NY. With local support from Shawn Greenlee and Humanbeast.
Ed Osborn's work takes many forms including installation, sculpture, radio, video, performance, and public projects. His works combine a visceral sense of space, aurality, and motion with a precise economy of materials. Ranging from rumbling fans and sounding train sets to squirming music boxes and delicate feedback networks, Osborn's kinetic and audible pieces function as resonating systems that are by turns playful and oblique, engaging and enigmatic. Osborn has performed and exhibited, throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and South America.
1/4 Volume Noise Lounge, April 3, 2016 hosted by WORK/DEATH. A long time staple of the providence noise scene, work/death (scøtt reber) doesn't have any easy explanations for anyone. The perception of air vibrating in a room, the investment of meaning into formal constructions and abstract procedures. Organized sound, orchestrated noise, disintegrated music regenerated again.
Two v nice North Carolina sonic experimenters arrive @ Machines. Come one, Come all. Sponge Bath:
Hardware produced techno music made by Nathan Taylor of Chapel Hill, NC. With Patrick Gallagher:
Prepared guitar experimentation and light flirting with beats. Also hailing from NCs Triangle area. Local Support:
Davey Harms & ONE MORE tba.
Corum presents MAGIC MIRROR (Portland, OR / Maine): “Magic Mirror is the creative audio/video project of Corum whose outsider vinyl Trilogy under the monikers of Beguiling Isles and Effigy Mounds has sought to explore a metaphysical relationship with a micro to macrocosmic world. Corum has recorded with an array of artists these last few years.. and like these artists, he too brings a psychedelic atmosphere, one not culled from a traditional sense, but of a deeply inmate ability to transform a space sonically creating a more spiritual, or visceral affair. ” - Chris Webb. GEIST & THE SACRED ENSEMBLE (Seattle): Geist & the Sacred Ensemble performs dark, sinister, trembling earth ballads that have echoes of country evenings and haunted memories. Almost reminiscent of the earliest, best freak folk sounds or more recently, a Swans style of brooding heavy stomp. And our neighbors: Universal Cell Unlock, Wex, Mystery Red Inferno (project of Alec K. Redfearn), & Laure Amat.
1/4 Volume Noise Lounge Easter Edition: Jeremy Harris
March 27, 2016
8:00 pm
We're PUSHING IT BACK. **special time** 8PM-11PM free. Jeremy Harris, everybody. And an excellent time to check out works by Yann Weiner, Joan Wyand and Howie Sneider in See Through Material.
a rare event... :OF THE WAND AND THE MOON:, DIE WEISSE ROSE, VRIL JÄGER, BLOOD AND SUN with local support... LAST FAMILY ON EARTH and ROTGUT GOD. DJ ARCANUS will play uplifting tunes before, between, and after the live acts. ** since this is a highly stacked bill, we will have to start this show pretty early, no later than 8PM. plan accordingly**
This week's host: Christopher Sadlers Chamber noise, minimalist improvisations, and maximalist compositions on solo string bass. Member (past and present) of: The Eyesores, Death Vessel, Barnacled, Denimvenom, Shamanic, Shambing Mound. also, cookies and board games!
Closing Night for IT STAYS WITH YOU: new work by Johnny Ray, Gyna Bootleg and Joseph Mauro. CYST, LVMMVX, SUGAR PIE, JOhnny Ray and the Vomit Arsonist (self flagellation, purging, going to the shrink), FALL RISK (collaborative performance by Gyna Bootleg and Joseph Mauro), RITA REPULSA (two homies performing the world's 1st auditory rendition of crab dreams). 1st show. provoking work. stiff drinks. hellion tunes.
Akiko is a composer, singer, and audio-visual performer / artist who is a native of Yokohama, Japan. She is interested in crossing boundaries between traditionally written music, improvisation, electronics, computer based live interactivity, and visual components. Storytelling, memories, and nature often play an important role in Akiko's work, and she most often finds beauty in simplicity. Designing and building instruments/controllers is a part of her current study as well. Akiko obtained her BA in music from Mills College and MA in Experimental Music/Composition at Wesleyan University. Since September 2011, Akiko has been engaged in PhD study in the MEME program at Brown University. Her instructors include Alvin Lucier, Anthony Braxton, Ronald Kuivila, Maggi Payne, Chris Brown, Jim Moses, Todd Winkler, and Butch Rovan. Akiko is a founding member of OPENSIGNAL, a collective of artists concerned with the state of gender and race in experimental electronic-based sound and art practices.
Jungle labelmate GOSH PITH comes to Machines with Magnets with tour bud Illsnafu and local crooners Favourite and JJAAZZ. GOSH PITH (B3SCI Recs, Detroit). ::Gold Chain Tour::
Future R'n'B / Cosmic Trap duo bringing heat from motor city. With locals JJAAZZ
mems of Math the Band, The Kolour Kult, & Favourite.
1/4 Volume Noise Lounge hosted by
ANIMAL HOSPITAL. Animal Hospital is a project created by Kevin Emil Micka :: A live performance of Animal Hospital consists of Kevin alone and is based on the idea of building a piece of music up from scratch into a completely fleshed out arrangement often containing enough parts to employ many musicians. The music often references many familiar aspects of contemporary rock and pop music but is open to venture out into much more experimental territory. You might remember his work directing Animal Hospital Ensemble performances - like the 30-Guitar-Strong performance under the bridge for the first DOT AIR.
