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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.
Okay, so contrary to printed posters and calendars, Dave Public isn't playing this noise lounge. We wish him the best on his trip to a memorial in NJ and look forward to his RETURN. In his stead we've got another act with the initials "DP." 6-9pm | NOISE LOUNGE | 1/4 Volume | FREE | not a show, come play checkers and mind games | Gallery Hours DIAL PAINTERS (Steven W. Greco and Marcel McVay) will rip three hours of lounge noise, recalling the tragedy of the Radium Girls aka Watch Dial Painters who painted ever-glowing Radium paint on the numbers of watch dials in and around 1917. Pointing their brushes with quick lashes of their tongues and nimble lips, these teenage wage workers rapidly poisoned themselves - their buried bodies still cranking gieger counter clicks to this day. Also apparent will be a Tralfamadorian sense of timelessness, time warping and the simultaneous experience of birth, death and the passion inherent between them.
1/4 NOISE LOUNGE! 6-9pm and free!!
It's VALENTINES DAY!
Come and hang, talk, play cool games, kiss in public. This is not a show, so feel free to take a seat and have some fun with your friends.
This guy is nuts. Utterly freaking nuts. With both hands on both joysticks. Audio / Visual experimentation abound... expect serious flittering visual stimulation behind an assembly of sensuous sound. Matthew Underwood everybody, aight?
Touring from Chicago -Champagne Mirrors:
Alex Barnett - drum machine, synthesizer, tapes, vocal,
c30 on the Scrapes label. Touring from NYC- P.P.G.
Rose E. Kross + 51717 // Gynoid Exotica
(members of further reductions, 51717). With local support:
Apathy and Steel (Mark Cetilia),
Drekalo (Kristin Hayter),
Thorn (Tay la), and V Special Guest:
Shawn O'Sullivan (DJ sets between acts).
The SECOND of the revived edition 1/4 Vol. Noise Lounge.
A true class act, HOUSEBOY's Rebecca Mitchell (House Red, Whore Paint) and Dylan Going fashionably bring SWANK and ELEGANCE to the room while you sip ultra cool martinis and slowly fill your cheeks with sexy olives. We will be hosting GALLERY HOURS during the noise lounge, so you can check out the real artwork in there.
THEY'VE GONE ELECTRIC. THE NEW SHIT. That's right, The Sugar Honey Iced Tea returns to us in a new, electrified form. Playing along are our swamp-yank rock heroes The Quahogs and Convergence (Florence+James Falzone duo!) A truly magnificent event.
!!¡¡!¡¡¡¡!¡ TIGUE !¡¡!¡¡¡!!¡!¡¡¡ EXPERIMENTAL POWERHOUSE PERCUSSION TRIO TIGUE, FROM BROOKLYN, READY TO MASSAGE YOUR MIND. THEIR NEW ALBUM, PEAKS, DEBUTED NOV 13 ON NEW AMSTERDAM RECORDS. CHECK OUT THEIR SINGLE "MOUTH" FEATURING Ira Kaplan and James McNew OF Yo La Tengo. The "bubbling and hovering" track is featured on stereogum. With local spectacles JPA Falzone + Martim Galvão & Todd Anderson
https://martimgalvao.wordpress.com/ 8pm, $8
Announcing the 80th consecutive PechaKucha Providence (er... the Greater Providence area)! This month we return to Machines With Magnets, the cool performance space/recording studio/art gallery in downtown Pawtucket. During this month of giving thanks and eating too much, we will be doing a special canned goods drive for the Rhode Island Community Food Bank. Please bring a canned good or other nonperishable food item to donate. In keeping with that spirit, our theme will be "canned." Presenters should feel free to interpret the theme literally, loosely, or not at all. If you haven't heard of this global yet unpronounceable phenomenon, PechaKucha is a monthly format for sharing ideas in which presenters are allotted 20 slides and 20 seconds per slide. Simply put: it's 6 minutes and 40 seconds of show and tell for grown-ups. It began in Tokyo in 2003, has since spread to over 780 cities worldwide, and first landed in Providence in March of 2009.
Wash yourself away in the November surf. We're turning the heat up for this one, so don your suits and shades. Coke Weed:
Uncontrolled substances swelling out of Bar Harbor, ME. Pixels:
Providence home-schooled garage rock. String Builder:
The ever-resonant and uplifting Thibodeau Brothers.
Coming in for landing:
//// Cloud Becomes Your Hand
Coming in from Brooklyn, psych-rock quintet Cloud Becomes Your Hand's magical sound will take you safely over the crests of the sea's most impressive swells. //// Minibeast
Minibeast is the musical creation of Peter Prescott (Mission Of Burma, Volcano Suns, Kustomized, Peer Group). Minibeast combines surf, psych, punk, easy listening, 60's children's music, and soundtrack influences to create instrumental soundscapes. Providence homies:
//// OMNIVORE Providence's own Glenna Van Nostrand eats all. Riding a border between experimental electronic music and vocal performance, Omivore has been known to repurpose corded phones and electronic bits to piece together an ethereal and overwhelming sound. //// HOST
Recent Providence transplant from Savannah, GA, Host, (Alex Maddalena) creates melodic, repeating compositions that build tick, wet astmospheres using a guitar and table of electronics.
