Vendil and her collaborators will show what we have been working on while in residence at High Concept Labs. This will be an informal showing of my work in progress Antonym: the opposite of nostalgia. Special thanks to High Concept Labs, where Vendil is a Fall 2019 Sponsored Artist, for supporting this project.

Featuring Laura Cocks, flute; Natalie Calma, violin; Sugar Vendil, piano

About Antonym
There’s no word for the opposite of nostalgia. Antonym attempts to construct the thing we don’t have a word for: if nostalgia is a yearning for the past, Antonym longs for forward motion and envisions the future as an escape from pain. It is an interdisciplinary performance piece that integrates music, movement, and projection design and scored for flute, violin, piano, and electronics. Using field recordings of New York City throughout the year, the four seasons serve as a cyclical frame and context for memory.

Nostalgia is often associated with childhood. For me, the weather can evoke childhood memories of joy, sadness, or fear. The weather would often be a factor in my state of happiness or unhappiness. A few examples: warm weather reminds me of sitting out at recess so that my skin would not tan (dark skin is undesirable in Filipino culture), being bored in my parents’ office in the summer; fall reminds me of back to school, the end of my loneliness. We often remember what the weather was like the day a traumatic event happened.

Free