Jason Kahn’s work with electronics involves chaotic feedback systems and placing his body in the circuit flow. Grabbing open leads with the hands makes and breaks circuits, causing the synthesizer to overload or momentarily collapse. Ministry of Apathy is the solo project of Eric Zwierzynski, based in Santa Cruz County. Using contact mics, power tools, effects pedals, feedback loops, and synth drones, MoA layers timbres and textures for spoken ruminations of a sociopolitical nature.

Born 1960 in New York, Jason Kahn is a artist, musician and writer. He lives and works in Zürich.

Kahn’s work with electronics involves chaotic feedback systems and placing his body in the circuit flow. Grabbing open leads with the hands makes and breaks circuits, causing the synthesizer to overload or momentarily collapse. Various contact microphones, electromagnetic inductors and the synthesizer’s own output via a mixing board are used to modulate the parameters of the synthesizer. This results in a very dynamic system, often difficult to control, but allowing great expressivity—much like any acoustic instrument, but electronic. 

Live radio captures during the concert and recordings made beforehand in the performance space and its environs provide further working material for each concert. In the end, these performances are essentially site-specific works, improvising with the space at hand, both in the sense of its physicality and the sounds found there. Every performance is different, not only because the music is improvised but also because the source material used pertains directly to each space being played in. 

This event was funded in part by Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia and Fondation Suisa.

Ministry of Apathy grew out of a passion for harsh noise, rare sounds, and the power of empathy for outsiders. Using contact mics, power tools, effects pedals, feedback loops, and synth drones, MoA layers timbres and textures for spoken ruminations of a sociopolitical nature.

An American Liturgy is a communal exercise in despair, mourning, and empathy for what it means to be an American now, during the worst political division in recent memory. As with all liturgy, the audience becomes a participant through spoken word with call-and-response prompts that welcome the listener into harsh noise landscapes for sombre meditation.