Aki Onda “Spirits Known and Unknown” featuring Eyvind Kang

"Spirits Known and Unknown" is a performance featuring various kinds of brass bells. It examines the materiality and spirituality of these objects and explores the uncanny and unknown.

Bells are a mysterious instrument. It is said that they were born when primitive people banged on resonant surfaces to frighten away evil. They have been used to call spirits in different cultures. They appear in church towers, symbols of peace, but have also been melted down and turned into bullets.

Onda remarks "Playing bells can be eerie at times. I get the sensation that ringing them connects me to their former owners who may have rung them. The actions recall lost sounds and sense histories that would otherwise be erased. It's like collaborating with forces such as spirits and ancestors which transcends the sense of time and space experienced through multi-sensory channels."

For this special occasion, Onda invited LA-based composer and multi-instrumentalist Eyvind Kang as a co-performer.


Aki Onda is an artist, composer, and curator currently based in Mito, Japan, after living in New York for two decades. His works are often catalyzed by and structured around memories—personal, collective, historical—such as his widely-known project, Cassette Memories (2004–ongoing), drawn from three decades of field recordings. Crossing genres, he has been active internationally in art, film, music and performance. His artistic collaborators include Michael Snow, Ken Jacobs, Raha Raissnia, Paul Clipson, Loren Connors, Alan Licht, David Toop and Akio Suzuki. Onda has presented his work at The Kitchen, MoMA, MoMA P.S.1, New Museum, Blank Forms, ICA Philadelphia, REDCAT, Time-Based Art Festival, documenta 14, Louvre Museum, Pompidou Center, Palais de Tokyo, Fondation Cartier, Argos, Bozar, ICA London, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Nam June Paik Art Center and many others.

Eyvind Kang—a multi-instrumentalist, composer and arranger—works across genre and discipline, bringing subtlety, fluidity, and emotional intensity to each of his varied projects. Wary of the divisions of music by nation, Kang makes “people music” influenced by geology, collective memory and sonic possibility.

Everything in Air
Human Resources LA presents Everything in Air, a series of public programs over the course of a year—new commissions, exhibitions, performances, and forums, often in hybrid combinations—using key concepts within artist and composer Maryanne Amacher’s work as points of departure. The series was supported by a Mike Kelley Foundation Grant.

Doors open at 7pm, Performance begins 8pm sharp
Hello Everyone!

PLEASE NOTE: THERE WILL BE NO LATE SEATING PAST 8PM AS REQUESTED BY THE ARTIST.

Advanced appreciation for your collective cooperation.

photo credit: Aki Onda