The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) presents OJO’s Flesh Car Crash (An Engagement Party Event) :: July 2, 2009; 7:00 – 10:00 pm :: MOCA Grand Avenue, 250 South Grand Avenue, Los Angeles, CA.

For Flesh Car Crash — a public intervention — members of OJO will split into two groups, each of which will pack into a small car. Once there, they will make music both by utilizing objects and materials in the cars’ interiors and by playing instruments powered by the cars’ batteries. Audience members will be invited to assist with the composition. The cars will dance, glide, and narrowly miss each other in a choreographed game of chicken. The finale should be explosive! The audience is encouraged to bring cameras and other documentary devices to share their impressions on the OJO Engagement Party site.

OJO: Founded in 2005 by visual artists Joshua Aster, Justin Cole, Eamon Ore-Giron, Chris Avitabile, Moises Medina, and Brenna Youngblood, OJO is formed around a mutual interest in experimenting with acoustic guitars, electronics, musical spontaneity, freeform improvisation, and the boundaries between audience and performer. The group uses a wide range of instruments — drum machines, basses, guitars, synthesizers, salt, cars — as well as their own bodies and those of their audience, clapping, chanting, stomping, and singing to generate sprawling improvisations. OJO has created projects for Queen’s Nails Annex in San Francisco, Esthetics as a Second Language (available as a CD produced by James Welling), LAXART (available as an LP), BANK, Lizabeth Oliveria Gallery, and A+D Museum in Los Angeles. The group has also performed at the Hammer Museum, TRUDI, and Track 16, Los Angeles, and on KXLU 88.9FM.

MOCA’s Engagement Party presents new artworks in the form of dynamic social events and performances by LA–based artist collectives. Engagement Party is made possible by a grant from The James Irvine Foundation.