Wunderkabinet is an experimental multi-media opera developed by composer/performer Pamela Z in collaboration with cellist/composer Matthew Brubeck and artist Christina McPhee. Scored for voice & electronics, cello & electronics, & video, the piece is inspired by and based on the exhibits displayed at the Museum of Jurassic Technology in Los Angeles. Wunderkabinet (which premiered in September 2005 at The LAB Gallery in San Francisco) has also been presented at REDCAT, Walt Disney Hall, Los Angeles (October 2006) and at King Street Theatre in Kitchener, Ontario for Open Ears Festival (April 2007).

The boundary between reality and imagination is blurred as Wunderkabinet's central character "Alice May Williams" makes her strange and magical journey in search of the scientists of the Mount Wilson Observatory to whom she has been sending abundant correspondence. The music of Wunderkabinet is performed by Pamela Z (voice and live electronic processing) and Matthew Brubeck (cello & electronics). Christina McPhee's projected images evoke the dark radiance of the Museum of Jurassic Technology interiors- a cabinet of wonders. McPhee montaged video content from the museum's dioramas, with her own collected source material including period snapshots from antique store collections. The score (composed by Z and Brubeck) utilizes bowed and plucked strings, sampled found objects, and a wide range of vocal work ranging from operatic bel canto to experimental extended vocal techniques and spoken text. The libretto is derived from passages of actual descriptive texts from the Museum of Jurassic Technology's exhibitions and stories inspired by them.

about the video artist:

Christina McPhee (born Los Angeles, based in central coast California) shoots remote landscape footage at high – tech energy installations, and in ecosystems where biosphere meets human intervention in ‘kairotic’  spaces.  She has recently shown video and photomontage with Cinephemere FIAC 2010, Documenta 12 Magazine Project (2007),  Bucharest Biennial 3 (2008), Art Cologne OpenSpace (2009 and 2011) Her interactive cinema work is in the collections of the Whitney Museum (Artport),  Thresholds New Media Collection (Scotland); Rose Goldsen Archive at Cornell University (New York), and  Experimental Television Center (New York).  Solo museum exhibitions include American University Museum, Washington, DC and Bildmuseet, Umea, Sweden; solo screenings include Freies Museum Berlin (2011).