Figures in Air | Micah Silver, Justin Luke, Eugenia Bell, Adam Michaels | An Artist Dialogue Series Event

Event Details

FREE - South Court Auditorium doors open at 5:30 p.m.

Justin Luke moderates a discussion with Micah Silver, Eugenia Bell and Adam Michaels about Silver's diverse practice of time-based installations, texts, diagrams, audios, and theoretical activities. The discussion coincides with the upcoming release of Figures in Air by Inventory Press and emphasizes ideas unfolded in the text, particularly those around audio's trans-substance and it's import for establishing a constructive, analytic framework for the diverse category of works being called sound art

Emerging sound artist and theorist Micah Silver proposes a philosophy of audio that locates it as an ephemeral social architecture made of air. Distinct from the physical history of sound recording and the cultural history of music, audio is theorized as an airborne imaginary capable of dramatic impact on human behavior and social space. Silver’s research ranges from Yves Klein’s Air Architecture, La Monte Young’s Dream House, Meillassoux's archefossil, and culminates in a discussion of historically significant audio systems and their social basis, physical and experiential impacts up until the Walkman (e.g., the Grateful Dead’s Wall of Sound, Richard Long's co-invention of disco, GRM's Acousmonium).

Figures in Air new coverMicah Silver’s work has been produced by Palais de Tokyo (Paris), Mass MoCA, OK Centrum (Austria) the Jersey City Museum, Issue Project Room (NYC), Artspace New Haven, the Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art, The James Joyce Centre (Dublin), Museum of Sex (NYC), The Place (St. Petersburg), and the MATA Festival (NYC), ArteEast, among others in the USA and abroad. Since 2003 Silver has also been active as a co-conspirator in the work of other artists. He was Director of the Earle Brown Music Foundation (Brown’s archive) from 2002-2006, Associate Curator at Diapason Gallery (NYC) from 2003-2006, and from 2006 to the end of 2011 was the founding Curator for music and sound at the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC). In 2009 he co-initiated the Maryanne Amacher Archive and in addition to facilitating the establishment of a long-term home for the materials has been facilitating exhibitions and performance research surrounding the artifacts of her practice. SUPREME CONNECTIONS, a collective of recent Amacher collaborators continue the research continuum of initiated during life, constructing a mobile, living archive concept of how contingent performance and sound practices can be distributed. This collective has worked with DAAD in Berlin, TATE Modern in London, and the Sao Paulo Biennial. Silver holds a degree in Music Composition from Wesleyan University and a Master of Science in Architecture (Art, Culture, and Technology) from MIT.

Justin Luke is the owner of Audio Visual Arts (AVA). Founded in 2008 and based in New York City, the gallery exhibits emerging and established artists and musicians. While AVA presents a range of work, the core interest is in a more adventurous and conceptual approach to sound. AVA also produces artists editions, participates in international exhibitions and art fairs, and hosts the monthly audio series Exterior Sounds.

Micah Sliver Diagram
Diagram, 2015. © Micah Silver 

Eugenia Bell is the executive editor of Design Observer and the former design editor of frieze magazine. Also a longtime book editor, she has worked on publications for the Richard Avedon Foundation, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Walker Art Center, the New-York Historical Society, and the Whitechapel Gallery, among others. Her writing has appeared in frieze, Artforum, Bookforum, and New York Magazine

Designer Adam Michaels is founder of Inventory Press publishing books on art, architecture, design and music with an emphasis on subculture, minor histories and the sociopolitical aspects of material culture. He is also the co-founder of Project Projects a design studio focusing on print, identity, exhibition and interactive work.

Initiated and organized by Arezoo Moseni in 2004, Artist Dialogues Series provide an open forum for understanding and appreciation of contemporary art. Artists are paired with critics, curators, gallerists, writers or other artists to converse about art and the potential of exploring new ideas.

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