SESSION 5: NOT FOR SALE: NEW MEDIA AND SOUND

APRIL 21ST, 2005 6:30PM – 8PM. STEINHARDT SCHOOL OF ED. AUDITORIUM.

OPEN TO THE NYU COMMUNITY. Audience of 150 with standing room only.

Diverse group of students from Steinhardt School of Education, Gallatin, Tisch School of the Artists, NYU professors, scholars, artists and critics

Guest Artist Panelists:

Christoph Cox, Philosopher and Critic

Ron Kuivila, Artist and Composer

Elizabeth LeCompte, Theatre Director of the Wooster Group

Christian Marclay, Sound Artist

Respondent:

David Ross, President of Artist Pension Trust and Independent Curator

Moderator: RoseLee Goldberg, Associate Adjunct Professor, NYU and Founding Director, PERFORMA

April 21, 2005 6:30 - 8 PM. Reception to follow
Einstein Auditorium, New York University
34 Stuyvesant Street, NYC
Between 3rd and 2nd Avenue at 9th Street
Free

Themes:
Not for Sale: New Media and Sound discussed how artists today use new media and sound to inform their works. What kind of a role does integration of media and technology play in creating new forms of artistic production? How does innovation in technological tools impact the landscape of performance and visual arts history? A distinguished panel of artists, critics and curators discussed the history of new media as it relates to research, development and presentations of visual arts performance.

As the third installment in the PERFORMAS NOT FOR SALE series, NOT FOR SALE: New Media and Sound was an in-depth view into contemporary developments in performance. In conjunction with New York University’s Department of Art and Art Professions and Humanities Council, PERFORMA presented NOT FOR SALE: New Media and Sound as a dynamic continuation of the discussion on performance and its relationship to the museum, gallery, and collector, which has begun last April with Not for Sale: Conserving and Collecting Ephemeral Artwork in the 21st Century. Panelists Chrissie Iles, Robert Storr and Joan Jonas elaborated on the paradox of capturing radical and ephemeral ideas for historical record as well as a broader debate regarding how museums and galleries conserve this work. In November, Not For Sale: Artists View featured panelist Marina Abramovic, Tania Bruguera, Klaus Ottmann, and Debra Singer, who actively discussed the changing role of the modern museum as lively cultural center shaping artists ideas about performance.

ABOUT PERFORMA
PERFORMA is a non-profit interdisciplinary arts organization founded to commission and present new performance work in the visual arts. Drawing upon the rich history of performance in New York City, PERFORMA will provide a vibrant context to expand the possibilities and accessibility of live performance for artists and audiences. PERFORMA’s mission is based on the conviction that live art is a vital form that reflects political, artistic, and social issues of our times. PERFORMA is a sponsored project of the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA).

RoseLee Goldberg, Founding Director and Curator, is an art historian, critic and curator who pioneered the study of performance art with her seminal book Performance Art from Futurism to the Present. A former curator at the Kitchen in New York, Ms. Goldberg, Associate Adjunct Professor of Contemporary Art, has taught at New York University since 1987.

ABOUT PANELISTS

Christoph Cox
Through his ongoing engagement with contemporary music, the visual arts,
and philosophy, Christoph Cox has become a leading contributor to the development of a platform from which the relationship between sound and the visual arts can be assessed. Cox currently teaches philosophy and contemporary music at Hampshire College in Amherst, MA and frequently contributes to several magazines and journals, including Artforum, and The Wire.  Cox is an editor at Cabinet magazine and co-curator of Cabinet's sound art CD series. He is the author of Nietzsche: Naturalism and Interpretation. (University of California, 1999) and co-editor of the newly published Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music. (Continuum, 2004).

Christian Marclay
A New York-based visual artist and composer, Marclay’s work explores the juxtaposition between sound recording, photography, video and film. Born in California and raised in Geneva (Switzerland), he studied sculpture at the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston and at Cooper Union in New York. As performer and sound artist, Christian Marclay has been experimenting, composing and performing with phonograph records and turntables since 1979 to create his unique "theater of found sound." A dadaist DJ and filmmaker his installations and video / film collages display provocative musical and visual landscapes and have been included in exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art New York, Venice Biennale, Centre Pompidou Paris, Kunsthaus Zurich, and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Ron Kuivila
Ron Kuivila is an artist and composer who pioneered the use of ultrasound and sound sampling in live performance. More of his recent pieces have explored compositional algorithms, speech synthesis and high voltage phenomena. Kuivila has collaborated with composers, artists, and choreographers including Anthony Braxton, Rudy Burckhardt, Nikolas Collins, Merce Cunningham, Hugh Davies, Douglas Dunn, Susan Foster, and Larry Johnson. He has performed and exhibited installations throughout the U.S., Canada, and Europe. Kuivila is a Professor of Musicology at Wesleyan University and has curated Rock's Role (After Ryoanji) at Art in General in 2004, a group exhibition of sound works by artists responding to John Cage's musical transliterations of the famed Japanese Zen rock garden, Ryoanji.

Elizabeth LeCompte
As a founding member and acting theater director of the New York City performance company The Wooster Group, Elizabeth LeCompte has been identified as an important force in the development of the new theater for the 21st Century. Through her careful use of audio, video, dialogue, and set design, LeCompte has offered audiences deconstructed views of several popular plays.  For her work in directing, LeCompte has been the recipient of several prestigious awards, including the Performing Arts Journal’s MacArthur Award, the National Endowment for the Arts Distinguished Artists Fellowship for Lifetime Achievement, and the Village Voice’s OBIE Award for 15 years of sustained excellence.

David Ross
President of Artist Pension Trust, David A. Ross has more than 30 years experience as an art museum professional and has served as director of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. Noted for his work with emerging artists and new media, Mr. Ross has been involved in the organization and jurying process of major international exhibitions including the Venice Biennale, Documenta and The Carnegie International.