The Director of the Arts Administration program at Boston University and of the Museum of Contemporary Cuts, Lanfranco Aceti is proud to announce, Sound Politics,to be performed at the Boston Athenaeum, September 30, 2016, from 12:00 pm to 1:00 pm. Sound Politics is a curated project that includes two performances, Duty and Untitled for Cyborg String Quartet, by Australian artist Michaela Davies.
These pieces explore the application of electric muscle stimulation (EMS) to musical composition and performance. MIDI compositions created by the artist are used to trigger custom-built EMS devices that send electrical impulses to performers’ muscles. These impulses generate specific involuntary movements, causing the performers to ‘play’ their instruments.
The performances explore the complexities of contemporary living in an ‘electrified’ and ‘engineered’ age where the will of the people appears to be determined by involuntary reactions to electronically mediated stimuli.
“In an evermore engineered world,” explains curator Lanfranco Aceti, “questions abound regarding the role of the individual in the structure of contemporary society. The hyper-designed, hyper-controlled and hyper-surveyed structures of governments and corporations alike appear to have engineered systems of oppressions in which a simple task can become a Kafkian nightmare. Trapped in these nets of electric and wireless connections, individuals are loosing the ability to shape and design the public and private spaces within which they live. Michaela Davies’ performances focus on the struggle of the body, the poetics of resistance and the social politics of power and powerlessness. This area of aesthetic investigation obliges the viewer to see, manifested in the physical forms of EMS cables and patches, the myriads of external controls affecting our behaviors daily. The world offered by Davies in front of our eyes is one of a poetical dystopia where the sound compositions reflect the socio-political struggles of the body. It is the hidden power (electric, psychological, behavioral, social), transforming the individual into an homologated entity, that the artist displays through an aesthetic of the quotidian and the virtuosity of sound. It is for this reason that Sound Politics – an exhibition of the two performances Duty and Untitled for Cyborg String Quartet – has become the title of this event at the Boston Athenaeum in Boston, with the intention of celebrating and analyzing the historical fighting of individuals against superimposed controls in the quest for freedom.”
Special for ArtWeek Boston, artist Michaela Davies will give a Master Lecture about her work following the performances.
This event is sponsored by the Museum of Contemporary Cuts and the Australian Council for the Arts with the gracious support of the Boston Athenaeum, 10 1/2 Beacon Street, Boston, MA 02108 United States, + Google Map. The Master Lecture by Michaela Davies, part of THE SOCIAL conference, is supported by the Boston University Center for the Humanities.
Sound Politics, 2016 @ Boston Athenaeum