2019 Sound Art Thesis Catalog

Published on the occasion of the 2019 Columbia University

School of the Arts Sound Art MFA Thesis Exhibition

The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery

Lenfest Center for the Arts

April 28–May 26, 2019

© 2019 The artists and Columbia University

Columbia University

310 Dodge Hall, MC 1806

2960 Broadway

New York, NY 10027 arts.columbia.edu/sound-art

Design: L+L (landl.us)

Typefaces: Raisonné Sailec

Printing: JS McCarthy

I LOVE MY IGNORANCE OF THE FUTURE

THE 2019 COLUMBIA MFA THESIS EXHIBITION

“Will you allow as a certainty that we are at a turning point?

— If it is a certainty it is not a turning.

In Maurice Blanchot’s “The Infinite Conversation” a chapter called On a Change of Epoch: The Exigency of Return asserts that one can never know when one is in the middle of a turning point. In the same chapter, Blanchot reminds us that Nietzche later revised his own statement ‘I love my ignorance of the future’ to ‘I love the uncertainty of the future’, in a way allowing for a more palatable version of the first statement. Either way, the idea is that the only thing we truly know, is that we don’t know. Of the significance of the statement, Blanchot relates, “do not be impatient to the point of anticipating by a too resolute seeking what is in store for you. Do not simplify. But there is this uncertainty; the ignorance borne by the hazardous traits of the future. 2 {…}

It is safe to say that uncertainty of the future looms especially large throughout the 2nd year of Columbia’s MFA program (or any graduate program for that matter) be it for the preparation of the thesis exhibition itself, or for the coming aftermath of the MFA program — or a nice cocktail of both! It is a particularly trying time when a certainty of many details must be secured amidst feelings of great uncertainty. Fortunately for art students, ‘the unknown’ should by now be a dear old acquaintance, returning as they do each time to blank pages and canvases, empty screens, and unformed material. The studio becomes a place to gamble with the unknown. It is a brave act that often goes underappreciated.

Learning to love the unknown echoes Rebecca Solnit’s rumination on the ‘unforeseen’ in her book, Getting Lost :

“How do you calculate upon the unforeseen? It seems to be an art of recognizing the role of the unforeseen, of keeping your balance amid surprises, of collaborating with chance, of recognizing that there are some essential mysteries in the world and thereby a limit to calculation, to plan, to control.

To calculate on the unforeseen is perhaps exactly the paradoxical operation that life most requires of us.” 3

A relentless anxiety over the collapse of things supposedly ‘known’ met with the unknown future of global politics, environmental crisis, economic instability, infuses the minutiae of our daily lives. Learning to live with the unknown, or even relish in it, may be but one way out. During the course of my visits where I witnessed great dedication, resiliency, and true catharsis, I conclude that there is a lot to learn from the position of a graduate student. As these artists embark on the beginning of their ‘un ­ programmed’ life, I hope that they will make a con scious effort to continually and purposefully ‘get lost’ in the value of not­ knowing, and that they will feel a sense of pride in meeting the unforeseen head on. In her book, Solnit also reminds us of Edgar Allan Poe’s edict: “in matters of philosophical discovery… it is the unforeseen upon which we must calculate most largely”. 4 In this estimation, the post­ thesis gamble for all students becomes, ‘how does one get lost better?’

It has been an honor for me to witness how each of the artists has been practicing this work with their thesis projects, during the many studios visits this position allows for.

This marks the third iteration of thesis shows I have curated for the Columbia MFA department — the first in 2009 and the second in 2016 (Obama’s first year in office and then the year Trump came into office). In retrospect, it no doubt feels like those were the ‘turning point’ years, though one can argue, as Blanchot did, that the turning points are continually happening. Nevertheless, the 2019 graduating class has their own set of turns and potential trajectories that I look forward to looking back upon in ten years time as well. Their thoughtful, hard work on the thesis will carry them through longer than they can know at this time.

Take note: As many of these projects may likely continue to form beyond the date of this thesis exhibition, only to be fleshed out further and more elaborately, in various iterations and in specific locales…. or they may suddenly change course entirely.

Herein lies the thrill of the unforeseen.

Regine Basha March 15, 2019

KAMARI CARTER

Kamari Carter (b. 1992; lives and works in NYC) is a Performer, Producer, Sound Designer, and Sound Artist that is probative of perception and the concept of conversation. Carter uses a variety of recording and amplification techniques to circumvent investigative conversations involving motifs such as space, systems of identify, familiarity, control, and surveillance. Building on the idea of storytelling Carter's interest in conceptualization and the notion of the "ethereal" tends to permeate through his work. As a musician Carter strives to assist audiences in the accompaniment of a narrative arc through sonic forms, and as an artist Carter hopes to vivify conversations through sound sculptures and non-cochlear phenomenology.

Carter’s work has exhibited at such venues as Automata Arts, MoMA, Fridman Gallery, Lincoln Center, and Issue Project Room just to name a few. Carter holds a BFA in Music Technology from California Institute of the Arts and an MFA in Sound Art from Columbia University.

I enjoy erecting work(s) with an opaque approach to issues typically seen as overt; with the goal to uproot conversations on topics that are sometimes difficult to discuss. Subjects such as perception, surveillance, structure, participation, and voyeurism are all common motifs in my body of work. Often my work interrogates and investigates who is listening, why they are listening, and what exactly are they listening to? I aim to spark dialogue in critical thought;

and perhaps, tell a familiar story with a medium much less familiar.

The Conet Project, 1997 Sound, shortwave radio transmissions

For more than 45 years the Shortwave radio spectrum has been used by the worlds intelligence agencies to transmit secret messages. These messages are transmitted by hundreds of “Numbers Stations.”

Shortwave Numbers Stations are a perfect method of anonymous, one way communication. Spies located anywhere in the world can be communicated to by their masters via small, locally available, and unmodified Shortwave receivers. The encryption system used by Numbers Stations, known as a “one time pad” is unbreakable. Combine this with the fact that it is almost impossible to track down the message recipients once they are inserted into the enemy country, it becomes clear just how powerful the Numbers Station system is.

These stations use very rigid schedules, and transmit in many different languages, employing male and female voices repeating strings of numbers or phonetic letters day and night, all year round.

ABOVE

A Fearful Trill, 2019

Birdcage, sound, headphones, cloth, electronics

10" x 15"

OPPOSITE

Rear Sight, 2018

Multiple megaphones (4), wood, paint, Velcro adhesive, sound: listening in and broadcasting in real ­ time Police/EMS

(Emergency Medical Services) Transit

Audio

NEXT SPREAD

Pressure, 2017

Sound, Quadraphonic speakers, 6 ­ channel video

Photo courtesy of artist

Photo by Joel Jares

Photo by Joel Jares

LEE GILBOA

Born in Tel Aviv, Israel, Lee Gilboa has found her love for composition and Jazz music at a young age.

While at Berklee College of Music where she was mentored by Neil Leonard, Dr. Richard Boulanger and Dr. Jeff Baust, Gilboa got to perform and collaborate with a wide variety of musicians, artists and technologists such as Dr. Rui Penha, Robert Rich, Amnon Wolman and Terence Blanchard among others. At only 25 years old, Lee's work has already been presented in venues such as Berklee Performance Center, Fridman Gallery, Qubit Gallery, The Cube at Virginia Tech and Resonance FM Radio to name a few.

Currently, Lee is living in Brooklyn, NY and attends Columbia University’s MFA Sound Art program and is co-curating CT::SWaM's ExChange series at Fridman Gallery with Daniel Neumann.

In the fall of 2019 she will join Brown University’s Music and Multimedia Composition PhD program.

Lee's debut release will be available on Contour Editions this summer.

My work is a hybrid of many things; composition, production, engineering, storytelling, audio spatialization, sonicsculpturing, and more.

The core of my work and practice is listening. It starts with my listening to my thoughts to find a subject, listening to my recordees to find

what they have to say, listening to the recordings to find materials, listening to the materials to hear the way they want to work together through time and let the piece guide me towards what it wants to be. Attending to each word, giving it all the care I have in me, listening to the details and how they go in space, then listening to when its time to finish. At this point, I turn the role of listening to you. The piece goes out of my hands and into your ears.

I love sound in the deepest way. I love the contrast between its ephemerality and its undeniable presence. My work uses words, but I am guided by a belief that it is only when we listen beyond the words that we can understand what they are telling us..

The inaudible is a possible impossible thing of sound, not because it does not sound, but because we do not hear it yet…

—Salome Voegelin

ABOVE Woman, 2018

10 ­ channel audio

OPPOSITE

Dyslexia, 2017

4 ­ channel audio

NEXT SPREAD

sinbeLa, 2019

5 ­ channel audio

Photo by Seth Cluett

Photo by Lee Gilboa

Photo by Joel Jares

MENGTAI ZHANG

Mengtai Zhang was born in Shijiazhuang, China, and currently lives in New York. He is an MFA Sound Art candidate at Columbia University and holds a BA in Fine Art at Goldsmiths, University of London, and an MFA in Fine Arts at School of Visual Arts. Mengtai's works has been presented internationally, including Times Art Museum (Beijing, China), NYFW-Hot Now China at Pier59 studio, Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture (Shenzhen, China), New Interfaces for Musical Expression (Virginia Tech, US), International Computer Music Conference (Daegu, Korea), Sound and Music Computing (Aalto University, Finland), SNAP (Shanghai, China), Handshake 302 (Shenzhen, China), MOCA SJZ (Shijiazhuang, China), Space Heater Gallery, Issue Project Room, ChaShaMa, Humble Arts Foundation, Mise_en_PLACE, and Fridman Gallery in New York.

Through observations and reconstructions, I work with ordinary objects and events to question its reality and familiarity. I am interested in digital technology, such as computer­ generated imagery and audio signal processing, with which my works quantized and mechanized the reality with a certain narrative. They employ multilayered structures, incorporating allegories to create sociopolitical contexts, and encourage the audience to question what is noticed and unnoticed by them.

Short and metaphoric, allegories contain a multiplicity of meanings—propaganda,

pedagogy, and caricature within one simple form. Some people say they no longer need allegories, because what is the point of beating around the bush under freedom of speech? Still, is "freedom of speech" equivalent to "speaking the truth"? Whose truth, spoken by whom, to whom, through what means? What kind of interplay of power dynamics, identities, memories and awareness is behind such discourse? Working in the interdisciplinary approach, I look carefully into those questions as something irresolvable in contemporary society.

My thesis work Luna takes on the historical context of Internet addiction in China and narrates a fictional story of a man addicted to the Internet and trapped in Internet Addiction Center. Soon after, he discovers that the director of Internet Addiction Center also runs the internet cafe across the street, and he realizes himself as a victim of the collusion between different ideologies. This work combines personal experiences with found writings, video, and sound, reconstructing memories of the past as a way to speculate modern life in the so ­ called Internet age.

ABOVE Light Music, 1975

Lis Rhodes Film, 16mm, 2 projections, black and white, sound (stereo), and smoke machine NEXT SPREAD

>19980, 2018

2­ channel video projection with stereo sound

3’30”

The Visual by Mengtai Zhang, sound by Lemon Guo.

Luna, 2019

2­ channel video projection with 4 ­ channel sound 10’45”

Sound in collaboration with Lemon Guo.

Luna, 2019

2­ channel video projection with 4 ­ channel sound

10’45”

Sound in collaboration with Lemon Guo.

MESSAGE FROM THE DEAN

There is no greater pleasure for me as Dean than attending the thesis events for the four programs that comprise the School of the Arts — Visual Arts, Writing, Theatre, and Film.

The School of the Arts offers our stu dents the depth and breadth of Columbia University’s intellectual traditions, as well as access to New York City’s multifarious cultural events. We invite you to join us for a theatre production, film screening, poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, theatrical reading, or a visual arts exhibition such as this — a spectacular showcase for our graduating MFA students working in all forms of visual production.

The Thesis exhibition in Visual Arts is the culmination of two years of hard work. It is the moment at which the students (soon to be alumni) choose how to repre sent their creative time at the School of the Arts. Twenty ­ nine artists will graduate this month. Their work will be varied, unexpected, at times profound, and full of exuberance. Friends, family, and the art world at large will turn out in multitudes for the opening and for the run of the exhi bition to see what the next generation of artists is work ing on today. This is the first time the School of the Arts will be able to exhibit work in its new building, the Lenfest Center for the Arts. It will be an historic event. We hope you, too, will visit the show as well as attend the varied events that will take place at this site in celebration. I know you will find access to this new work exhilarating.

Carol Becker Dean of Faculty Columbia University School of the Arts

MESSAGE FROM THE DIRECTOR OF SOUND ART

On behalf of the faculty of the Sound Art Program I welcome you to the 2019 MFA Thesis Exhibition.

Our thanks and gratitude go to the many people who have contributed to the lifeblood and vitality of the Sound Art program, including Carol Becker, Jana

Wright, Matthew Buckingham, Leeza

Meksin, Brad Garton, Seth Cluett, Ana Maria Ochoa, Iliya Fridman, Christina Rumpf, Julie Dobrow, Rich Dikeman, Julia Burgdorff, Dave Selzer, Carrie Gundersdorf, Laila

Maher, Sarah Congress, Keiko Reid, Andrew Hass, Gavin Browning, Kenny Wong, Jace

Clayton, Daniel Neumann, Jon Kessler, Shelly Silver, Peter Clough, Susan Boynton, Georg Haas, George Lewis, Zosha Di Castri, Nick Patterson, Gabrilela Kumar, Suzanne

McClelland, Danielle Dobkin, Rider Urena, Scott Koen, Joel Jares, Ben Holtzman, John Paisley, Kristina Tate, Patrice Washington, Bonnie Bonkowski, Erica Lockhart, Johanna

Lopez, Linda Pifer, Patricia Culligan, Christopher McGarry, Claire Valdez, and very special thanks to Regine Basha.

Miya Masaoka Director of Sound Art Columbia University School of the Arts

ABOUT THE SCHOOL OF THE ARTS

Columbia University School of the Arts awards the Master of Fine Arts degree in Film, Theatre, Visual Arts, and Writing and the Master of Arts degree in Film and Media Studies; it also offers an interdisciplinary program in Sound Art. The School is a thriving, diverse community of talented, visionary, and committed artists from around the world and a faculty comprised of acclaimed and internationally renowned artists, film and theatre directors, writers of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, play wrights, producers, critics, and scholars. In 2015, the School marked the 50th Anniversary of its founding. In 2017, the School opened the Lenfest Center for the Arts, a multi ­ arts venue designed as a hub for the presentation and creation of art across disciplines on the University’s new Manhattanville campus. The Lenfest hosts exhibitions, performances, screenings, symposia, readings, and lectures that present new, global voices and per spectives, as well as an exciting, publicly accessible home for Columbia’s Miriamand Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery.

ABOUT THE SOUND ART PROGRAM

Columbia University has been at the helm of sound innovation for over fifty years with faculty specializing in composition, improvisation, music theory, musicology, installation, sculpture, instrument building, acoustics, music cognition, and software development. Faculty from the Computer Music Center, along with colleagues from Music Composition, Visual Arts, Sound Studies, Ethnomusicology, Engineering, Computer and Data Science are all involved in the interdisciplinary area of Sound Art. The two ­ year program is highly selective, offering admission to only three or four students each year. Students with a deep engagement with sound as a medium join a diverse community of artists and musicians.

The Sound Art program is a studio ­ based degree offered by the Visual Arts Program in conjunction with the Computer Music Center. The program provides the opportunity to explore sound in the context of video, installation, and perfor­ mance, as well as computer programming, historical archival research, and con ­ ceptual strategies for the production of creative work. Candidates are encouraged to consider diverse modalities for listening and hearing while developing fluency

in the creation and manipulation of sound in the context of environmental, social, and gallery ­ centered work..

Visit arts.columbia.edu/sound ­ art.

ABOUT THE CURATOR

Regine Basha is a curator, audio producer and writer. Since the late 1990s Basha has curated for contemporary art institutions as well as independently producing projects for private and public spaces nationally and internationally. Her exhibitions, public projects, and writing is mostly chronicled on bashaprojects.com. She is also the producer of her family audio ­ archive, Tuning Baghdad for Clocktower Radio. Basha’s inventive approach often has her working closely with artists to consider the very specific context and format for the development of new work. This may take the form of narrative dinner projects with Michael Rakowitz (Dar Al Suhl), commissioned sound installations in public spaces throughout Marfa (The Marfa Sessions/Ballroom Marfa), or a large ­ scale group exhibition in a heritage building in the Bronx (When you cut into the present, the future leaks out / No Longer Empty). In the past decade, she has developed exhibitions and writing on artists such as Daniel Neumann, Nina Katchadourian, Paul Pfeiffer, Basim Magdy, Hope Ginsburg, Dario Robleto, Stephen Vitiello and Daniel Bozhkov among others. For the past two years, she has been Director of the Pioneer Works Residency, most recently she joined the Civitella Ranieri Foundation as Senior Program Officer. Basha sits on the Executive Board of Art Matters and is graduate of Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College.

THE MIRIAM AND IRA D. WALLACH ART GALLERY

The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery advances Columbia University’s historical, critical, and creative engagement with the visual arts. Serving as both a laboratory and a forum, The Wallach Art Gallery offers opportunities for curatorial practice and discourse, while bridging the diverse appro aches to the arts at the University with a welcome broader public. We present projects that: are organized by graduate students and faculty in Art History & Archaeology or by other Columbia scholars; focus on the contemporary artists of our campus and communities; or offer new scholarship on University special collections. Established in 1986, The Wallach Art Gallery is the University's premier visual arts space. The gallery has presented critically acc laimed exhibitions, and is a platform for a dynamic range of programming and publications that make lasting contributions to new scholarship. The Wallach Art Gallery also animates other university spaces as opportunity arises. Always free and open to the public, the Wallach Art Gallery operates in close relationship to the Depart ment of Art History and Archaeology, School of the Arts, and the University Libraries (particularly Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library), which hold Columbia University’s collections.

SOUND ART FACULTY

Miya Masaoka, Director Seth

Cluett, Assistant Director

Mentors

Jace Clayton, Sara Magenheimer, Matthew Ostrowski, Liz Phillips, Julianne Swartz, C. Spencer Yeh

Graduate Adjunct Faculty

Regine Basha, Mario Diaz de León, Ben Holtzman, David Sulzer

Affiliated Faculty

David Adamcyk, Zosha Di Castri, Brad Garton

Recent Visiting Artists, Curators, and Theorists

Carver Audain, Kabir Carter, Raven Chacon, Maria Chavez, Christoph Cox, Luke DuBois, Diego Espinosa, Ellen Fullman, Richard Garet, Jules Gimbrone, Bjorn Gottsteim, Georg Haas, Nicolas Hein, James Hoff, Jennie C. Jones, Caleb Kelly, Peter Kiefer, Volkmar Klien, Gene Kogan, Katherine Liberovskya, Annea Lockwood, Barbara

London, Cecilia López, Eva and Franco

Mattes, Suzanne McClelland, Phill Niblock, Camille Norment, Margot Norton, Mendi & Keith Obadike, Pauline Oliveros, Mimi

Onuoha, Ed Osborn, Gascia Ouzonian, Andrea Parkins, Allison Parrish, Liz Phillips, Aura Satz, Carsten Seiffarth, Elliott Sharp, DJ Spooky, Daniel Temkin, Fernanda Viégas and Martin Wattenberg, Steven Vitiello, Byron Westbrook, Pamela Z

VISUAL ARTS STAFF

Andrew Brehm, Interim Safety Manager

Nathan Catlin, Master Printer and Studio Manager of the Leroy Neiman Center for Print Studies

Peter Clough, Assistant Director, Visual Arts

Instructional Technology

Carrie Gundersdorf, Director of Academic Administration

Carolyn Hulbert, Assistant Studio Manager of the Leroy Neiman Center for Print Studies

Kai McBride, Photography Facilities Manager

Laura Mosquera, Manager of Academic Administration

Marie Tennyson, Associate Director and Gallery Manager of the Leroy Neiman Center for Print Studies

Rider Urena, Senior Manager of Visual Arts

Facilities & Prentis Hall

Claire Valdez, Program Assistant

Patrice Washington, Manager of Prentis Hall

Facilities