Exhibition
2015 Triennial: Surround Audience
02/25/15-05/24/15
Conversations · Exhibition-Related
Alexander Provan presents Reality Formatting
Cover Image:
Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Aural Contract Audio Archive, 2010–ongoing. Sound measurement. Courtesy the artist
At this performance, writer Alexander Provan will tell of a typical “expert listener” undergoing a test meant to refine the compression algorithms that underlie all digital media. He will place the audience within the sensorium of a middle-aged, white audiophile whose favorite band is King Crimson and whose memories of listening to ABBA while cruising Indiana highways cannot be vanquished, though his ears train on the audio file’s frequency response. He is tasked with determining what sound should sound like, but he cannot turn himself into a listening machine. In narrating the experience of the expert listener, Provan will describe how we produce and experience culture in the form of digital files, how imperfect technological processes mold our conduct.
This event is copresented by the Vera List Center for Art and Politics.
Alexander Provan is Editor of Triple Canopy, a contributing editor of Bidoun, and a fellow at the Vera List Center for Art and Politics. His writing on digital culture, aesthetics, literature, and politics has appeared in Frieze, Artforum, Bookforum, Art in America, The Nation, and in several exhibition catalogues. His essay on art and the quantitative worldview, “Reality Formatting,” appears in the Triennial catalogue.
Sponsors
Lead Support provided by the “Friends of the 2015 Generational Triennial”
Chair:
Hank Latner
Co-Chairs:
Shelley Fox Aarons, Lonti Ebers, Ken Kuchin, and Toby Devan Lewis
Friends of the Generational Triennial:
Andrea Rosen Gallery
Lisa and David Barse
Alexandra Bowes and Stephen Williamson
James Keith Brown and Eric Diefenbach
Lisa Fayne Cohen and James Cohen
Sandra and Leo DelZotto
Marisa and David Droga
The John David and Signy Eaton Foundation
Rebecca and Martin Eisenberg
Charlotte Feng Ford
Andrea Glimcher
Tina Kim and Jae Chung
Ahmet Kocabıyık
Mihail Lari and Scott Murray
Marsy Mittlemann
Catriona and Simon Mordant
Mario Palumbo and Stefan Gargiulo
Regen Projects
Lisa Roumell and Mark Rosenthal
Sprüth Magers
Jerome L. and Ellen Stern
Courtney Finch Taylor
Laurie and David Wolfert
“Surround Audience” is made possible by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Foundation.
Artist commissions are generously supported by the Neeson / Edlis Artist Commissions Fund.
Additional support is provided by Fundación Almine y Bernard Ruiz-Picasso para el Arte, the International Leadership Council of the New Museum, and Carol and Arthur Goldberg. The accompanying publications were made possible, in part, by the Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation and the J. McSweeney and G. Mills Publications Fund at the New Museum. Education and community programs are supported, in part, by the American Chai Trust.
Generous support for artist residencies is provided by the Ford Foundation, the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, Laurie Wolfert, and an anonymous donor.
Support for artist projects, travel, and research is provided by: Acción Cultural Española (AC/E), Aeroméxico, Artis, Asian Cultural Council, Czech Center New York, Iaspis – the Swedish Arts Grants Committee’s International Programme for Visual Artists, Institut Français, Mexican Cultural Institute of New York, Ministry of Foreign Affairs / Mexican Agency for International Development Cooperation (SRE/AMEXCID), Office for Contemporary Art Norway: OCA, Ostrovsky Family Foundation, Royal Norwegian Consulate General of New York, SAHA Association, Lisa Schiff, and VIA Art.
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