Event overview
This talk explores Julian Day ideas about sound’s radical potential to articulate spatial politics through acts of civic commoning.
Julian Day’s work centers on sound’s radical potential to articulate spatial politics through acts of civic commoning. This is evident in the performance project Super Critical Mass in which temporary cohorts devise interdependent sonic actions in libraries, parklands, and streets.
The ensemble becomes a laboratory for somatic interaction, merging Davina Cooper’s concept of ‘everyday utopias’ with Stavros Stavrides’ research into urban commons in which the city acts as a vibrant matrix for collectivity.
Additionally, Day has created sculptures in which fetishized instruments such as vintage synthesizers stage relational problematics; a series of LED scores; and installations in which subsonic sound distorts taut membranes such as mirrored acrylic and silk. In this presentation Day will discuss several recent works including two day-long performances: The Weight of Air for solo performer, pipe organs, weights, and empty town hall, and 24-Hour Choir in which a citizen’s chorus sustained the voice across an entire day in a wooden bandshell overlooking Sydney Harbour.
Day will also outline a recent project investigating an underexamined history of Prussian diaspora and colonization in rural Australia for which Day built abstract organs and filmed choirs including the Ntaria Ladies’ Choir that sings Lutheran hymns in the Western Arrendte language.
Julian Day is an Australian artist, composer and writer based in New York. They have presented work at Tate Modern, Whitechapel Gallery, Spitalfields Music Festival, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, MASS MoCA, Bang On A Can, MATA, Lenfest Center for the Arts, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, and Queensland Art Gallery of Modern Art.
Day has given papers at Harvard University, New York University, and University of California, Los Angeles, and published in a range of academic and arts publications including Tempo, Leonardo Music Journal, and Art Almanac Australia. Day has also worked extensively in broadcasting, creating many radio programs for ABC and BBC for which they have interviewed such leading artists working with sound as Vito Acconci, Janet Cardiff, Ryoji Ikeda, Pauline Oliveros, Christian Wolff and Laurie Anderson. Day is completing graduate studies in sound art at the historic Computer Music Center at Columbia University.
Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 20 May 2021 | 6:00pm - 7:30pm |
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