September 16–December 13, 2015
Wesleyan University’s Center for the Arts
Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery, Main Gallery
Wesleyan University
283 Washington Terrace
Middletown, CT
Hours: Tuesday–Sunday noon–5pm
R. Luke DuBois: In Real Time, the first major gallery presentation by genre-defying composer, artist, and performer R. Luke DuBois, features maps, scores, and videos that use real-time data flows and media footage to raise questions of artistic agency, privacy, and fair use. The exhibition will be on view in the Main Gallery at Wesleyan University’s Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery, located at 283 Washington Terrace on the Wesleyan campus in Middletown, Connecticut, from Wednesday, September 16 through Sunday, December 13, 2015. Gallery admission is free. The exhibition is curated by Guest Curator Lauren Rosati.
The public is invited to attend the opening reception on Wednesday, September 16, 2015 from 5:30pm to 6:30pm in the Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery. An artist talk by Mr. Dubois will take place before the opening reception on Wednesday, September 16, 2015 at 4:30pm in CFA Hall, located at 287 Washington Terrace on the Wesleyan campus in Middletown. The opening reception and artist talk are both free.
Projects to be shown as part of the exhibition include Hard Data (2009); Acceptance (2012); A More Perfect Union (2010–11); Self-Portrait 1993-2014 (2014), a data visualization work on paper that pictures a force-directed graph of Mr. DuBois’ email since 1993; and Hindsight is Always 20/20 (2008), a series of prints that visualize presidential State of the Union addresses as taxonomic eye charts. These works will be shown alongside a new project that resamples video from thousands of political advertisements made available through the Wesleyan Media Project. Like the artwork it contains, the exhibition will be organized as a constant flow of visual information rather than as a number of discrete projects—as a database, if you will, of Mr. DuBois’ projects and concerns. Throughout the exhibition, public programs and workshops (see “Related events” below) will engage a larger community of artists, intellectuals, theorists, and makers both on the Wesleyan campus and beyond. A free PDF, downloadable from the Ezra and Cecile Zilkha gallery website later this fall, will feature an essay, source code for reproducing several of Mr. DuBois’ queries, and other information which will be updated throughout the course of the exhibition.
The exhibition is co-sponsored by Wesleyan University’s Department of Art and Art History, Department of Government, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Music Department, Digital and Computational Knowledge Initiative, Information Technology Services, the Office of Academic Affairs, and the Quantitative Analysis Center. artscope is a media sponsor of this exhibition.
The gallery will be closed from Wednesday, November 25 through Monday, November 30, 2015.
Related events:
In conversation with Reid Farrington
Thursday, November 12 at 5pm
CFA Hall, 287 Washington Terrace, Middletown, Connecticut
Free
New media artist, theater director, and designer Reid Farrington will be in conversation with R. Luke DuBois. Each of Mr. Farrington’s projects is an exploration of contemporary ways of storytelling, combining mediated elements, live figures, and voices to tell stories. His signature style is the visual blending of live performances with projected characters and images.
Hard Data Redux
Friday, November 20 at 8pm
Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery, 283 Washington Terrace, Middletown, Connecticut
Free
In collaboration with Wesleyan’s Music Department, R. Luke DuBois presents a generative composition for musicians that uses data sets and real-time information as the basis for its score, based on the same principles as his work Hard Data, which used data from American military actions in Iraq as the source material for a series of audiovisual compositions.
Todd Reynolds: Still Life with Microphone
Thursday, December 3 at 8pm
CFA Hall, 287 Washington Terrace, Middletown, Connecticut
Free
Violinist, composer, educator, and technologist Todd Reynolds will perform music written for him by R. Luke DuBois, Assistant Professor of Music Paula Matthusen, and Pulitzer Prize winner David Lang, augmented and amplified by the live, performance-responsive video art of Mr. DuBois. Mr. Reynolds has performed with Steve Reich, Meredith Monk, and Bang on a Can, among other artists.
