Paul Catanese: Century of Progress / Sleep

Colgate University’s Department of Art and Art History and the Ho Tung Visualization Laboratory present Century of Progress / Sleep conceived and performed by Paul Catanese, Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Foundation Artist-in-Residence, with Gemma Godfrey, Julie Licata, Evan Runyon, and Matt Sargent. Performances on April 4, 5 and 6 at 7pm with matinees April 5 and 6 at 2pm in the Ho Tung Visualization Lab, in the Ho Science Center, Colgate University. Free and open to the public. Limited seating, reservations required, please reserve here.

Century of Progress / Sleep is a cross-disciplinary opera that reflects on the intellectual, environmental, spiritual, and cultural consequences of mischaracterizations of science. This work imagines that inanimate objects, hyperobjects, and hypothetical entities, having recently acquired consciousness, immediately reject rational systems for conceptualizing ‘the nature of things’ and instead adopt an intellectual posture of epistemological chaos emerging from mutative half-truths and lawless theories of knowledge. In this work, electronically processed vocals navigate a terrain of texts resulting in a hypnotic, mirage-like soundscape. 

Hybrid media artist Paul Catanese blurs the lines between the visual, performing, and media arts in a diverse range of works that include installation, performance, video, sound, projection, and print media. His artworks have been exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Chicago Cultural Center, New Museum of Contemporary Art, SFMOMA Artist’s Gallery, La Villette, China Academy of Art, Frankston Art Center, Bangkok Experimental Film Festival, Stuttgart Filmwinter, Festival Internacional de Linguagem Electrônica, New Forms Festival, Ann Arbor Film Festival, and the International Symposium on Electronic Art. He has received commissions from Rhizome and Turbulence, grants from the Illinois Arts Council and New York Foundation for the Arts, and a 2014 Efroymson Contemporary Arts Fellowship. 

Catanese has participated in residencies at Signal Culture, PLAYA, Goldwell Museum, Central School Project, and Kala Art Institute; his artwork can be found in collections including the Robert and Elaine Stein Galleries at Wright State University, the Center for Art + Environment Archives at the Nevada Museum of Art, and the Whitney Museum. He earned his MFA in Art and Technology Studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and BA in Theater at SUNY Geneseo. Catanese is Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Study for Art and Art History at Columbia College Chicago.

About the Performers
Gemma Godfrey is an interdisciplinary conceptual artist working in sound, sculpture, installation, and performance. Currently living in Los Angeles, she graduated from Bard College with a major in electronic music and a concentration in classical studies in 2018. Godfrey performs and releases solo material as AGNES or with her duo project, HUMORS.

Julie Licata has performed at new music venues across the U.S. for over 20 years. With a focus on commissioning and premiering works by rising composers, her performances include improvisational soundscapes to solo marimba, to works with live computer processing. She also performs with numerous regional orchestras, and a newly formed duo with flautist Ana Laura González. Licata is Associate Professor of Percussion at SUNY Oneonta.

Evan Runyon is an American bassist. He is founder-director of the antiphonal rock band Real Loud and a regular performer with groups such as Klangforum Wien and The Knights and International Contemporary Ensemble. He has performed/recorded with Wye Oak and Emily Wells, and collaborated with Rebecca Saunders, Louis Andriessen and George Lewis.

Matt Sargent is a composer, guitarist, and audio engineer from the Catskill Mountains of New York. His music has been described as “using bare resources to establish a bounded and essential space” (Wire Magazine) and “a powerfully organic experience.” (Sequenza21) He is a visiting professor of music at Bard College.

Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Foundation
This residency is supported by Colgate’s Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Foundation Artist-in-Residence Fund, which was established in 1986 as a challenge grant in support of the arts at Colgate. The residency program permits one or more artists or scholars in the areas of fine arts, music, and theater to become part of the Colgate community each academic year.

Colgate University
Founded in 1819, Colgate University is a highly selective, residential, liberal arts college enrolling about 2,900 undergraduates. Situated on a rolling 575-acre campus in central New York State, Colgate attracts motivated students from around the world with diverse backgrounds, interests, and talents.