DJ Spooky
Encyclopedia
Paul D. Miller known by his stage name
DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid, is a Washington DC-born electronic and experimental hip hop
musician whose work is often called by critics or his fans as "illbient
" or "trip hop
". He is a turntablist, a producer, a philosopher, and an author. He borrowed his stage name
from the character The Subliminal Kid in the novel Nova Express
by William S. Burroughs
. He is a Professor of Music Mediated Art at the European Graduate School
.
and go-go music. He attended Bowdoin College
in Brunswick, Maine
, earning degrees in French literature and philosophy.
Spooky began writing science fiction
and formed a collective called Soundlab
with several other artists.
In the mid-1990s, Spooky began recording a series of singles and EPs. His debut LP, Songs of a Dead Dreamer
, is now widely regarded as a formative influence on illbient
. Spooky contributed to the AIDS
benefit albums Offbeat: A Red Hot Soundtrip
(1996) and Onda Sonora: Red Hot + Lisbon
(1998) produced by the Red Hot Organization
. Riddim Warfare
(see 1998 in music
) was an underground hit that include collaborations with Kool Keith
and other cult figures in indie rock
like Sonic Youth
's Thurston Moore
who also appears on DJ Spooky's 2009 album release "The Secret Song."
He then worked with several other artists on various collaborations and mix CDs, returning in 2002 with Modern Mantra. That same year saw the release of Optometry, a widely acclaimed collaboration with avant-jazz
players Matthew Shipp
, William Parker
, Guillermo E. Brown
and Joe McPhee
. (This album also features portions of a breaks
record by Billy Martin of Medeski Martin & Wood
.) In a classical vein, he has collaborated with the ST-X Ensemble
in performances of the music of Iannis Xenakis
. His film compositions have been performed by Kronos Quartet
for the soundtrack to his remix of DW. Griffith's 1915 film Birth of a Nation. Kronos Quartet also performed DJ Spooky's remix of Steve Reich
's composition "City Life."
DJ Spooky has collaborated with Ryuichi Sakamoto
on several projects including The Discord Symphony which toured Japan extensively in 1997. The concert and album were released as an enhanced CD containing both a full audio program and multimedia computer files. It features spoken-word performances by Laurie Anderson
, David Byrne
, Patti Smith
, David Sylvian
, DJ Spooky, David Torn
, and Bernardo Bertolucci
. Miller also participated on Ryuichi Sakamoto's anti war project "Chain-Music" along with Towa Tei
(formerly of Dee-Lite), Christian Fennesz
, Carsten Nicolai, Pansonic, and Cornelius
, in 2007. It is a concept project based on collage that makes an anti-war statement through music exchange.
Avant-garde music has been an influence on Miller, including artists such as Brian Eno
, Kraftwerk
, Can
, Neu!
, Tangerine Dream
, Edgard Varèse
, Olivier Messiaen
, Iannis Xenakis
, Terry Riley
, Ornette Coleman
, Karlheinz Stockhausen
, John Cage
, and the French composer Erik Satie
for his piano works and his ideas for furniture music. He collaborated with Iannis Xenakis
on the recording of Kraanerg
, with the STX-Ensemble in 1997, and he has since worked with another major influence on his work - Steve Reich
.
The BBC Radiophonic Workshop has also been an influence on Miller, and he cites Delia Derbyshire
as a major hero for women and people of color in electronic music. He's called Music from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop released on Aphex Twin
's Rephlex Label, one of his favorite compilations.
2005 saw the release of "Drums of Death", DJ Spooky's CD based on sessions he recorded with Dave Lombardo
of Slayer
. Other guest artists include Chuck D
. of Public Enemy and Vernon Reid
of Living Colour
. The record was co-produced by Jack Dangers of Meat Beat Manifesto
.
In 2006, he produced two extensive compilations of classic Jamaican music from the archives of Trojan Records
, the 40 year old Jamaican record label founded by Chris Blackwell
and Lee Gopthal. The U.S. release, In Fine Style: DJ Spooky Presents 50,000 Volts of Trojan Records focused on "selections" from the archive, while the UK and worldwide release, Riddim Come Forward was a continuous mix. The compilation features a roster of Jamaica's most renowned artists and producers like Lee "Scratch" Perry, Bob Marley
, Peter Tosh
, U-Roy
, King Tubby
and Prince Jammy.
In 2008 his work Being Black (featuring Ursula Rucker
) was included on the compilation album Crosstalk: American Speech Music
(Bridge Records) produced by Mendi + Keith Obadike
. He is just one of 9 artists who participated in thetruth.com
’s Remix Project, where he remixed the Sunny Side song “Tough Love”.
DJ Spooky joined the 9th annual Independent Music Awards
judging panel to assist independent musicians' careers.
He was also a judge for the 3rd Independent Music Awards.
DJ Spooky has said that much of his work "deals with the notion of the encoded gesture or the encrypted psychology of how music affects the whole framework of what the essence of 'humaness' [sic] is... To me at this point in the 21st century, the notion of the encoded sound is far more of a dynamic thing, especially when you have these kinds of infodispersion systems running, so I'm fascinated with the unconscious at this point."
DJ Spooky's CD The Secret Song is slated for release October 6, 2009 on Thirsty Ear Records. It has guest appearances by Thurston Moore
, The Coup
, Mike G. of the Jungle Brothers
, Rob Swift
of the X-Ecutioners, Mike Ladd
, Vijay Iyer
, and many others. String arrangements for the album were done by film soundtrack composers Peter Stopschinski and Graham Reynolds
with the Golden Hornet Project, and edited and sampled by DJ Spooky. The Secret Song is a manifesto about our overloaded digital culture.
, featuring poet/actor Saul Williams
in the lead role. The film went on to win both the Cannes Camera D'Or and the Sundance Festival Film Festival Grand Jury Prize. He also made an appearance in the 2008 feature documentary FLicKeR
by Nik Sheehan about Brion Gysin
and the Dreamachine
.
His work as an artist has appeared in a wide variety of contexts such as the Whitney Biennial
; the Venice Biennale
; the Museum Ludwig
in Cologne
, Germany; Kunsthalle
, Vienna
; The Andy Warhol Museum
; Paula Cooper Gallery
; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
, and many other museums and galleries. In 2007 his work appeared in the Africa Pavilion in the 52nd Venice Biennial. This remix of music from Africa was also distributed freely online, and promoted by the blog Boing Boing
. "You give away a certain amount of your stuff, and then the cultural economy of cool kicks in," DJ Spooky said.
In 2004 DJ Spooky released a book, Rhythm Science, published by MIT Press
. The same year saw the launch of his film/music/multimedia performance piece "DJ Spooky's Rebirth of a Nation". A live audio/video re-mix of D. W. Griffith
's The Birth of a Nation
which includes footage from choreographer Bill T. Jones and a score newly composed by DJ Spooky, "Rebirth of a Nation" was commissioned by the Lincoln Center Festival, the Festival d'Automne a Paris, the Spoleto Festival USA
, and the Vienna Festival
. DJ Spooky continues to tour the world performing this work. "Rebirth of a Nation" was released as a film in 2009.
Sound Unbound, a collection of writing about sound art, digital media, and contemporary composition, edited by DJ Spooky, with writings from Brian Eno
, Jonathan Lethem
, Chuck D
, Saul Williams
, Steve Reich
, Cory Doctorow
, Saul Williams
, Pierre Boulez
, Mendi & Keith Obadike
, Hans Ulrich Obrist
, Jaron Lanier
, Moby
, and many others, came out on MIT Press early 2008. Longtime collaborator Roy Christopher was Assistant Editor on the project.
DJ Spooky is also a professor of music mediated art at the European Graduate School
where he co-teaches (with Mitchell Joachim) Intensive Summer Seminars in Saas-Fee
, Switzerland
.
In August 2009, DJ Spooky visited the Republic of Nauru in the Micronesia
n South Pacific to do research and gather material for a project in development, with a working title of The Nauru Elegies: A Portrait in Sound and Hypsographic Architecture.
In late 2009 the Naihné People of Tanna, a southern island in the archipelagos of Vanuatu
, South Pacific
, invited DJ Spooky to form an artists retreat within their remote eastern territory. In early 2011, Vanuatu Pacifica Foundation, a non profit organization, will begin building Tanna Center for the Arts in a beautiful and isolated part of the island.
DJ Spooky's multimedia performance piece Terra Nova: Sinfonia Antarctica was commissioned by BAM for the 2009 Next Wave Festival
; the Hopkins Center for the Arts
/Dartmouth College
; UCSB Arts & Lectures; Melbourne International Arts Festival
; and the Festival dei 2 Mondi in Spoleto
, Italy. In the Australian summer of 2007-2008 DJ Spooky took a studio to several of the main ice fields of Antarctica to gather material for this, his first symphonic work. The project incorporates what Miller likes to call "acoustic portraits of ice" into its compositional structure, and it references the first symphony written about Antarctica in 1948, by British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams
. With video projections and a score composed by DJ Spooky, performed by the International Contemporary Ensemble
in the United States, and Alter Ego Ensemble in Europe, Australia and beyond, "Terra Nova: Sinfornia Antarctica" is a portrait of a rapidly transforming continent.
DJ Spooky's Rebirth of a Nation was commissioned in 2004 by the Lincoln Center Festival; Spoleto Festival USA; Wiener Festwochen; and the Festival d'Automne a Paris. It was the artist's first large-scale multimedia performance piece, and has been performed in venues around the world, from the Sydney Festival
to the Herod Atticus Amphitheater, more than fifty times. The DVD version of Rebirth of a Nation was released by Anchor Bay Films/Starz Media in late 2008.
During 2010 DJ Spooky became one of the first DJ's to put together an iPhone app based on being able to use the iPhone as a mixing tool. The DJ Mixer app has been downloaded over 1 million times.
In 2010 Miller formed The Vanuatu Pacifica Foundation, a contemporary arts organization dedicated to exploring dialog between Oceania and the rest of the world.
Stage name
A stage name, also called a showbiz name or screen name, is a pseudonym used by performers and entertainers such as actors, wrestlers, comedians, and musicians.-Motivation to use a stage name:...
DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid, is a Washington DC-born electronic and experimental hip hop
Hip hop
Hip hop is a form of musical expression and artistic culture that originated in African-American and Latino communities during the 1970s in New York City, specifically the Bronx. DJ Afrika Bambaataa outlined the four pillars of hip hop culture: MCing, DJing, breaking and graffiti writing...
musician whose work is often called by critics or his fans as "illbient
Illbient
Illbient is a term allegedly coined by DJ Olive to describe the iconoclastic music being produced by a community of artists based in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York in 1994...
" or "trip hop
Trip hop
Trip hop is a music genre consisting of downtempo electronic music which originated in the early 1990s in England, especially Bristol. Deriving from "post"-acid house, the term was first used by the British music media and press as a way to describe the more experimental variant of breakbeat which...
". He is a turntablist, a producer, a philosopher, and an author. He borrowed his stage name
Stage name
A stage name, also called a showbiz name or screen name, is a pseudonym used by performers and entertainers such as actors, wrestlers, comedians, and musicians.-Motivation to use a stage name:...
from the character The Subliminal Kid in the novel Nova Express
Nova Express
Nova Express is a 1964 novel by William S. Burroughs. It was written using the cut-up method, developed by Burroughs with Brion Gysin, of enfolding snippets of different texts into the novel. It is the third book in The Nova Trilogy, preceded by The Soft Machine and The Ticket That Exploded...
by William S. Burroughs
William S. Burroughs
William Seward Burroughs II was an American novelist, poet, essayist and spoken word performer. A primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author, he is considered to be "one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the 20th...
. He is a Professor of Music Mediated Art at the European Graduate School
European Graduate School
The European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland is a privately funded graduate school founded by the non-profit European Foundation of Interdisciplinary Studies. Its German name is Europäische Universität für Interdisziplinäre Studien...
.
Early life
Miller grew up in Washington DC and attended Woodrow Wilson High School and Sidwell Friends High School. His father, Paul E. Miller, was Dean of Howard University Law School, and his mother, Rosemary E. Reed Miller, owned Toast and Strawberries, a legendary boutique in Washington DC. She is the author of Threads of Time, a history of African American women designers. Spooky became interested in punkPunk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
and go-go music. He attended Bowdoin College
Bowdoin College
Bowdoin College , founded in 1794, is an elite private liberal arts college located in the coastal Maine town of Brunswick, Maine. As of 2011, U.S. News and World Report ranks Bowdoin 6th among liberal arts colleges in the United States. At times, it was ranked as high as 4th in the country. It is...
in Brunswick, Maine
Brunswick, Maine
Brunswick is a town in Cumberland County, Maine, United States. The population was 20,278 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Portland-South Portland-Biddeford metropolitan area. Brunswick is home to Bowdoin College, the Bowdoin College Museum of Art, the Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum, , and the...
, earning degrees in French literature and philosophy.
Career
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
and formed a collective called Soundlab
Soundlab
Soundlab was a collective of artists, both sound and visual, that started in the East Village, New York City around the mid 90's. Founding members were Howard Goldkrand, Beth Coleman and Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky and included many musicians and artists from the Illbient scene including DJ...
with several other artists.
In the mid-1990s, Spooky began recording a series of singles and EPs. His debut LP, Songs of a Dead Dreamer
Songs of a Dead Dreamer (album)
Songs of a Dead Dreamer is an electronica album by DJ Spooky, released on 2 April 1996 . It is based on Songs of a Dead Dreamer, the story collection by horror fiction writer Thomas Ligotti. The album was a critical success, though popular acceptance was lukewarm...
, is now widely regarded as a formative influence on illbient
Illbient
Illbient is a term allegedly coined by DJ Olive to describe the iconoclastic music being produced by a community of artists based in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York in 1994...
. Spooky contributed to the AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
benefit albums Offbeat: A Red Hot Soundtrip
Offbeat: A Red Hot Soundtrip
Offbeat: A Red Hot Soundtrip is a compilation album from the Red Hot AIDS Benefit Series produced by Paul Heck. It combines elements of ambient, spoken word, and trip hop to expand the ideas of artistic collage and spiritual transcendence of "the Beats"...
(1996) and Onda Sonora: Red Hot + Lisbon
Onda Sonora: Red Hot + Lisbon
Onda Sonora: Red Hot + Lisbon is the eleventh entry in the Red Hot Benefit Series of compilation albums. The album and related television special were both created by the Red Hot Organization , an international organization whose objective in this project is to raise AIDS awareness in the...
(1998) produced by the Red Hot Organization
Red Hot Organization
Red Hot Organization is a not-for-profit, 501 3, international organization dedicated to fighting AIDS through pop culture.Since its inception in 1989, over 400 artists, producers and directors have contributed to over 15 compilation albums, related television programs and media events to raise...
. Riddim Warfare
Riddim Warfare
Riddim Warfare is an album by electronic and experimental hip hop musician DJ Spooky.-Track listing:#"Pandemonium" – 1:29#"Synchronic Disjecta" – 4:26#"Object Unknown" Riddim Warfare is an album by electronic and experimental hip hop musician DJ Spooky.-Track listing:#"Pandemonium" –...
(see 1998 in music
1998 in music
This is a list of notable events in music that took place in the year 1998.-Events:*January 28 – "Weird Al" Yankovic gets LASIK surgery to cure his myopia...
) was an underground hit that include collaborations with Kool Keith
Kool Keith
Keith Matthew Thornton, better known by his stage name Kool Keith, is an American rapper from The Bronx, New York. A founding member of Ultramagnetic MCs, Kool Keith has recorded prolifically both as a solo artist and in group collaborations. Kool Keith is the self-proclaimed inventor of...
and other cult figures in indie rock
Indie rock
Indie rock is a genre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom and the United States in the 1980s. Indie rock is extremely diverse, with sub-genres that include lo-fi, post-rock, math rock, indie pop, dream pop, noise rock, space rock, sadcore, riot grrrl and emo, among others...
like Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth is an American alternative rock band from New York City, formed in 1981. The current lineup consists of Thurston Moore , Kim Gordon , Lee Ranaldo , Steve Shelley , and Mark Ibold .In their early career, Sonic Youth was associated with the No Wave art and music scene in New York City...
's Thurston Moore
Thurston Moore
Thurston Joseph Moore is an American musician best known as a singer, songwriter and guitarist of Sonic Youth. He has also participated in many solo and group collaborations outside of Sonic Youth, as well as running the Ecstatic Peace! record label...
who also appears on DJ Spooky's 2009 album release "The Secret Song."
He then worked with several other artists on various collaborations and mix CDs, returning in 2002 with Modern Mantra. That same year saw the release of Optometry, a widely acclaimed collaboration with avant-jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
players Matthew Shipp
Matthew Shipp
Matthew Shipp is an American pianist, composer and bandleader.Shipp was raised in Wilmington, Delaware, and began playing piano at six years old. His mother was a friend of trumpeter Clifford Brown....
, William Parker
William Parker (musician)
William Parker is an American free jazz double bassist, poet and composer.-Biography:Parker was not formally trained as a classical player, though he did study with Jimmy Garrison, Richard Davis, and Wilbur Ware and learned the tradition. Parker is one of few jazz bassists who regularly plays arco...
, Guillermo E. Brown
Guillermo E. Brown
Guillermo E. Brown is a free jazz drummer who has performed or recorded with Matthew Shipp, David S. Ware, George Lewis and others. In 2008 his work "Electro Prayer 5.0" was included on the compilation album Crosstalk: American Speech Music produced by Mendi & Keith Obadike.- References :...
and Joe McPhee
Joe McPhee
Joe McPhee is an American jazz multi-instrumentalist born in Miami, Florida, a player of tenor, alto, and soprano saxophone, the trumpet, flugelhorn and valve trombone...
. (This album also features portions of a breaks
Break (music)
In popular music, a break is an instrumental or percussion section or interlude during a song derived from or related to stop-time – being a "break" from the main parts of the song or piece....
record by Billy Martin of Medeski Martin & Wood
Medeski Martin & Wood
Medeski Martin & Wood is an American jazz trio formed in 1991, consisting of John Medeski on keyboards and piano, Billy Martin on drums and percussion, and Chris Wood on double bass and bass guitar....
.) In a classical vein, he has collaborated with the ST-X Ensemble
ST-X Ensemble
The ST-X Ensemble is an American ensemble dedicated to performing the music of Iannis Xenakis. It was formed in New York City in 1994 by the conductor Charles Zachary Bornstein, who had served as an assistant conductor to Leopold Stokowski, and was the last private student of the Austrian conductor...
in performances of the music of Iannis Xenakis
Iannis Xenakis
Iannis Xenakis was a Romanian-born Greek ethnic, naturalized French composer, music theorist, and architect-engineer. He is commonly recognized as one of the most important post-war avant-garde composers...
. His film compositions have been performed by Kronos Quartet
Kronos Quartet
Kronos Quartet is a string quartet founded by violinist David Harrington in 1973 in Seattle, Washington. Since 1978, the quartet has been based in San Francisco, California. The longest-running combination of performers had Harrington and John Sherba on violin, Hank Dutt on viola, and Joan...
for the soundtrack to his remix of DW. Griffith's 1915 film Birth of a Nation. Kronos Quartet also performed DJ Spooky's remix of Steve Reich
Steve Reich
Stephen Michael "Steve" Reich is an American composer who together with La Monte Young, Terry Riley, and Philip Glass is a pioneering composer of minimal music...
's composition "City Life."
DJ Spooky has collaborated with Ryuichi Sakamoto
Ryuichi Sakamoto
After working as a session musician with Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi in 1977, the trio formed the internationally successful electronic music band Yellow Magic Orchestra in 1978. Known for their seminal influence on electronic music, the group helped pioneer electronic genres such as...
on several projects including The Discord Symphony which toured Japan extensively in 1997. The concert and album were released as an enhanced CD containing both a full audio program and multimedia computer files. It features spoken-word performances by Laurie Anderson
Laurie Anderson
Laura Phillips "Laurie" Anderson is an American experimental performance artist, composer and musician who plays violin and keyboards and sings in a variety of experimental music and art rock styles. Initially trained as a sculptor, Anderson did her first performance-art piece in the late 1960s...
, David Byrne
David Byrne
David Byrne may refer to:*David Byrne , musician and former Talking Heads frontman**David Byrne , his eponymous album*David Byrne , Irish footballer*David Byrne , English footballer...
, Patti Smith
Patti Smith
Patricia Lee "Patti" Smith is an American singer-songwriter, poet and visual artist, who became a highly influential component of the New York City punk rock movement with her 1975 debut album Horses....
, David Sylvian
David Sylvian
David Sylvian is an English singer-songwriter and musician who came to prominence in the late 1970s as the lead vocalist and main songwriter in the group Japan...
, DJ Spooky, David Torn
David Torn
David Torn is an American composer and guitarist.He is known for the organic blending/manipulation of electronic and acoustic instruments and performance techniques that have an atmospheric or textural quality and effect, along with a particular harmonic richness...
, and Bernardo Bertolucci
Bernardo Bertolucci
Bernardo Bertolucci is an Italian film director and screenwriter, whose films include The Conformist, Last Tango in Paris, 1900, The Last Emperor and The Dreamers...
. Miller also participated on Ryuichi Sakamoto's anti war project "Chain-Music" along with Towa Tei
Towa Tei
is a DJ, artist and record producer in Yokahoma, Japan.Tōwa debuted as a member of Deee-Lite, from the U.S. label Elektra Records in 1990, and shot to fame via their international hit single, "Groove Is In the Heart"...
(formerly of Dee-Lite), Christian Fennesz
Christian Fennesz
Christian Fennesz is an Austrian guitarist active in electronic music, often credited on albums simply as Fennesz....
, Carsten Nicolai, Pansonic, and Cornelius
Cornelius
Cornelius is a Roman family name and a masculine given name. It could be derived from Latin cornu "horn". People, places and things named Cornelius include:-Surname:...
, in 2007. It is a concept project based on collage that makes an anti-war statement through music exchange.
Avant-garde music has been an influence on Miller, including artists such as Brian Eno
Brian Eno
Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno , commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno , is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex,...
, Kraftwerk
Kraftwerk
Kraftwerk is an influential electronic music band from Düsseldorf, Germany. The group was formed by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider in 1970, and was fronted by them until Schneider's departure in 2008...
, Can
Can
Can may refer to:-Container:* Aluminum can* Steel can, an airtight tinplate container for storing food and other predominantly liquid products* Beverage can, a can designed to hold a single serving of a beverage* Oil can...
, Neu!
Neu!
Neu! was a German band formed by Klaus Dinger and Michael Rother after their split from Kraftwerk in the early 1970s...
, Tangerine Dream
Tangerine Dream
Tangerine Dream is a German electronic music group founded in 1967 by Edgar Froese. The band has undergone many personnel changes over the years, with Froese being the only continuous member...
, Edgard Varèse
Edgard Varèse
Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse, , whose name was also spelled Edgar Varèse , was an innovative French-born composer who spent the greater part of his career in the United States....
, Olivier Messiaen
Olivier Messiaen
Olivier Messiaen was a French composer, organist and ornithologist, one of the major composers of the 20th century. His music is rhythmically complex ; harmonically and melodically it is based on modes of limited transposition, which he abstracted from his early compositions and improvisations...
, Iannis Xenakis
Iannis Xenakis
Iannis Xenakis was a Romanian-born Greek ethnic, naturalized French composer, music theorist, and architect-engineer. He is commonly recognized as one of the most important post-war avant-garde composers...
, Terry Riley
Terry Riley
Terrence Mitchell Riley, is an American composer intrinsically associated with the minimalist school of Western classical music and was a pioneer of the movement...
, Ornette Coleman
Ornette Coleman
Ornette Coleman is an American saxophonist, violinist, trumpeter and composer. He was one of the major innovators of the free jazz movement of the 1960s....
, Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Another critic calls him "one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music"...
, John Cage
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...
, and the French composer Erik Satie
Erik Satie
Éric Alfred Leslie Satie was a French composer and pianist. Satie was a colourful figure in the early 20th century Parisian avant-garde...
for his piano works and his ideas for furniture music. He collaborated with Iannis Xenakis
Iannis Xenakis
Iannis Xenakis was a Romanian-born Greek ethnic, naturalized French composer, music theorist, and architect-engineer. He is commonly recognized as one of the most important post-war avant-garde composers...
on the recording of Kraanerg
Kraanerg
Kraanerg is a piece of music for 23 instruments and 4-channel analog tape composed by Iannis Xenakis, originally for a ballet with choreography by Roland Petit and set design by Victor Vasarely...
, with the STX-Ensemble in 1997, and he has since worked with another major influence on his work - Steve Reich
Steve Reich
Stephen Michael "Steve" Reich is an American composer who together with La Monte Young, Terry Riley, and Philip Glass is a pioneering composer of minimal music...
.
The BBC Radiophonic Workshop has also been an influence on Miller, and he cites Delia Derbyshire
Delia Derbyshire
Delia Ann Derbyshire was an English musician and composer of electronic music and musique concrète. She is best known for her electronic realisation of Ron Grainer's theme music to the British science fiction television series Doctor Who and for her work with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.-Early...
as a major hero for women and people of color in electronic music. He's called Music from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop released on Aphex Twin
Aphex Twin
Richard David James , best known under the pseudonym Aphex Twin, is an Irish-born electronic musician and composer described as "the most inventive and influential figure in contemporary electronic music"...
's Rephlex Label, one of his favorite compilations.
2005 saw the release of "Drums of Death", DJ Spooky's CD based on sessions he recorded with Dave Lombardo
Dave Lombardo
Dave Lombardo is a Cuban American heavy metal drummer best known for his work with American thrash metal band Slayer. He has performed with Slayer on seven albums, including their groundbreaking 1986 release Reign In Blood and their 2006 release Christ Illusion, for which he received critical praise...
of Slayer
Slayer
Slayer is an American thrash metal band formed in Huntington Park, California, in 1981 by guitarists Jeff Hanneman and Kerry King. Slayer rose to fame with their 1986 release, Reign in Blood, and is credited as one of the "Big Four" thrash metal acts, along with Metallica, Megadeth and...
. Other guest artists include Chuck D
Chuck D
Carlton Douglas Ridenhour , better known by his stage name, Chuck D, is an American rapper, author, and producer. He helped create politically and socially conscious rap music in the mid-1980s as the leader of the rap group Public Enemy.- Early life :Ridenhour was born in Queens, New York...
. of Public Enemy and Vernon Reid
Vernon Reid
Vernon Reid is an English-born American guitarist, songwriter, composer, and bandleader. Best known as the founder and primary songwriter of the heavy metal band Living Colour, Reid was named #66 on Rolling Stone magazine's 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.Critic Steve Huey writes, "[Reid's]...
of Living Colour
Living Colour
Living Colour is an American rock band from New York City, formed in 1984. Stylistically, the band's music is a creative fusion influenced by free jazz, funk, neo-psychedelia, hard rock, and heavy metal...
. The record was co-produced by Jack Dangers of Meat Beat Manifesto
Meat Beat Manifesto
Meat Beat Manifesto, often shortened to Meat Beat or MBM, is an electronic music group originally consisting of Jack Dangers and Jonny Stephens formed in 1987 in Swindon, UK...
.
In 2006, he produced two extensive compilations of classic Jamaican music from the archives of Trojan Records
Trojan Records
Trojan Records is a British record label founded in 1968. It specialises in ska, rocksteady, reggae and dub music. The label currently operates under the Sanctuary Records Group. The name Trojan comes from the Croydon-built Trojan truck that was used as Duke Reid's sound system in Jamaica...
, the 40 year old Jamaican record label founded by Chris Blackwell
Chris Blackwell
Christopher Percy Gordon "Chris" Blackwell is a British record producer and businessman, who was the founder of Island Records, acknowledged as the most successful and groundbreaking independent record company in history. Blackwell has been a music industry mogul for over fifty years...
and Lee Gopthal. The U.S. release, In Fine Style: DJ Spooky Presents 50,000 Volts of Trojan Records focused on "selections" from the archive, while the UK and worldwide release, Riddim Come Forward was a continuous mix. The compilation features a roster of Jamaica's most renowned artists and producers like Lee "Scratch" Perry, Bob Marley
Bob Marley
Robert Nesta "Bob" Marley, OM was a Jamaican singer-songwriter and musician. He was the rhythm guitarist and lead singer for the ska, rocksteady and reggae band Bob Marley & The Wailers...
, Peter Tosh
Peter Tosh
Peter Tosh, born Winston Hubert McIntosh , was a Jamaican reggae musician who was a core member of the band The Wailers , and who afterward had a successful solo career as well as being a promoter of Rastafari.Peter Tosh was born in Grange Hill, Jamaica, an illegitimate child to a mother too young...
, U-Roy
U-Roy
U-Roy , OD, is a Jamaican musician, also known as The Originator. He is best known as a pioneer of toasting.-Biography:...
, King Tubby
King Tubby
King Tubby was a Jamaican electronics and sound engineer, known primarily for his influence on the development of dub in the 1960s and 1970s...
and Prince Jammy.
In 2008 his work Being Black (featuring Ursula Rucker
Ursula Rucker
Ursula Rucker is an American spoken word recording artist. Rucker is known for a diverse repertoire, and for utilizing techniques that catch her listeners' attention.-Biography:...
) was included on the compilation album Crosstalk: American Speech Music
Crosstalk: American Speech Music
Crosstalk: American Speech Music is a compilation album of speech-based music by various composers, poets, visual artists and DJs.- Track listing :# "Declaratives in First Person" – 5:04# "Electroprayer 5.0" Crosstalk: American Speech Music is a compilation album of speech-based music by various...
(Bridge Records) produced by Mendi + Keith Obadike
Mendi & Keith Obadike
Mendi Obadike and Keith Obadike are a married Igbo Nigerian American couple who create music and art. They were both born in 1973. Their music, live art, and conceptual Internet artworks have been exhibited internationally. Mendi is a poet and Keith is a composer and sound designer...
. He is just one of 9 artists who participated in thetruth.com
TheTruth.com
TheTruth.com is an anti-smoking campaign in the United States. The campaign is run by the American Legacy Foundation, which was founded under the terms of the Master Settlement Agreement, between the US tobacco companies and 46 US states and 5 territories...
’s Remix Project, where he remixed the Sunny Side song “Tough Love”.
DJ Spooky joined the 9th annual Independent Music Awards
The Independent Music Awards
The Independent Music Awards is an international program that honors top-ranked independent artists and releases in more than 50 Album, Song, Music Video and Design categories....
judging panel to assist independent musicians' careers.
He was also a judge for the 3rd Independent Music Awards.
DJ Spooky has said that much of his work "deals with the notion of the encoded gesture or the encrypted psychology of how music affects the whole framework of what the essence of 'humaness' [sic] is... To me at this point in the 21st century, the notion of the encoded sound is far more of a dynamic thing, especially when you have these kinds of infodispersion systems running, so I'm fascinated with the unconscious at this point."
DJ Spooky's CD The Secret Song is slated for release October 6, 2009 on Thirsty Ear Records. It has guest appearances by Thurston Moore
Thurston Moore
Thurston Joseph Moore is an American musician best known as a singer, songwriter and guitarist of Sonic Youth. He has also participated in many solo and group collaborations outside of Sonic Youth, as well as running the Ecstatic Peace! record label...
, The Coup
The Coup
The Coup is a political hip hop group based in Oakland, California. It formed as a three-member group in 1992 with emcees Raymond "Boots" Riley and E-Roc along with DJ Pam the Funkstress. E-Roc left on amicable terms after the group's second album but appears on the track "Breathing Apparatus" on...
, Mike G. of the Jungle Brothers
Jungle Brothers
The Jungle Brothers are an American hip hop group that pioneered the fusion of jazz and hip-hop and also became the first hip-hop group to use a house-music producer. The group began performing in the mid-1980s and released its first album, Straight Out the Jungle, in July 1988...
, Rob Swift
Rob Swift
Rob Swift is an American hip hop DJ and turntablist. Swift is a former member of the turntablist group The X-Ecutioners as of late 2005 and as of 2006; with Mike Patton’s project Peeping Tom.-Early life:...
of the X-Ecutioners, Mike Ladd
Mike Ladd
Mike Ladd is a hip-hop MC and producer. As an MC, he practices spoken-word and is known for his poetic lyrics. As a producer, he is known as the owner of the Likemadd label.-Biography:...
, Vijay Iyer
Vijay Iyer
Vijay Iyer is a jazz pianist, composer, bandleader, producer, electronic musician, and writer based in New York City.-Biography:Born in 1971 and raised in Rochester, New York, Vijay Iyer is the son of Indian Tamil immigrants to the US. He received 15 years of Western classical training on violin...
, and many others. String arrangements for the album were done by film soundtrack composers Peter Stopschinski and Graham Reynolds
Graham Reynolds
Graham Reynolds Austin, Texas based, Composer-bandleader Graham Reynolds creates, performs, and records music for film, theater, dance, rock clubs and concert halls with collaborators ranging from Richard Linklater to DJ Spooky to the Austin Symphony Orchestra...
with the Golden Hornet Project, and edited and sampled by DJ Spooky. The Secret Song is a manifesto about our overloaded digital culture.
Other work
DJ Spooky composed the score for the 1998 film SlamSlam (film)
Slam is a 1998 independent film starring Saul Williams and Sonja Sohn. It tells the story of a young African-American man whose talent for poetry is hampered by his social background. It won the Grand Jury Prize for a Dramatic Film at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival.- Synopsis :Raymond Joshua is a...
, featuring poet/actor Saul Williams
Saul Williams
Saul Stacey Williams is an American poet, writer, actor and musician known for his blend of poetry and alternative hip hop and for his leading role in the 1998 independent film Slam.-Biography:...
in the lead role. The film went on to win both the Cannes Camera D'Or and the Sundance Festival Film Festival Grand Jury Prize. He also made an appearance in the 2008 feature documentary FLicKeR
FLicKeR (film)
FLicKeR is a Canadian documentary film written and directed by Nik Sheehan, produced by Maureen Judge and Silva Basmajian . The film is based on the book "Chapel of Extreme Experience " by John Geiger about the work of artist Brion Gysin and his Dreamachine.Gysin's Dreamachine used a 100-watt light...
by Nik Sheehan about Brion Gysin
Brion Gysin
Brion Gysin was a painter, writer, sound poet, and performance artist born in Taplow, Buckinghamshire.He is best known for his discovery of the cut-up technique, used by his friend, the novelist William S. Burroughs...
and the Dreamachine
Dreamachine
The dreamachine is a stroboscopic flicker device that produces visual stimuli. Artist Brion Gysin and William S. Burroughs's "systems adviser" Ian Sommerville created the dreamachine after reading William Grey Walter's book, The Living Brain.-History:In the dreamachine's original form, a...
.
His work as an artist has appeared in a wide variety of contexts such as the Whitney Biennial
Whitney Biennial
The Whitney Biennial is a biennale exhibition of contemporary American art, typically by young and lesser known artists, on display at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, USA. The event began as an annual exhibition in 1932, the first biennial was in 1973...
; the Venice Biennale
Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale is a major contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in Venice, Italy. The Venice Film Festival is part of it. So too is the Venice Biennale of Architecture, which is held in even years...
; the Museum Ludwig
Museum Ludwig
Museum Ludwig, located in Cologne, Germany, houses a collection of modern art. It includes works from PopArt, Abstract and Surrealism, and has one of the largest Picasso collections in Europe. It also features many works by Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein....
in Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
, Germany; Kunsthalle
Kunsthalle Wien
The Kunsthalle Wien is an institution in Vienna for temporary exhibitions of contemporary international art. It opened in 1992, and was originally located on Karlsplatz, in a container-shaped building designed as a temporary site by the Austrian architect Adolf Krischanitz...
, Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
; The Andy Warhol Museum
The Andy Warhol Museum
The Andy Warhol Museum, located on the North Shore of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is the largest museum in the United States dedicated to a single artist...
; Paula Cooper Gallery
Paula Cooper Gallery
The Paula Cooper Gallery is an art gallery in New York City founded in 1968.The gallery is primarily known for the Minimalist and Conceptual artists it has represented and whose careers it helped launch. Such artists include: Carl Andre, Jennifer Bartlett, Lynda Benglis, Mark di Suvero, Donald...
; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago is a contemporary art museum near Water Tower Place in downtown Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. The museum, which was established in 1967, is one of the world's largest contemporary art venues...
, and many other museums and galleries. In 2007 his work appeared in the Africa Pavilion in the 52nd Venice Biennial. This remix of music from Africa was also distributed freely online, and promoted by the blog Boing Boing
Boing Boing
Boing Boing is a publishing entity, first established as a magazine, later becoming a group blog.-History:...
. "You give away a certain amount of your stuff, and then the cultural economy of cool kicks in," DJ Spooky said.
In 2004 DJ Spooky released a book, Rhythm Science, published by MIT Press
MIT Press
The MIT Press is a university press affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts .-History:...
. The same year saw the launch of his film/music/multimedia performance piece "DJ Spooky's Rebirth of a Nation". A live audio/video re-mix of D. W. Griffith
D. W. Griffith
David Llewelyn Wark Griffith was a premier pioneering American film director. He is best known as the director of the controversial and groundbreaking 1915 film The Birth of a Nation and the subsequent film Intolerance .Griffith's film The Birth of a Nation made pioneering use of advanced camera...
's The Birth of a Nation
The Birth of a Nation
The Birth of a Nation is a 1915 American silent film directed by D. W. Griffith and based on the novel and play The Clansman, both by Thomas Dixon, Jr. Griffith also co-wrote the screenplay , and co-produced the film . It was released on February 8, 1915...
which includes footage from choreographer Bill T. Jones and a score newly composed by DJ Spooky, "Rebirth of a Nation" was commissioned by the Lincoln Center Festival, the Festival d'Automne a Paris, the Spoleto Festival USA
Spoleto Festival USA
Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, South Carolina, is one of the world's major performing arts festivals. It was founded in 1977 by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Gian Carlo Menotti, who sought to establish a counterpart to the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto, Italy...
, and the Vienna Festival
Vienna Festival
The Wiener Festwochen is a cultural festival in Vienna that takes place every year for five or six weeks in May and June.The Wiener Festwochen was established in 1951, when Vienna was still occupied by the four Allies...
. DJ Spooky continues to tour the world performing this work. "Rebirth of a Nation" was released as a film in 2009.
Sound Unbound, a collection of writing about sound art, digital media, and contemporary composition, edited by DJ Spooky, with writings from Brian Eno
Brian Eno
Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno , commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno , is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex,...
, Jonathan Lethem
Jonathan Lethem
Jonathan Allen Lethem is an American novelist, essayist and short story writer. His first novel, Gun, with Occasional Music, a genre work that mixed elements of science fiction and detective fiction, was published in 1994. It was followed by three more science fiction novels...
, Chuck D
Chuck D
Carlton Douglas Ridenhour , better known by his stage name, Chuck D, is an American rapper, author, and producer. He helped create politically and socially conscious rap music in the mid-1980s as the leader of the rap group Public Enemy.- Early life :Ridenhour was born in Queens, New York...
, Saul Williams
Saul Williams
Saul Stacey Williams is an American poet, writer, actor and musician known for his blend of poetry and alternative hip hop and for his leading role in the 1998 independent film Slam.-Biography:...
, Steve Reich
Steve Reich
Stephen Michael "Steve" Reich is an American composer who together with La Monte Young, Terry Riley, and Philip Glass is a pioneering composer of minimal music...
, Cory Doctorow
Cory Doctorow
Cory Efram Doctorow is a Canadian-British blogger, journalist, and science fiction author who serves as co-editor of the blog Boing Boing. He is an activist in favour of liberalising copyright laws and a proponent of the Creative Commons organization, using some of their licences for his books...
, Saul Williams
Saul Williams
Saul Stacey Williams is an American poet, writer, actor and musician known for his blend of poetry and alternative hip hop and for his leading role in the 1998 independent film Slam.-Biography:...
, Pierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez is a French composer of contemporary classical music, a pianist, and a conductor.-Early years:Boulez was born in Montbrison, Loire, France. As a child he began piano lessons and demonstrated aptitude in both music and mathematics...
, Mendi & Keith Obadike
Mendi & Keith Obadike
Mendi Obadike and Keith Obadike are a married Igbo Nigerian American couple who create music and art. They were both born in 1973. Their music, live art, and conceptual Internet artworks have been exhibited internationally. Mendi is a poet and Keith is a composer and sound designer...
, Hans Ulrich Obrist
Hans Ulrich Obrist
Hans Ulrich Obrist is a contemporary art curator, critic and historian of art. He is currently Co-director of Exhibitions and Programmes and Director of International Projects at the Serpentine Gallery, London...
, Jaron Lanier
Jaron Lanier
Jaron Zepel Lanier is an American computer scientist, best known for popularizing the term virtual reality .A pioneer in the field of VR, Lanier and Thomas G. Zimmerman left Atari in 1985 to found VPL Research, Inc., the first company to sell VR goggles and gloves...
, Moby
Moby
Richard Melville Hall , better known by his stage name Moby, is an American musician, DJ, and photographer. He is known mainly for his sample-based electronic music and his outspoken liberal political views, including his support of veganism and animal rights.Moby gained attention in the early...
, and many others, came out on MIT Press early 2008. Longtime collaborator Roy Christopher was Assistant Editor on the project.
DJ Spooky is also a professor of music mediated art at the European Graduate School
European Graduate School
The European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland is a privately funded graduate school founded by the non-profit European Foundation of Interdisciplinary Studies. Its German name is Europäische Universität für Interdisziplinäre Studien...
where he co-teaches (with Mitchell Joachim) Intensive Summer Seminars in Saas-Fee
Saas-Fee
Saas-Fee is the main village in the Saastal, or the Saas Valley, and is a municipality in the district of Visp in the canton of Valais in Switzerland...
, Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
.
In August 2009, DJ Spooky visited the Republic of Nauru in the Micronesia
Micronesia
Micronesia is a subregion of Oceania, comprising thousands of small islands in the western Pacific Ocean. It is distinct from Melanesia to the south, and Polynesia to the east. The Philippines lie to the west, and Indonesia to the southwest....
n South Pacific to do research and gather material for a project in development, with a working title of The Nauru Elegies: A Portrait in Sound and Hypsographic Architecture.
In late 2009 the Naihné People of Tanna, a southern island in the archipelagos of Vanuatu
Vanuatu
Vanuatu , officially the Republic of Vanuatu , is an island nation located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is some east of northern Australia, northeast of New Caledonia, west of Fiji, and southeast of the Solomon Islands, near New Guinea.Vanuatu was...
, South Pacific
Australasia
Australasia is a region of Oceania comprising Australia, New Zealand, the island of New Guinea, and neighbouring islands in the Pacific Ocean. The term was coined by Charles de Brosses in Histoire des navigations aux terres australes...
, invited DJ Spooky to form an artists retreat within their remote eastern territory. In early 2011, Vanuatu Pacifica Foundation, a non profit organization, will begin building Tanna Center for the Arts in a beautiful and isolated part of the island.
DJ Spooky's multimedia performance piece Terra Nova: Sinfonia Antarctica was commissioned by BAM for the 2009 Next Wave Festival
Next Wave Festival
is a biennial festival based in Melbourne, Australia, which promotes and showcases the work of young and emerging artists. Encouraging interdisciplinary practice, Next Wave fosters the creation and presentation of works by artists aged 16 to 30 working across a broad range of art forms, including...
; the Hopkins Center for the Arts
Hopkins Center for the Arts
Hopkins Center for the Creative and Performing Arts at Dartmouth College is located at 2 East Wheelock Street in Hanover, New Hampshire. The center, which was designed by Wallace K. Harrison and foreshadows his later design of Manhattan’s Lincoln Center, is the college’s cultural hub. It is home...
/Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...
; UCSB Arts & Lectures; Melbourne International Arts Festival
Melbourne International Arts Festival
Melbourne Festival is a celebration of dance, theatre, music, visual arts, multimedia, outdoor and free events held for 17 days each October in a number of venues across Melbourne, Australia.-History:...
; and the Festival dei 2 Mondi in Spoleto
Spoleto
Spoleto is an ancient city in the Italian province of Perugia in east central Umbria on a foothill of the Apennines. It is S. of Trevi, N. of Terni, SE of Perugia; SE of Florence; and N of Rome.-History:...
, Italy. In the Australian summer of 2007-2008 DJ Spooky took a studio to several of the main ice fields of Antarctica to gather material for this, his first symphonic work. The project incorporates what Miller likes to call "acoustic portraits of ice" into its compositional structure, and it references the first symphony written about Antarctica in 1948, by British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams OM was an English composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores. He was also a collector of English folk music and song: this activity both influenced his editorial approach to the English Hymnal, beginning in 1904, in which he included many...
. With video projections and a score composed by DJ Spooky, performed by the International Contemporary Ensemble
International Contemporary Ensemble
The International Contemporary Ensemble is a contemporary classical music ensemble of thirty chamber musicians, including strings, woodwinds, piano, percussion, voice and composers, which enables great flexibility of programming...
in the United States, and Alter Ego Ensemble in Europe, Australia and beyond, "Terra Nova: Sinfornia Antarctica" is a portrait of a rapidly transforming continent.
DJ Spooky's Rebirth of a Nation was commissioned in 2004 by the Lincoln Center Festival; Spoleto Festival USA; Wiener Festwochen; and the Festival d'Automne a Paris. It was the artist's first large-scale multimedia performance piece, and has been performed in venues around the world, from the Sydney Festival
Sydney Festival
Sydney Festival is Australia's largest and most attended annual cultural event running every January since it was first held in 1977. Its program features around 80 events including contemporary and classical music, dance, circus, drama, visual arts and artist talks...
to the Herod Atticus Amphitheater, more than fifty times. The DVD version of Rebirth of a Nation was released by Anchor Bay Films/Starz Media in late 2008.
During 2010 DJ Spooky became one of the first DJ's to put together an iPhone app based on being able to use the iPhone as a mixing tool. The DJ Mixer app has been downloaded over 1 million times.
In 2010 Miller formed The Vanuatu Pacifica Foundation, a contemporary arts organization dedicated to exploring dialog between Oceania and the rest of the world.
External links
- Official website
- Sound Unbound site
- Rhythm Science site
- "SonarText" by DJ Spooky in 21C
- DJ Spooky at IMDB
- The Vanuatu Pacifica Foundation
Interviews
- Azadi: Dj Spooky Shows Support For Iranians' Freedom Quest
- 2008 interview with DJ Spooky at Some Assembly RequiredSome Assembly RequiredSome Assembly Required is a sound collage radio program in the United States, produced in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is the first radio show known to focus exclusively on works of sample based music, and appropriation in audio art...
- "Blurring the Boundaries with DJ Spooky," Bowdoin Magazine profile
- Bad at Sports podcast interview
- DJ Spooky talks The Secret Song
- 2001 interview with Roy Christopher