bio

Seth Cluett (b. 1976, Troy, NY) is an artist, performer, and composer whose work ranges from photography, and drawing to video, sound installation, concert music, and critical writing. Engaging the boundary between the auditory and other senses, his work is marked by a detailed attention to perception and to sound's role in the creation of a sense of place and the experience of time. The apparent tranquility of Cluett's work - at once gentle and un-nerving - is concerned with the rapidly shifting sensory landscape of technological development and urbanization.

Cluett uses minimal materials derived from close listening and observation of the environment to point up the way in which we personalize our objects and actions. Through creative mis-use of post-consumer goods, adaptive re-use of raw architectural elements, and a nostalgic obsession with dead technologies, these materials become instrumentalized. In this way, many of his pieces investigate the movement, patterns, and social organization of both work and play, while others explore the acoustic signature of specific locations, where sound is exposed as the result or goal of a social activity, a characteristic of architectural space, or a by-product of a geological process.

Cluett's work has been shown and/or performed internationally at institutions and festivals such as Kill Your Timid Notion at Dundee Contemporary Arts in Scotland; the 10th Rencontres Internationales, Palais de Tokyo Museum, and GRM in Paris; Hebbel am Ufer Theater in Berlin; the Osage Art Foundation in Hong Kong; The Kitchen, WPS1/MoMA, Issue Project Room, Roulette/Location One, Experimental Intermedia, and Diapason Gallery in New York; the Institute for Contemporary Art, Studio Soto, and Mobius Artist Space in Boston; the Betty Rymer, Heaven, Artemisia, and Deadtech Galleries in Chicago; and the Deep Listening Space in Kingston, NY. He has created dance and theater works with DD Dorvillier/Human Future Dance Corp, Helene Lesterin/Atlas Dance, and Jen Mesch. His work is documented on Errant Bodies Press, Radical Matters, Sedimental, Crank Satori, BoxMedia, Stasisfield, Winds Measure, and Wavelet Records. He has published articles for BYPASS, Shifter, The Open Space Magazine, Leonardo Music Journal, 306090, Earshot, and the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

exhibition history - curriculum vitae

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Solo Exhibitions and Projects

2011
Swarm Gallery, curated by Jeff Eisenberg and Aaron Ximm, San Francisco, CA

2009
ArchitecTones, curated by Rahma Khazam, Arc-et-Senans, France

2008
Diapason Gallery, curated by Michael J. Schumacher, Brooklyn, NY
Movement Research Festival, curated by Chris Peck, Judson Church, New York, NY

2004
Deep Listening Gallery, curated by Pauline Oliveros, Kingston, NY

2003
Galapagos Art Space, curated by Agnes Bolt, Brooklyn, NY
Diapason Gallery, curated by Michael J. Schumacher, New York, NY

2002
Deadtech Gallery, curated by Rob Ray, Chicago, IL
Deep Listening Gallery, curated by Carole Ione, Kingston, NY

2000
Autumn Uprising, curated by James Coleman, Institute for Contemporary Art, Boston, MA

Selected Group Exhibitions

2010
...menu for murmur, curated by Helmut Lemke and Ben Gwilliam, Chapman Gallery, University of Salford, Manchester, UK
Untitled (for resonants) & Fadings, curated by Jens Maier-Rothe, Diapason Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
Esta Casa/Esta Sonida, curated by Marco Monteil-Soto, Maracaibo, Venezuela
METASOUND : Sound Art, Multimedialita e Pratiche dell'Arte dell'Ascolto, curated by Sandro Gronchi, Cisterna Romana, Parco Archeologico, Cecina
re((sound)), curated by Dana Turkovic and Adam Watkins, Hunt Gallery, Webster College, St. Louis, MI
Space with sound, curated by Scott Sherk, Martin Gallery, Muhlenberg College, Allentown, PA

2009
23'17", curated by Isabelle le Normande, Mains D'Oeuvres, Paris, France
The Invisible Generation, curated by Danielle Balit and Per Huttner, Vision Forum at VCA Margaret Lawrence Gallery and Satellite, Melbourne; Les Kurbas Centre, Kiev; CPU 798, Beijing, and OCAT, Shenzhen
The End of Something, curated by Ashley Wong, Volume Projects, London, UK
Zeroth Channel II, curated by Micah Silver, Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY
Sound of It, curated by Larry Caveney, The Garage, San Diego, CA

2008
Kill Your Timid Notion, curated by Barry Esson, Dundee Contemporary Arts, Dundee, Scotland
Listen!, curated by kara lynch, Denniston Hill Foundation, Woodridge, NY
Fresh Picked, curated by Gina Occhiogrosso, Arts Center for the Capital Region, Troy, NY
Sonic Fragments, curated by Betsey Biggs, Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, NJ

2007
October Contemporary, Osage Art Foundation, Kwun Tong, Hong Kong
Sounded Text, curated by MR Daniel, Princeton University, NJ

2005
Intersections: Art/Science/Mathematics, curated by Maggie Price, Roland Gibson Gallery, State University of New York at Potsdam, NY
Surface Tension, curated by Brandon Labelle, WPS1/10th Rencontres Internationales Paris, France and Berlin, Germany

2004
Festival New Mix - Electronic Music Foundation/Le Groupe de Recherches Musicales 10th Anniversary, curated by Marc Battier, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France
Music in the Capital District 1900-present, curated by Suzanne Thorpe, Schenectady Museum, Schenectady, NY

2003
Visiting Faculty Group Show, curated by Paul Sattler, Schick Gallery, Skidmore College, NY
s/light, curated by Caz McIntee, Albany Center Galleries, Albany, NY

2002
Resynthesis, curated by Philip von Zweck, Betty Rymer Gallery/Art Institute of Chicago, IL

2001
Cathedral, curated by William Duckworth, Galapagos, Brooklyn, NY
Boston Cyberarts Festival, Mobius Arts Space, Boston, MA

2000
Video Book/ENDS, curated by Pierre Joris, Albany Center Galleries, NY
Halana/Empty Miracle Film and Video Festival, Curated by Ian Nagoski and Chris Rice, Astrocade Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
iEAR, curated by Eric Rosenzveig, Engine 27 Gallery, New York, NY

Scored Works and Group Performance Pieces

2008
bean counting (for Alison Knowles), for beans, amplified metal plate, pipe, porcelain bowls, and electronics, Floating Point Festival, Issue Project Room, Brooklyn, NY
zero point, for Princeton Laptop Orchestra, Sonic Divergence Festival at Pick-Staiger Hall, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL

2007
anticipatory-illumination, for the Beneto Cereno ensemble (amplified objects, accordion, prepared gtr, and electronics), Bowerbird, Philadelphia, PA
planned patterns, co-composition with Olivia Block for prepared piano, amplified paper, amplified drawing, tin toys, and live electronics, Triage @ Elastic Arts Foundation, Chicago, Il
a murmur which redoubles, for Catch guitar quartet and tape, Output Festival, Amsterdam, NL a radiance scored with shadow, for So Percussion (amplified paper, stones, vibraphone, and bass drum), Princeton University, NJ

2006
as the hour jumps to your eyes (4 windows on thalia field), for amplified paper, compressed air, and live electronics, FO(A)RM Festival for Sound and Video, Portland, OR
public distance, for Steve Mackey's House Band (4 castanets, 4 triangles, piano), Princeton University, NJ
a mark in place of acts, for the Manhattan School of Music Tactus Ensemble (flt/picc, Bb Cl, Ob, 2xPerc, vln, vla, vlc, cb), Princeton University, NJ
objects in stillness, for Clogs (gtr, bsn, prc, vla) and tape, Princeton University, NJ
sound scatter, co-composition with Scott Smallwood for Pauline Oliveros with the Princeton Laptop Orchestra, Princeton University, NJ

2005
on first reflection, site-specific composition for Tucker Dulin (tbn), tape, and resonant chamber, San Diego, CA
tracing moving circles, for the BSC (Michael Bullock, double bass; Chris Cooper, prepared guitar; Bhob Rainey, soprano sax; Vic Rawlings, cello; Howard Stelzer, tapes; Liz Tonne; voice), Princeton University, NJ

1998-
2004
opposite poles, for amplified metal, premiered at Deadtech Gallery, Chicago, IL
approaching zero, for amplified glass, premiered at Artemesia Gallery, Chicago, IL
onset-disparieties/time-invariant patterns, for sine-tone oscillators and amplified sound sculptures, premiered at spaceMUSIC II, Church of the Advent, Boston, MA
glottal stop 'ottle rocket, for acoustic bass and electric bass, commissioned by open faucet productions, premiered at Mobius Artist Space, Boston, MA
galvanized, for solo piano, commissioned by Jeong-Yoon Choi, premiered at Kresge Auditorium, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MA

Selected Solo Performances

2009
Barn, Brooklyn, NY
Staalplaat Records, Berlin, Germany
Electronic Church, Berlin, Germany
Das Kleine Field Recordings Festival, Radio Aligre, Paris, France
Live at the 64, Paris (w/ Stephan Moore, Keith Rowe, and Christian Wolff)
Café Oto, London (w/ Benedict Drew and Lee Patterson)
Islington Mill, Manchester, United Kingdom (w/ Benedict Drew and Lee Paterson)

2008
Roulette, New York, NY (w/ Brian Chase, Okkyung Lee, Miya Masoaka, Shoko Nagai, and Marina Rosenfeld) Monkeytown, Brooklyn, NY
Dartmouth University, Hanover, NH
106bldg30, Shortwave, Brooklyn, NY
The Tank, New York, NY
Issue Project Room, Floating Point Festival, Brooklyn, NY (solo, w/ Curtis Bahn, and w/ Princeton Laptop Orchestra)

2007
Sanctuary for Independent Media, Deep Listening Convergence Festival, Troy, NY (w/ Anne Bourne, Kenta Nagai, and Scott Smallwood)
Blockhaus, Cable #13, Nantes, France
Knitting Factory, Histoire Naturelle, New York, NY (w/ Juien Ottavi and Michael Bullock)
Studio Soto, non-event productions, Boston, MA
UPENN-Music Annex, Bowerbird, Philadelphia, PA
Elastic Arts Foundation, Triage, Chicago, IL (solo and w/ Olivia Block)

2006
Geisel Library, University of California - San Diego, CA
Cross Currents Computer Music Festival, Penn State University, PA
Nexus Gallery, Bowerbird, Philadelphia, PA
Issue Project Room, Brooklyn, NY (w/ NY Phonographers)
Gilded Pony Performance Festival, Troy, NY
Schenectady Museum Planetarium, Schenectady, NY

2005
Terrace Club, FFMUP (Free-Form Mash-Up), Princeton, NJ
Atlantic Center for the Arts, Domeworks, New Smyrna Beach, FL
BPM Room, Brooklyn, NY
Issue Project Room, Brooklyn, NY
Arts Center for the Capital Region, Troy, NY

2004
Issue Project Room (w/ NY Phonographers), Brooklyn, NY
Avenue B Public Gardens (w/ NY Phonographers), New York, NY
The Gasholder Building (w/ NY Phonographers), Troy, NY
Theatre Sur la Pavé, Paris, France
Tonic, Subtonic Lounge, New York, NY

2003
MassArt/non-pod, Boston, MA
Remote Lounge, 5:th, New York, NY
Gallery 108, non-event productions, Cambridge, MA
P4, Goodship Productions, Troy, NY

2002
Berwick Research Institute, Boston, MA
Roosevelt Island Visual Art Gallery, Analogic Sensations Festival, New York, NY
Diapason Gallery, New York, NY
The Knitting Factory, Bunker Annex, New York, NY (solo and w/ Michael Schumacher)
Deep Listening Space, Alternating Currents, Kingston, NY
The Flywheel, Easthampton, MA

2001
The Revolving Museum, Boston, MA
Artemesia Gallery, Chicago, IL (solo and w/ Andrea Polli)
The Brickhouse, Chicago, IL (solo and w/ Adam Sonderberg and Fred Lonberg-Holm)
Impulse/Response, Troy, NY
Deadtech Gallery, Chicago, IL
Galapagos, Brooklyn, NY
International Computer Music Conference, Havana, Cuba
The Bookmill, Grist Series, Montague, MA
Institute for Contemporary Art, Autumn Uprising, Boston, MA

Selected Sound for Dance

No change or 'freedom is a psycho-kinetic skill,' with D.D. Dorvillier, performances in New York (Danspace, Dance Theater Workshop), Berlin (Hebbel Am Ufer), Vienna (ImPulsTanz), Moscow (Tseh Festival/Springdance Dialogues), Zagreb, 2005-present

24 x 4 x 4, Movement Research at Judson Church, Spring Festival, New York, NY, 2008

Ringing Rocks, Movement Research at Judson Church, Spring Festival, New York, NY, 2008

Siren, with Nina Hayuma Habulan-Gelladuga, Tomas Belen and Koala Yip, October Contemporary, Osage Arts Foundation, Kwun Tong, Hong Kong, 2007

Praxis, with Stephan Moore for Hélène Lesterlin/ATLAS Dance, The American Living Room Festival, hERE Arts Center, New York, NY, 2007

History & Physical, Jen Mesch Dance Conspiracy, FFMUP (Free-Form Mash-Up), Princeton, NJ, 2007

Discography

2009
"cloud-to-air," in 10-Year Retrospective Catalog, Diapason Gallery for Sound, edited Michael Schumacher (Brooklyn, NY: Diapason Gallery, forthcoming)
"fleeting and massive," in Leonardo Music Journal 19 CD compilation, curated by Pauline Oliveros (forthcoming)
"cassette-walkman played with hand" and "arcade button matrix mixer with feedback," in Nicolas Collins, Handmade Electronic Music: The Art of Hardware Hacking, 2nd edition (London: Routledge, 2009)
a position in equilibrium, Stasisfield, Chicago, IL

2008
"Apple-Box Double" (with Pauline Oliveros), in The San Francisco Tape Music Center: 1960s Counterculture and the Avant-Garde, edited David W. Bernstein (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008)

2005
1 Hour As Something That Didn't Turn Out The Way I Intended It (with Greg Kelley and ensemble), Chocolate Monk, Sussex, UK

2004
my own thousand shatterings, Sedimental Records, Boston, MA
undr, boxMedia, Chicago, IL

2003
"the hidden autonomy of water," in Surface Tension: Problematics of Site, edited Ken Ehrlich and Brandon LaBelle, CD curated by Stephen Vitiello (Los Angeles: Errant Bodies Press, 2003)
masked verticalities, crank satori records, Chicago, IL

2000
some statements (as Nyquist w/ Scott Smallwood and Joel Taylor), Wavelet Records, Troy, NY
dispersions (as Nyquist w/ Scott Smallwood and Joel Taylor), Wavelet Records, Troy, NY

Selected Publications

"eccentricity," SHIFTER 16 "pluripotentialities" (2010)

"out of site, out of time: between personal and architectural history in improvisation," liner notes for Ceremonies to Breathe Upon, Michael Bullock/Andrew Lafkas, Winds Measure Recordings (2010)

"Re-thinking Site: From the Specifc to the Engaged," in Le Quai, 31(Spring 2010)

"a phatic topography: two recent works with sound," in BYPASS Magazine, 2 (Spring 2010)

"cloud-to-air," in 10-Year Retrospective Catalog, Diapason Gallery for Sound, edited Michael Schumacher (Brooklyn, NY: Diapason Gallery, forthcoming 2009)

"bathwater," in The Book of Aural Guilty Pleasures, edited Kim Cascone and Song Ming An (forthcoming 2009)

"Le Corps est une Usine à Sons/The Body is a Sound Factory: Postlude to the Work of Henri Chopin (1922- 2008)," The Open Space Magazine 10 (Fall 2008)

"two duos for rubbing stones on stone (on a poem by gianchinto scelsi)," in Tools of Mind, edited Matthew Marble, FO(A)RM special issue 1 (2007)

"Toward a Post-Phenomenology of Extra-Musical Sound as Compositional Determinant," Leonardo Music Journal 16 "Noises Off: Sound Beyond Music" (2006)

"waterfall," cover drawing from sound, FO(A)RM 4 "(topography)" (2005)

"a dance about emptiness, or: how architects can design nothing into something," 306090 06 "Shifting Infrastructures" (2004)

"silent building, silent mind: essays on sound and architecture," Earshot: The Journal of the UK and Ireland Soundscape Community 3 (2004)

"the hidden autonomy of water," in Surface Tension: Problematics of Site, edited Ken Ehrlich and Brandon LaBelle (Los Angeles: Errant Bodies Press, 2003)

"The Integration of computer-generated sounds and acoustic sources during live in electro-acoustic improvisation" (with Scott Smallwood), Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 110/2692 (2001)

"Interactions among acoustics, digital signal processing, and movement," Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 108/2538 (2000)

Selected Interviews and Reviews

Bijan Rezvani, interview, THIRTEEN/NYC PBS, Spring 2010

Mark Peter Wright, interview, EARROOM, Fall 2009

Rinus Van Alebeek, interview, Staalplaat: Radio-On, July 2009

Jonathan Webb and Ashley Wong, "Sound in Context," a documentary film, Sound and Music, August 2009

Benedict Drew, interview, resonance FM, April 2009

Marc Weidenbaum, "Über-quiet Seth Cluett MP3," disquiet, April 2009

Michael Wilson, "Seth Cluett, Diapason," Artforum, September 2008

Karinne Keithley, "Ringing Rocks," Critical Correspondence, June 2008

Alan Lockwood, "Liberating Sound: Floating Points Plays ISSUE Project Room," Brooklyn Rail, September 2008

Alicia Brooks Waltman, "From chamber music to multimedia installations, Young composers find their own sounds at Princeton," Princeton Alumni Weekly, April 2008

Jenn Joy, "DD Dorvillier's No change or 'freedom is a psycho-kinetic skill,'" in Women & Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory 17/2 (July 2007)

Jennifer Dunning, "Doggedly Slipping Into Jeans as a Microphone Scrapes," New York Times, 29 September 2005

Steve Rybicki "Seth Cluett, My Own Thousand Shatterings," Foxy Digitalis, May 2005

Edwin Pouncey, "Seth Cluett," The Wire: Adventures in Modern Music 254, April 2005

Max Schaefer, "Seth Cluett, My Own Thousand Shatterings," e/i: Music, Electronic and Otherwise 6, March 2005

Stefano I. Bianchi, "Seth Cluett, My Own Thousand Shatterings," Blow-up, January 2005

Frans de Waard, "Seth Cluett," Staalplaat/Vital Weekly 457/2, January 2005

Andrew Culler, "Seth Cluett, My Own Thousand Shatterings," Brainwashed 07I46, November 2004

Susanna Bolle, interview, grooves: experimental electronic music magazine, March 2003

Invited Speaking, Colloquia, and Critiques

"Sound in the History of Sculpture," visiting artist talk and workshop, Art Department, Muhlenberg College, Allentown, Pennsylvania, 2010

"Sound in German and American Artistic Practice: A dialogue," workshop and colloquium, Department of Sound Studies - Akustische Kommunikation, Universitat der Kunste, Berlin, 2009

"Sound at the Seams: Urban and Rural," colloquium, MultiMediaArt, Fachhochschule Salzburg, Austria, 2009

"Auditory tourism," visiting artists talk, Sonic, École Supérieure d'Art de Mulhouse, Mulhouse, France, 2009

"Sound and Image," talk, Science and Technology Studies, New Jersey Institute of Technology, NJ 2009

Young Artist Development Workshop, Kill Your Timid Notion, Dundee, Scotland, UK, 2008

"Sound Art in Documents," workshop and colloquium, Department of Visual Arts, Brown University, RI, 2008

"Sound Art in Documents," colloquium and critique, Department of Creative Writing, University of Pennsylvania, PA, 2007

"Sound Thinking," visiting artist talk, Department of Sound, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 2007

"Perception, Architecture and the Science in Sound Art," visiting artist talk, Gibson Gallery, State University of New York at Potsdam, NY, 2005

Guest Critic, State University of New York at Albany, NY, 2002

Guest Critic, Department of Sound, School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, MA, 2001

Residencies and Workshops

Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music (STEIM) residency, Amsterdam, NL, 2009

Atlantic Center for the Arts residency, New Smyrna Beach, Fl, 2004

Centro Tempo Reale/Carnegie Hall, professional development workshop with Luciano Berio, New York, NY, 1998

Institute de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM) certificate, Paris, France, 1998

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