DJ SPOOKY AT EARTH DAY 2009, WASHINGTON, DC
PHOTO BY LYLE ASHTON HARRIS
PHOTO BY TAMAR LEVINE
PHOTO BY RICHARD AVEDON
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Paul D. Miller aka DJ SPOOKY That Subliminal Kid is a composer, multimedia artist and writer. His written work has appeared in The Village Voice, The Source, Artforum and The Wire amongst other publications. Miller's work as a media artist has appeared in a wide variety of contexts such as the Whitney Biennial; The Venice Biennial for Architecture (2000); the Ludwig Museum in Cologne, Germany; Kunsthalle, Vienna; The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh and many other museums and galleries. His work New York Is Now has been exhibited in the Africa Pavilion of the 52 Venice Biennial 2007, and the Miami/Art Basel fair of 2007. Miller's first collection of essays, entitled Rhythm Science came out on MIT Press 2004. His book Sound Unbound, an anthology of writings on electronic music and digital media is a best selling title for MIT Press.
Miller's deep interest in reggae and dub has resulted in a series of compilations, remixes and collections of material from the vaults of the legendary Jamaican label, Trojan Records. Other releases include Optometry (2002), a jazz project featuring some of the best players in the downtown NYC jazz scene, and Dubtometry (2003) featuring Lee 'Scratch' Perry and Mad Professor. Another of Miller's collaborations, Drums of Death, features Dave Lombardo of Slayer and Chuck D of Public Enemy among others. He also produced material on Yoko Ono's recent album Yes, I'm a Witch.
DJ Spooky's Rebirth of a Nation was commissioned in 2004 by the Lincoln Center Festival; Spoleto Festival USA; Weiner 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 2008.
DJ Spooky's multimedia performance piece Terra Nova: Sinfonia Antarctica was commissioned by BAM for the 2009 Next Wave Festival; The Hopkins Center/Dartmouth College; UCSB Arts & Lectures; Melbourne International Arts Festival; and the Festival dei 2 Mondi in Spoleto, Italy. With video projections and a score composed by DJ Spooky, performed by a piano quartet, Terra Nova: Sinfornia Antarctica is a portrait of a rapidly transforming continent.
In August 2009, DJ Spooky visited the Republic of Nauru in the Micronesian South Pacific to do research and gather material for The Nauru Elegies: A Portrait in Sound and Hypsographic Architecture., a collaboration with artist/architect Annie Kwon, first presented at Experimenta in Melbourne, Australia in February 2010. In January 2010. Miller was commissioned by German radio to write the composition “Terra Nullius”.
In 2011, Miller released a graphic design project exploring the impact of climate change on Antarctica through the prism of digital media and contemporary music compositions that explored the idea of "acoustic portraits" of Antarctica entitled "The Book of Ice" (Thames and Hudson/Mark Batty Publisher). The Book of Ice is includes an introduction by best selling author and quantum physicist Brian Greene, author, The Elegant Universe. The Book of Ice is a multi-media installation, a music composition for string quartet, and a book, and it has been included in the 2011 Gwangju Biennial, by Korean architect Seung H-Sang and Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei.
Miller is currently a contributing editor to C-Theory and the Arts Editor of Origin Magazine, which focuses on the intersection of art, yoga and new ideas.
www.originmagazine.com
“DJ Spooky cannot be called just a DJ. He is a very accomplished composer. But these days, DJ's are the ones who are bringing fresh sounds to the music world. In fact, they are creating a new spatial music. They are the space transformers of the universe.”
– Yoko Ono in Origin Magazine, Nov/Dec. 2011
“DJ Spooky's new project is the result of an artist literally driven to the end of the earth to investigate a cause of alarm and wonder, and to report back to us in the comforts of a theater.”
– Josef Woodard/Santa Barbara News-Press (review of Terra Nova)
“The Secret Song is the welcome return to recording by one of its most mercurially intelligent musicmakers. It may also be the only concept recording of the 21st century that can be considered crucial listening.”
– All Music Guide, Oct. 7, 2009
“Talk to 35-year-old New Yorker Paul D Miller for too long and you start to feel like a dimwit. This man is as brainy as a Mensa meeting, sharp as Zorro's sword, funny as Falstaff. He is Einstein with a better haircut, a streetwise black Tolstoy, a revved-up renaissance man for the digital age, obsessed with art, information and digital technology.”
- Grant Smithies – Sunday Star Times – Aukland, NZ Nov. 6. 2005
“DJ SPOOKY. Arguably no one is more responsible for propagating and embodying the idea of the deejay as "artist" than DJ Spooky, whose ambitious, elaborate, often hypnotic soundscapes have been notable as much for their eclectic imagination as for their post-modern intellectualism. Both those qualities pervade Spooky's latest collection, "Dubtometry" (Thirsty Ear), which reconfigures and remixes recent deejay-jazz collaborations with jagged breakbeats and hallucinatory dub effects courtesy of the Mad Professor and Lee Perry.”
- Chicago Tribune, 2/13/04
// Paul D. Miller Biography [doc]
// Short Bios and Quotes [doc]
// German Interview on CHiLLi.cc // Italian Interview with Donata Marletta from Digicult

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