Public Installations and Performances
(Juried and Grant Funded)
Endlessly Repeating Endlessly (2015)
Artists:
Michael Gallope, Shawn Ballarin, Josh Gumiela, Jason McGrath,
Aaron McKain, Matt Sumera, Travis Workman
Location:
Northern Spark Arts Festival. Minneapolis, MN. June 2015.
Description:
Endlessly Repeating Endlessly (ERE) is a study of “repetition in change” and “change in repetition” realized through the mediums of popular and experimental music. Informed by 1960s American minimalism, 1970s German Kosmische Musik, and a variety of trance-music performance traditions (from Brekete ritual performance to the Balinese Barong dance), ERE explores the paradoxes of expansion/contraction and propulsion/stasis at the heart of musical repetition. Through a commitment to gradual development centered in ostinatos, textural and timbral exploration, and multi-linear organization, ERE seeks to engender moments of deep listening among both its performers and audience members. Ultimately, ERE is an attempt to develop a musical corollary to Zeno’s Arrow Paradox, summarized in Aristotle’s Physics: “If everything when it occupies an equal space is at rest, and if that which is in locomotion is always occupying such a space at any moment, the flying arrow is therefore motionless."
dronesTruck (2015-2016)
Artists:
Josh Gumiela, Aaron McKain, Digital Media Arts/Public Advocacy Students,
International Sound Artists
Locations/Public Exhibitions:
"Have You Seen Our dronesTruck?" Hamline Midway Arts Festival. June 2015.
"Operation: Scarewaves." Saint Paul, Minnesota. October 2015
"Operation: Como Park." Saint Paul, Minnesota. May 2016.
Sonance (2017)
Description (from the student Facebook page):
"dronesTruck was a collaboration between Hamline University’s Digital Media Arts and English Departments, serving as an aesthetic advocacy tool to connect curriculum to community.
Events created accessible public forums to advocate for sound art and artists who were exploring the ways in which sound tells us about our environment. Public displays catalyzed community discussion on advancing the medium of sound art and focused on both digital ethics and the scientifically understudied world of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Our 2016 "Operation: Como Park" exhibit featured sound artists from thirteen countries, demonstrating the growing international recognition of sound as a vibrant artistic medium and valuable tool of environmental inquiry and advocacy."
Artists:
Josh Gumiela, Aaron McKain, Jason McGrath, Matt Sumera
Locations/Public Exhibitions:
University of Minnesota. Institute on the Environment.
Minneapolis, MN. October 2017.
Description:
Soundtrack/sound art piece for documentary
on the environmental consequences of noise.
Invited Academic Performances/Exhibits
Ma l'amor mio non muore (Love Everlasting) (2016)
Artists:
Michael Gallope, Jason McGrath, Aaron McKain,
Matt Sumera, and Travis Workman
Locations/Public Exhibitions:
8th Annual Italian Film Festival.
Minneapolis, MN. February 2016.
Moderator:
Maggie Hennefeld, Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature,
University of Minnesota
Description:
Widely regarded as one of the greatest Italian silent films of all-time, Ma l’amor mio non muore is also the first “diva” film—a movie featuring a central performance by an actress using an exaggerated operatic style. This intense and entertaining mixture of melodrama, action, tragedy, and romance, involving spies, double-cross, suicide, and everlasting love stars the captivating Lydia Borelli, and will leave you spellbound.
In keeping with the style of the finest silent films, the Italian Cultural Center has
brought in acclaimed avant-garde band Sun Silo to perform live during the screening. Don’t miss this rare film!
How to Write a Poem that Costs You $175k (2017)
Artists:
Aaron McKain with Josh Gumiela, Jason McGrath, Matt Sumera
Publication and Award:
Missouri Review Miller Audio Prize 2017 (Runner-up)
Description:
Spoken word medical narrative with soundtrack
Made Actual Through Pain & This I Believe (2009)
Artists:
(MATP): Michael Harker, Cormac Sleven, Aaron McKain
(TIB): Aaron McKain
Published in:
Reading and Writing New Media
(Hampton Press, 2009)
Description:
(MATP): Video essay and soundtrack on the cultural
politics of tattoos as a literacy practice.
(TIB): Audio essay and soundtrack on the narrative basis of belief and ideology.