R. Luke DuBois

Last updated

R. Luke DuBois
Lukedubois.jpg
R. Luke DuBois in front of the RCA Mark II Synthesizer, 2006.
Background information
Birth nameR. Luke DuBois
Born (1975-09-10) 10 September 1975 (age 49)
Morristown, New Jersey, United States
Genres Experimental, Contemporary classical, Improvised music, Electronica, Ambient, Computer Music
Occupation(s)Composer, musician, producer, multi-instrumentalist, New Media artist
Instrument(s) Analog synthesizer, laptop, bass guitar, electric guitar
Years active1990s–present
Labels Caipirinha / Sire, Liquid Sky, Nonesuch, Cantaloupe Music, Cycling '74, Innova
Website lukedubois.com

Roger Luke DuBois (born 10 September 1975) is an American composer, performer, conceptual new media artist, programmer, record producer and pedagogue based in New York City.

Contents

Early life

DuBois was born in Morristown, New Jersey, United States, moving at age 11 to the UK, where he attended the American School in London, [1] before moving to New York City in 1993 to attend Columbia University. DuBois holds a master's (1999) and a doctorate (2003) in music composition from Columbia (studying primarily with Fred Lerdahl and Jonathan Kramer), and worked as a staff researcher at Columbia's Computer Music Center until 2008.

Academic career

DuBois has taught interactive music and video performance at a number of institutions, including Columbia, Princeton University, the School of Visual Arts, and the Music Technology and interactive telecommunications programs at New York University. In 2008 he began teaching as a full-time professor at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering, where he currently serves as co-director of the Integrated Digital Media program and director of the Brooklyn Experimental Media Center; his academic position consists of a triple appointment between the Engineering School, Music Technology, and ITP. As a graduate student at Columbia he was a contributor to Real-Time Cmix. Since 2000 he has worked for Cycling '74 on Max/MSP/Jitter.

Collaborations

DuBois has collaborated with a wide range of artists and musicians, including Elliott Sharp, Paul D. Miller, Todd Reynolds, Toni Dove, Chris Mann, Michael Joaquin Grey, Matthew Ritchie, Eric Singer, Bora Yoon, and Leroy Jenkins. He was a founding member of the Freight Elevator Quartet, and has produced records for Bang on a Can composer Michael Gordon on the Nonesuch label. His music integrates real-time performer-computer interaction with algorithmic methodologies repurposed from other fields, most notably formal grammars such as L-systems. His research into issues of musical time revolves around a technique called time-lapse phonography, as used in his piece Billboard. [2] His instrumental writing, like his artwork, is often based on techniques derived from stochastic music and data mining, using metaphors and information from cultural topics as source material in a postmodern style, as in the string quartet Hard Data, a six-movement sonification that, while its musical structure is based on the casualty stream of the Iraq War, borrows heavily from the instrumental writing of Stravinsky, Messiaen, Xenakis, and Crumb. [3]

Conceptual artist

As a conceptual artist, DuBois takes on various topics in American culture and places them under a computational microscope to raise issues relevant to information theory, perception of time, canonicity, and gaze. For example, his trio of pieces on gestalt media, Academy, Billboard, and Play, look at three iconic cultural "canons" in American popular culture (the Academy Awards, the Billboard Hot 100, and Playboy magazine's Playmate of the Month). [4] His piece Hindsight is Always 20/20, based on a statistical analysis of presidential State of the Union addresses, uses computational means as a lens into the politics of political rhetoric. [5] Fashionably Late for the Relationship, his feature-length collaboration with performance artist Lián Amaris, uses the radical time-compression of a 72-hour film of a performance to deconstruct romantic obsession. [6] For his large-scale artwork A More Perfect Union, DuBois joined 21 different online dating sites and constructed a census of the United States based on an analysis of the profiles of 19 million single Americans; shown as a series of colored and relabeled maps, the work investigates the lexicon of American self-identity in the 21st century. [7]

Art and exhibitions

His work is represented by bitforms gallery in New York City, and has been exhibited worldwide, including at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and the 2008 Democratic National Convention. In January 2014 R. Luke DuBois—Now opened at the Ringling Museum of Art. This first solo museum exhibition, [8] organized by curator Matthew McLendon, surveyed DuBois's output over the previous decade, and included performance, video, public installation, and generative works. [9] The exhibition went on to the Orange County Museum of Art the following year and the Bowdoin College Museum of Art in 2016. In December 2016 Hyperallergic named R. Luke DuBois—Now one of the top 15 exhibitions in the United States. [10]

Before becoming a well-known Laptop musician, DuBois did most of his improvisation and performance on Buchla and Serge modular synthesizers.

Awards and recognition

In 2013 DuBois was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters by Goucher College. [11] He was named the inaugural artist for the Times Square Residency at the CrossRoads Program [12] in 2015 and was a speaker for TED 2016. [13] In 2018 the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum commissioned DuBois and Zach Lieberman to represent the United States in the London Design Biennale. The projects developed for that exhibition, Face Values, received the jury medal for "most inspiring interpretation of the 2018 theme". [14]

Personal life

DuBois is the younger brother of photographer Doug DuBois.

Notable works

Discography

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Evan Ziporyn</span> American composer

Evan Ziporyn is an American composer of post-minimalist music with a cross-cultural orientation, drawing equally from classical music, avant-garde, various world music traditions, and jazz. Ziporyn has composed for a wide range of ensembles, including symphony orchestras, wind ensembles, many types of chamber groups, and solo works, sometimes involving electronics. Balinese gamelan, for which he has composed numerous works, has compositions. He is known for his solo performances on clarinet and bass clarinet; additionally, Ziporyn plays gender wayang and other Balinese instruments, saxophones, piano & keyboards, EWI, and Shona mbira.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Freight Elevator Quartet</span>

The Freight Elevator Quartet (FEQ) were a music performance group specializing in improvised electronic music active in and around New York City. They performed and recorded continuously from 1996 to 2003, and collaborated extensively with experimental music artists such as DJ Spooky and Elliott Sharp, and avant-garde videographer Mark McNamara.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elliott Sharp</span> American composer and musician

Elliott Sharp is an American contemporary classical composer, multi-instrumentalist, performer, author, and visual artist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gary Burton</span> American vibraphonist

Gary Burton is an American jazz vibraphonist, composer, and educator. Burton developed a pianistic style of four-mallet technique as an alternative to the prevailing two-mallet technique. This approach caused him to be heralded as an innovator, and his sound and technique are widely imitated. He is also known for pioneering fusion jazz and popularizing the duet format in jazz, as well as being a major figure in music education from his 30 years teaching at the Berklee College of Music.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Luther Adams</span> American composer (born 1953)

John Luther Adams is an American composer whose music is inspired by nature, especially the landscapes of Alaska, where he lived from 1978 to 2014. His orchestral work Become Ocean was awarded the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Music.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Lang (composer)</span> American composer

David Lang is an American composer living in New York City. Co-founder of the musical collective Bang on a Can, he was awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Music for The Little Match Girl Passion, which went on to win a 2010 Grammy Award for Best Small Ensemble Performance by Paul Hillier and Theatre of Voices. Lang was nominated for an Academy Award for "Simple Song #3" from the film Youth.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Gordon (composer)</span> American composer

Michael Gordon is an American composer and co-founder of the Bang on a Can music collective and festival. He grew up in Nicaragua.

Ethel is a New York based string quartet that was co-founded in 1998 by Ralph Farris, viola; Dorothy Lawson, cello; Todd Reynolds, violin; and Mary Rowell, violin. Unlike most string quartets, Ethel plays with amplification and integrates improvisation into its performances. The group's current membership includes violinists Kip Jones and Corin Lee.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marcinelle</span> Former municipality of Belgium in Wallonia

Marcinelle is a town of Wallonia and a district of the municipality of Charleroi, located in the province of Hainaut, Belgium.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pamela Z</span> American singer

Pamela Z is an American composer, performer, and media artist best known for her solo works for voice with electronic processing. In performance, she combines various vocal sounds including operatic bel canto, experimental extended techniques and spoken word, with samples and sounds generated by manipulating found objects. Z's musical aesthetic is one of sonic accretion, and she typically processes her voice in real time through the software program Max on a MacBook Pro as a means of layering, looping, and altering her live vocal sound. Her performance work often includes video projections and special controllers with sensors that allow her to use physical gestures to manipulate the sound and projected media.

Daniel Rozin is an Israeli-American artist working in the area of interactive digital art. As an interactive artist Rozin creates installations and sculptures that have the unique ability to change and respond to the presence and point of view of the viewer. In many cases the viewer becomes the contents of the piece and in others the viewer is invited to take an active role in the creation of the piece.

WBAR is the campus radio station of Barnard College in New York City. Currently streaming online-only, WBAR was developed as a freeform alternative to WKCR-FM on the Columbia University campus. In addition to an eclectic array of shows, WBAR hosts several live concerts per year in Morningside Heights, including the WBAR-B-Q, a free, all-ages, day-long showcase of bands and food, as well as a Winter Formal concert event in December. Recent performers have included Palehound, Japanese Breakfast, Sammus, Ravyn Lenae, and more.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Casey Reas</span> American artist

Casey Edwin Barker Reas, also known as C. E. B. Reas or Casey Reas, is an American artist whose conceptual, procedural and minimal artworks explore ideas through the contemporary lens of software. Reas is perhaps best known for having created, with Ben Fry, the Processing programming language.

Alexandra du Bois is an American composer, violinist and educator who has received international critical acclaim for her chamber, orchestral and vocal compositions. She currently lives in New York and Vermont.

Beryl Korot is an American visual artist. Her practice includes video installation, weaving, paper tapestries, digital embroidery, and drawings.

Sanford Biggers is an American interdisciplinary artist who works in film and video, installation, sculpture, music, and performance. A Los Angeles native, he has lived and worked in New York City since 1999.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art</span> Art museum in Sarasota, Florida, US

The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art is the official state art museum of Florida, located in Sarasota, Florida. It was established in 1927 as the legacy of Mable Burton Ringling and John Ringling for the people of Florida. Florida State University assumed governance of the museum in 2000.

Jonathan Monaghan is a contemporary visual artist who creates Post-Internet video art.

Zimoun is a Swiss artist who lives and works in Bern, Switzerland. As self-taught artist, he is most known for his sound sculptures, sound architectures and installation art that combine raw, industrial materials such as cardboard boxes, plastic bags, or old furniture, with mechanical elements such as dc-motors, wires, microphones, speakers and ventilators.

Matthew McLendon is an American museum director, art historian, and curator of modern and contemporary art. McLendon serves as Director and CEO of the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio, Texas.

References

  1. Marsha Vdovin (2007). "A Video and Text Interview with Luke DuBois, educator and musician". Cycling'74. Retrieved 4 February 2013.
  2. Alexander Gelfand (2007). "The Sounds of Science". The Walrus. Archived from the original on 22 November 2011. Retrieved 18 June 2011.
  3. R. Luke DuBois (2008). "Hard Data" (PDF). Program Note. Retrieved 11 April 2011.[ permanent dead link ]
  4. Interview (2006). "Sundance Features". The Reeler. Retrieved 23 January 2008.
  5. The UnConvention Blog (2008). "Hindsight is Always 20/20". The UnConvention. Retrieved 23 January 2008.
  6. Campbell Robertson (9 July 2007). "She's Got a Date and Only 72 Hours to Prepare". The New York Times. Retrieved 23 January 2008.
  7. Eric Molinsky (8 April 2011). "A More Perfect Union". Studio 360 / Public Radio International. Retrieved 9 April 2011.
  8. Ringling Museum (5 May 2014). "R. Luke DuBois – Now". Ringling Museum. Retrieved 1 April 2016.
  9. Hilarie M. Sheets (9 January 2014). "Portraits from Clips and Bytes". The New York Times. Retrieved 1 April 2016.
  10. Vartanian, Hrag (29 December 2016). "Best of 2016: Our Top 15 Exhibitions Across the United States". Hyperallergic. Retrieved 9 January 2017.
  11. "2013 Graduate Programs Commencement". Goucher College. 4 August 2013. Retrieved 18 September 2013.
  12. Times Square Arts (15 May 2015). "Bringing Artists Back to Times Square". Times Square Alliance. Retrieved 1 April 2016.
  13. "R. Luke DuBois". ted.com. Retrieved 19 May 2016.
  14. Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum (4 September 2018). "COOPER HEWITT, SMITHSONIAN DESIGN MUSEUM RECEIVES LONDON DESIGN BIENNALE 2018 EMOTIONAL STATES MEDAL". Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum. Retrieved 5 August 2020.
  15. "Fashionably Late for the Relationship". Fashionably Late for the Relationship. Retrieved 31 October 2012.
  16. "HINDSIGHT IS ALWAYS 20/20". HINDSIGHT IS ALWAYS 20/20. Retrieved 31 October 2012.
  17. "harddata". Turbulence.org. Archived from the original on 18 October 2012. Retrieved 31 October 2012.
  18. "Archive-it Wayback".
  19. "Moments Of Inertia". Turbulence.org. Archived from the original on 18 October 2012. Retrieved 31 October 2012.
  20. "A More Perfect Union". Perfect.lukedubois.com. Archived from the original on 17 September 2012. Retrieved 31 October 2012.
  21. "The Marigny Parade". The Marigny Parade. Archived from the original on 31 August 2012. Retrieved 31 October 2012.
  22. from R. Luke DuBois Plus 5 months ago (3 May 2012). "Vertical Music on Vimeo" . Retrieved 31 October 2012 via Vimeo.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  23. "Learning Machine #1: Values". project page on the Bitforms Gallery website. Retrieved 20 October 2018.
  24. "Learning Machine #2: Image". project page on the Bitforms Gallery website. Retrieved 20 October 2018.
  25. "Learning Machine #3: Sound". project page on the Bitforms Gallery website. Retrieved 20 October 2018.
  26. "Learning Machine #4: Language". project page on the Bitforms Gallery website. Retrieved 20 October 2018.
  27. "Learning Machine #5: Symbols". project page on the Bitforms Gallery website. Retrieved 20 October 2018.
  28. "The Choice Is Yours: Exit Poll". project page on the Bitforms Gallery website. Retrieved 20 October 2018.