THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THURSDAY, MARCH 26, 2009
NEWS
ARCTIC ART
9A
Visiting artists to speak about climate change
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
Paul Miller, also known as DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid, describes his music as "classical music meets hip-hop." He will be performing at the Lied Center at 7:30 p.m. on Friday.
DJ Spooky's multimedia performance uses photos, sounds of ice falling in Antarctica
Climate change meets music beats and turntables when DJ Spooky brings a multimedia performance to the Lied Center on Friday evening.
Paul Miller, aka DJ Spooky That Sublime Kid, will perform "Terra Nova: Sinfonia Antarctica" on Friday evening at the Lied Center.
The performance features music matched with field recordings and images from Miller's 2007 trip to Antarctica. Miller combined the sound of ice with his photos of the landscape.
"It's like classical music meets hip-hop," Miller said. "It's a climate change symphony."
A trio of KU students — violinist Kelly Simmons, pianist Nathanela May and cellist Tom Maples — will provide the music for the performance.
May, Janesville, Wis., doctoral student, said it would be his first time performing with sounds that were manipulated live on stage.
"It's not that often that I get to collaborate directly with someone with more mainstream music," May said.
During his time at the University, Miller will also participate in several events on campus, including a book signing this afternoon.
Tim Van Leer, executive director of the Lied Center, said Miller's performance would give students an intellectual and entertaining experience dealing with a contemporary topic.
"As we look to this important issue of global warming, I think students will be interested in how he might bring this scientific matter with his artistic matter to the audience," Van Leer said.
Here's a closer look at DJ Spooky:
Basically the Terra Nova project and Antarctic symphony is a musical meditation on climate change, and what it means to go away from everything you know, everything you're familiar with and see what happens when you're out of your comfort zone. It's a DJ mix applied to cinema. I wrote the score to the piece and am having a string ensemble play the score while I DJ it. My biggest influence for the project is John Cage's piece "Imaginary Landscape" — it's the first composition written for turntables — in 1939. It's 2009 now, so she...
Describe your performance on Friday.
Why did you pick climate change as your "topic" of performance?
The city is an ecosystem. Everyone tends to think that somehow we're separate from nature, and that somehow if we just change our consumer habits, and you know, don't have as much plastic bags et cetera that things will all of a sudden get better. We need massive change to match the way the planet is changing.
Describe your trip to Antarctica.
The whole idea was getting out of your comfort zone. I wanted to go to think about not only the climate issue but to also think about how the city has changed. It's an art piece and I'm an artist. It's a lyrical take on the ice. I went for about four weeks and went to several of the main ice fields. I brought a system to Antarctica and we had to get equipment out there to record the ice.
DJ SPOOKY EVENTS
PRESENTATION
AND BOOK SIGNING
**WHAT:** A presentation featuring DJ Spoody's books "Sound Unbound" and "Rhythm Science." Copies of DJ Spoody's film "Rebirth of a Nation" will also be available for purchase.
**WHEN:** 2:30 p.m. to 4 p.m.
Friday
WHERE: Oread Books on level two of the Kansas Union
COST: Free
COST: Free
"TERRA NOVA:
SINFONIA
ANTRCTICA"
**WHAT:** A multimedia performance featuring music, field recordings and images of Antarctica
**WHERE:** 7:30 p.m. Friday
**WHERE:** Lied Center
**COST:** $12 KU students, $24 adults
CHRIS H'S
BREAKFAST FOR
BEAT LOVERS
What: DJ Spooky will be answering questions, providing music and talking about his Friday appearance.
When: 9 a.m. to noon today
Where: KJHK 90.7 FM or www.kjhk.org
I was never really planning on being a DJ. I majored in macroeconomic policy the first couple of years of university, and then switched to philosophy and French literature.
How did you get involved with music and performing?
1 ended up doing 2 degrees.
Music was basically always a hobby and I never really took it seriously. Basically it's still a hobby, but a globalized and totally bizarre hobby.
It's basically when you press play and there's no one there. I gave myself the name as a sense of humor about music in the 24-hour info-drenched world we all call home.
How did you get the name DJ Spooky That subliminal Kid?
It's an English update of what Sigmund Freud was talking about when he came up with the term "Unheinlich" — uncanny. I took my other nickname "That Subliminal Kid" from William S. Burrough's novel "Nova Express." It's all samples!
— Edited by Carly Halvorson
BY JENNIFER TORLINE jtorline@kansan.com
Two artists — musician Paul Miller, known as DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid, and photographer Stephen Williams — are appearing on campus this week in connection with the Spencer Museum of Art's "Climate
Change at the Poles" exhibit
The two men will appear on a panel discussion on climate change this evening at the Spencer Museum of Art and will be involved with separate events Friday.
"CLIMATE CHANGE AT THE POLES PANEL DISCUSSION"
Here's a look at how a musician and a photojournalist approach climate change.
**WHO:** Paul Miller (DJ Spooky), photojournalist Stephen Williams, photographer Jonathan Chester and Brandon Gillette of PolarTREC and CReSIS.
**WHAT:** Guest speakers share their experiences at the North and South Poles.
**WHEN:** 5 p.m. Thursday
**WHERE:** Spencer Museum of Art
**COST:** Free
Photojournalist discusses work from his book, invites students to share their pictures
When photojournalist Stephen Williams attended the University of Kansas in the 1960s, the Spencer Museum of Art building did not exist yet.
Williams, who has worked for publications such as Life Magazine and National Geographic Magazine, now works as a family therapist in Philadelphia.
Jennifer Talbott, the museum's assistant to the director, said Williams was encouraging students interested in photography to bring some of their work to share during the gallery talk.
Now Williams will return to the University to give a gallery talk on Friday in the art museum, which is featuring some of his photographs in its "Climate Change at the Poles" exhibition.
"He wants to give back to the next generation." Talbott said.
Williams photographs on display in the Climate Change exhibition come from his book, "In the Middle: The Inuit Today." Williams traveled to the Quebec province in the 1970s to take photos of the Inuit people.
"His work background and his schooling background give him a good perspective on how people live and operate," Kate Meyer, the museum's curatorial assistant, said. "That comes through in his observations and his lens."
"My still photography career started at Kansas," said Williams, a 1965 journalism graduate who worked for the yearbook and The University Daily Kansan.
Here's a closer look at Stephen Williams:
Describe your time at the University.
I remember campus being much smaller. Friday nights in the basketball arena taking photographs and then taking classes and doing photography - I was in seventh heaven. I had my first published article in The Daily Kansan. I attended from 1964 to 1965, and that when we had protests and it was a hot political time. It was a pretty intense period at Kansas.
Virtually that time, I learned how to process film and make prints from my classmate Roy Inman. He introduced me to doing photography on the yearbook. The biggest memory I have is I had to produce a 10-minute television film and I chose to interview Gale Sayers. I didn't know what I was doing, but I sure had fun. While I was at KU, I looked at as many Life magazines as I could that had the photographer Eugene Smith in them. He was my mentor without knowing it, and I met him many years later.
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO This photograph, which appears in the Spencer Museum of Art's current exhibition "Climate Change at the Poles," was taken by photojournalist Stephen Williams during a trip to the Quebec province in the 1970s. Students can talk with Williams at 1 p.m. at the Spencer Museum on Friday, during a gallery talk about his work at the North Pole.
Describe your book "In the Middle: The Inuit Today." Why did you decide to write it?
The book came from wanting to visit the north and the Inuit ever since I saw the documentary "Nanook of the North" by Robert Flaherty while I was at KU. I was commissioned to go north with a friend, Charles Kirk, to a village. While I was there, it felt to me that there was the process of assimilation happening in the culture. I traveled there three more times from 1974 to 1979. The book was published in 1984
Why did you become a family therapist?
STEPHEN WILLIAMS EVENT: GALLERY TALK
WHAT: Photojournalist Stephen Williams will discuss his photographs in the "Climate Change at the Poles" exhibition and look over the work of KU students.
WHEN: 1 p.m. Friday
I changed careers. I originally went to college to be a social worker. I went to Temple University and got my degree in psychology. I've been doing narrative family therapy and working for the same group for 17 years. In 2002, I called my publisher out of the blue because my kids had been bugging me to take
WHERE: Spencer Museum of Art, North Balcony
COST: Free
pictures again, and he said I could do a new book if I wanted. I'm back to doing photography. From 2002 to 2004. I photographed the Shaker site in Maine and produced my third book of which I am particularly proud because it is a small book but it turned out well.
How do you see photography and therapy relating to each other?
I have to separate them. I make
my living being a family therapist, but I would prefer doing photographs. I'm trying to do both. In the meantime, I exhibit photographs and I'm represented by Sanford Smith Fine Art. I'm getting recharged to do some more work.
Edited by Carly Halvorsom
KANSAS BASKETBALL
THURSDAY 3/26 @7 P.M. IN ALLEN FIELDHOUSE
Adults $5 / Youth $4
Students admitted FREE with KU ID