Museum Work
American Museum of Natural History
"The Power of Poison" is a globally touring immersive science installation designed by the American Museum of Natural History. From its evolution as a predatory defense to its use as both a mythic source of strength and a cornerstone of modern medicine, the exhibit explores poison’s paradoxical roles in nature, human health and history, literature, and myth.
I served on the fabrication team for the exhibition’s centerpiece: a 200-foot-long recreation of Colombia's Chocó Rainforest, and oversaw the production of 3,500 hand-painted, vacuum-formed polyethylene fronds. I repeatedly cite this as one of the coolest jobs I’ve ever had.
Center for New Music, SF
From 2019 to 2023, alongside Bart Hopkin and Bryan Day, I co-curated the Window Gallery at the Center for New Music in San Francisco. I organized and installed six major exhibitions that showcased novel musical gizmos and the craftsmanship of international instrument builders.
Among the many wonderful artists whose work I got to curate include The Hub, Reed Ghazala, Alison Knowles, Aisha Loe, Maggi Payne, Don Buchla, Paul Dresher, Tom Nunn, Laetitia Sonami, Roscoe Mitchell, Victoria Shen, Fred Frith, and Sudhu Tewari.
New Museum, NYC
Cotton Candy Theremin is a spinning performance at the intersection of food, design, performance and technology. Developed by Philip Sierzega and Emilie Baltz, Cotton Candy Theremin remixes the interface of making cotton candy by transforming your hand motions into a reactive, interactive musical score. By spinning a cotton candy cone over wisps of candy floss, guests trigger sounds and visuals projected onto a giant planetarium dome. And it’s delicious.
A team of technicians, composers, and producers at the creative audio studio Antfood, both composed the music and developed a custom-built interface that allowed visitors to dynamically control the track. "Cotton Candy Theremin" premiered at New York's Red Bull Space as a part of The New Museum's NEW INC incubator in July 2015. It was additionally featured in Panorama Music Festival's "The Lab" in July 2016.
The audio controls are programmed in Max, which interpret hand motion via ten sensors surrounding the machine. The Max program translates and scales OSC data (via UDP) to specific audio controls in Ableton Live, including frequency modulation, beat repeat, and "one-shot" sample triggers.
Museum of Communication, Bern
I had the pleasure of working with one of my favorite animators—Nina Christen of Team Tumult—to sound design a series of shorts for the Museum für Kommunikation Bern, Switzerland.
The project, made back in 2018, explored a whimsical, sci-fi premise in which "Big Data" is used to invasively follow you around the internet. Fortunately, humanity dodged that particular bullet, and this remains a fun exercise in high-concept fantasy.
