Manual for A Future Desert - Mousse Publishing, Milan

I am thrilled to publish my first book with Mousse, Milan - Manual for A Future Desert, co-edited with Bassam El Baroni & Ida Soulard. Available now. The desert and desertification are concepts with unstable, unfixed definitions that haunt current politics and aesthetics. 

MANUAL FOR A FUTURE DESERT proposes a full-spectrum scanning of the desert and its multiple implications across cultural, technological, political, and ecological concerns. Emerging from an artistic research program conducted in the Chihuahuan Desert of West Texas, this book is a time-space capsule; it collects routes, tools, and understandings on the desert in order to address and act upon issues that shape present and future realities. It is a manual for tapping into the exigency of the desert; it determines the coordinates for finding a future desert without deserting the future.

Edited by Ida Soulard, Abinadi Meza & Bassam El Baroni
Texts by Gloria Anzaldúa, Agency Architecture, Olga Bannova, Bassam El Baroni, Amanda Beech, Antoine Bousquet, Ingrid Burrington, Aaron S. Davidson, Diana K. Davis, Melissa Dubbin, Keller Easterling, Fabien Giraud, Bruce Glasrud, Alfredo Gonzáles-Ruibal, Jonathan R. Harvey, Jeremy Lecomte, Stephanie LeMenager, Abinadi Meza, Laura Huertas Millán, Jason Bahbak Mohaghnegh, Reza Negarestani, Chris Taylor, Ida Solulard

2021
English
368 pages
Softcover, 14 x 22 cm
ISBN 9788867494521
€ 22 / $ 25

Official Selection: Berlin Indie Film Festival

 Glad to show work in the upcoming 2022 Berlin Indie Film Festival

Official Selection, Porto Art Film Festival, 2021

 Official selection in 2021 Porto Art Film Festival "Make Art Not Fear", Portugal (semi-finalist, award competition)

13th Houston Cinema Arts Festival

 

Glad to be showing work in the 2021 Houston Cinema Arts Festival!

Official trailer for Time Crystals, 2021. Color & b/w, sound.

 

Helicotrema Festival, Venice/Prato/Barcelona

Excited to present my new sound work “Ghost Map” in Helicotrema X, the 10th Helicotrema Festival opening next week at Palazzo Grassi, Venice then traveling to Prato & Hangar, Barcelona. Curated by Giulia Morucchio & Blauer Hase.

live performance 8-1-18, Austin

6/21/18: live performance in Texas Noise and Ambience Festival, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston

Thursday June 21, 6:30-8:30pm, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, 5216 Montrose Blvd, Houston, TX 77006

https://camh.org/event/performance-texas-noise-ambience/

Mere Pis (live, Lisbon) at Museum of Arts and Design, New York 9/14/17 - 2/25/18

Mere Pis by Abinadi Meza is featured in Radius: Beacon, a part of the Shaping Space with Sound exhibition at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York. Radius is an experimental radio broadcast platform located in Chicago.

"Radius is realizing itself as a beacon. A fire, a light, a sound — a beacon is an event that is designed to be intentionally conspicuous. As it relays aural and visual signals, it reflexively attracts attention to the transmissions’ source and thus reaffirms its own position in space and time. Radio is inherently a beacon."

Live at the Museum of Human Achievement, Austin, Texas

Abinadi Meza, live at The Museum of Human Achievement. Photo by Scott Nyerges, 2017

Live performance with vinyl, electronic processing, with Mike Vernusky and live video by Dr. Bleep. Organized by Church of the Friendly Ghost, Austin, Texas.

Uma

Concert, La Playa, Houston

Dreep

Live Performance, Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston

Pentagramophone, 5 Lines Drawn in Air (or, Prismatic Music)

The world premiere of my new live performance Pentagramophone, 5 Lines Drawn in Air (or, Prismatic Music) will be on October 2, 2016 at the Texas Contemporary art fair in Houston, Texas. This piece is commissioned by Diverseworks with funding from the Texas Commission on the Arts.

Pentagramophone, 5 Lines Drawn in Air (or, Prismatic Music) involves a live generated text composition and radio performance for five listeners. The performance is inspired by Antonin Artaud’s “50 Drawings to Murder Magic” and engages Artaud’s understanding of magic as a form of “constant communication,” and as a link to rejoin things and words, the poetic and the plastic. Using a live microphone and electronic processing, common and uncommon objects are “opened” as prismatic sonic material. The five listeners wear noise-blocking FM radio headsets to receive the transmission; the pathways between transmitter and listeners draw and redraw invisible lines forming a charged electromagnetic shape in architectural and social space.

listeners with wireless radio receiver headsets

listeners of live FM performance, with radio headsets 

Radiophrenia at Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow

Radiophrenia, Glasgow will be presenting three of my sound works Aug. 30, 31, and Sept 3 on the air at 87.9FM and live from the Centre for Contemporary Arts Glasgow. Supported by Creative Scotland, curated by Mark Vernon and Barry Burns.

Program here: http://radiophrenia.scot/schedule/schedule-list  - listen online here: http://radiophrenia.scot/listen

"Radiophrenia is a temporary art radio station – a two-week exploration into current trends in sound and transmission arts. Broadcasting live from Glasgow’s Centre for Contemporary Arts, the station aims to promote radio as an art form, encouraging challenging and radical new approaches to the medium.”

Helicotrema Festival: Dro, Turin & Venice, Italy

album art for Spirror, by Abinadi Meza

Helicotrema Festival 2016 at Centrale Fies, Dro, Italy

Helicotrema Festival 2016 at Centrale Fies, Dro, Italy

Helicotrema Festival 2016, Italy - featuring sound art and experimental music by Abinadi Meza, Oren Ambarchi, Meris Angioletti, Simona Barbera, Francesco Fonassi, Hassan Khan, Nana April Jun, Olivia Plender, Petri Kuljuntausta, Matteo Nasini, Bernhard Rüdiger, Emeka Ogboh, and others.

Helicotrema 2016 premieres July 28-20 in Dro then travels to Turin on September 23-25, and Venice on October 19.

Curated by curated by Blauer Hase and Giulia Morucchio.

Full program here.

supported by OCA Office for Contemporary Art Norway, RAI Radio 3, and Nero Magazine.

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Helicotrema è un festival che presenta una programmazione di brani audio registrati, e si pone come obiettivo di indagare le possibilità di un ambiente e di una forma di ascolto collettiva, come accadeva nei primi decenni delle trasmissioni radiofoniche.

Il festival, che nelle prime quattro edizioni ha avuto luogo a Venezia, Roma, Milano, Firenze, Bologna, quest’anno avrà una veste itinerante, e toccherà, tra luglio e novembre 2016, diverse città italiane.

La programmazione del festival punterà in particolare a creare occasioni di ascolto site-specific, sperimentando come i brani e l’ascolto possono potenziarsi e adattarsi in diversi contesti.

Vengono proposti una serie di percorsi auditivi in cui si alternano opere sonore, audiodrammi, audioteatro, radiodocumentari, paesaggi sonori, poesia sperimentale e vari formati basati su una componente acustica.
Helicotrema prende in prestito il formato del festival cinematografico, sostituendo alla proiezione filmica un programma di sessioni d’ascolto.

Helicotrema è curato da Blauer Hase e Giulia Mordicchio.

Millenium

"The cultural text already embedded in the word..." (Joel Katelnikoff)

Abinadi Meza
Millenium, 2016
mixed media on panel, 30 x 36 inches

Ice Passing, 2016

Abinadi Meza
Ice Passing, 2016
mixed media on panel, 30 x 40 inches

Conquistador, 2016

Abinadi Meza
Conquistador, 2016
mixed media on panel, 30 x 36 inches

Nocturne

Nocturne R6105 from abinadi meza on Vimeo.

"The third is a nocturne set on the Janiculum hill. The full moon shines on the pines that grow on the hill of the temple of Janus, the double-faced god of doors and gates and of the new year."

Performance, Milan

Live concert Saturday March 14 at O' in Milan. Guitars, resonators, live electronics. With Paula Matthusen and Ron Kuivila.

Abinadi Meza & Paula Matthusen, photo: John V. Maciuika

"Milk Revolution" curated by CURA. (Rome)

Delay in Glass (2015) installation detail. sound, three glass panels, 120 x 150cm.
photo: Artimages Art Photo Agency, Rome

Milk Revolution, curated by Ilaria Marotta and Andrea Baccin for CURA.

Artists: Artie Vierkant, Vanessa Safavi, Bunny Rogers, Alessandro Piangiamore, Abinadi Meza, Cynthia Madansky, Adam Kuby, Corin Hewitt, Elias Hansen, Keith Hennessy, Francesca Grilli, Carin Goldberg, Martino Gamper, Anna Franceschini, Luca Francesconi, Andrea De Stefani, Gabriele De Santis, Tomaso De Luca.


29 January – 1 March, 2015


American Academy in Rome Gallery
Via Angelo Masina 5
00153 Roma

from friday to sunday
from 4pm to 7pm
or by appointment


"When Allen Ginsberg, writer and poet of the Beat Generation, photographed his friend Harry Smith – painter, archivist, anthropologist and film-maker – in 1985 at the Breslin Hotel in Manhattan attempting to turn milk into milk, he portrayed in a concise image an entire generation called to face major changes and struggles, through the subversive gesture of an impossible alchemy. At times, the impact of an artistic action can assume its own revolutionary force, even if only transitory, fleeting, light. According to Bachelard, poets and alchemists are those who translate into images the spell that the image itself casts on the psyche – a spell that becomes stronger with the poets and alchemists’ deepening knowledge of the basic elements that determine moods, and the ability to manipulate, process, transmute them.


Under this reverie of alchemical connections, milk revolution brings together the work of fellows from the American Academy in Rome and that of a selection of non-resident international artists, outlining an unsystematic, anti-narrative, fluid path, an open device, which contravenes the common sense of a concise thought and amalgamates temperaments and moods associated with changes of state, metamorphosis, the temporal span of the work, in an anarchical opposition of elements pitted against approval and control. In the abstract dimension of the exhibition space, the mutant and regressive process acts as a counterpoint to an aestheticized, timeless and suspended ambivalence, probing whims of resistance, autonomy and escape, but also empathy and unpleasantness, fascination and revulsion for the elements."

Surface/Re-surface, at MAXXI, Rome

Saturday, November 22. 6:30pm, Gallery 3

Museo MAXXI

Guido Reni, 4 A
00196 Roma

"Surface/Re-surface" is a collaborative sound art performance by Paula Matthusen and Abinadi Meza at Museo MAXXI, as a part of the Open Museum, Open City program curated by Hou Hanru. 

Supported by Fondazione MAXXI and the American Academy in Rome.

Air, Condition at Blaffer Art Museum

Abinadi Meza: Air, Condition opens August 8, 2014 at Blaffer Art Museum's two exhibition spaces in Houston, Texas. In downtown Houston a two-channel video, four-channel sound installation is installed in former storefront windows at 110 Milam Street. At the Blaffer Museum's main gallery a four-channel sound installation activates windows of the architecture itself.

This project is based on a pirate radio transmissions that explore and intervene in urban space - specifically, the territory of air-space. The broadcasts are transmitted from a moving car, and create temporary glitches in sonic and living space.

Recommended in NY Times
Read more at Blaffer Museum of Art
Featured on "Houston Matters" radio broadcast, 88.7 Houston Public Media

still from Air, Condition (2014) video, sound

still from Air, Condition (2014) video, sound

Air, Condition (Part 1), excerpt from abinadi meza on Vimeo.

The Sky Opens Twice, at Minneapolis Institute of Arts

Installing The Sky Opens Twice at M.I.A. Abinadi Meza, photo by Christopher Atkins, 2014

The Sky Opens Twice (2014) is a three-story, 8 channel sound installation commissioned by the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. The installation extends upwards through three vertical floors of the Target Rotunda designed by Michael Graves. It is exhibited with 6EQUJ5, a video installation by Jennifer Steinkamp.

The Sky Opens Twice was conceived as an "aural film" inspired by Interstellar Radio Messages (IRM's), space mythologies and exploration narratives.

Read Abinadi Meza's interview with curator Christopher Atkins here.

Delay in Glass, in "The Audible Edge" exhibition, Minneapolis

Delay in Glass, 2014. Glass, sound. 30 x 30, installation variable.

Delay in Glass (2014) is included in the exhibition The Audible Edge: Architecture and Sound at Katherine Nash Gallery, Minneapolis May 27 - July 26, 2014. The exhibition includes With Hidden Noise, and ICI production curated by Stephen Vitiello.

Live at 2014 Sonorities Festival, Belfast

Sound check at Sonic Arts Research Centre (SARC). Abinadi Meza, photo by Hyeonmin Ghim 2014.

2014 Sonorities Festival of Contemporary Music, Belfast, Northern Ireland.

April 30: live performance (noise, drones, sensors, oscillators) at SARC (Sonic Arts Research Centre), and radio broadcast on Resonance 104.4fm London.

Other performers include Atau Tanaka, Adam Parkinson, Nic Collins, Jonathan Impett, Sidsel Endressen, Jan Bang, Jean-Claude Risset, Ryo Ikeshiro, David Ikard, Barry Cullen and Dithernoise.

May 3: presentation in 2014 Sonorities Symposium: Remembering & Forgetting, sponsored by Queen's University, Belfast.

Rome Prize, 2014-15

Thank you, American Academy in Rome and National Endowment for the Arts.

Vein of Sky, Houston

Vein of Sky is a weather-based sound installation in Houston, Texas. It is presented by the 2014 CounterCurrent Festival and the Art in the Park centennial celebration at Hermann Park. Vein of Sky was commissioned by the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts.

The installation is made from sonifications of atmospheric dynamics such as light, humidity, temperature, as well as kinetic movements of plants and trees. Vein of Sky will be exhibited through December 2014.

"Listening to Light: A Conversation with Sound Artist Abinadi Meza" by Nancy Wozny.
"When the Earth Talks..." by Joel Luks

"Ghost Station" at MICA, Baltimore

Ghost Station is a nomadic hacking and haunting of Baltimore's airwaves. Urban field recordings are re-broadcast as clandestine FM radio transmissions. Exhibited as a 5 channel radio and video installation at MICA, Baltimore. Curated by Bryan Hempel (Baltimore), with catalogue essay by Michael R. Griffiths (New York).  Opening Saturday, Feb. 22, 6pm at MICA, Gateway Building, 1601 Mt. Royal Ave.

still from Ghost Station, 2014

still from Ghost Station, 2014

Ghost Station, 2014 (Excerpt) from abinadi meza on Vimeo.

Debating the Darkness, NY Arts Magazine

"Debating the Darkness: Talking Film with Abinadi Meza," Interview with Matthew Hassell, NY Arts Magazine: http://www.nyartsmagazine.com/?p=14778

Live Performance at Close Closer, 3rd Lisbon Architecture Triennale

Excerpt from live performance at Close, Closer the 3rd Lisbon Architecture Triennale. Performed with field recordings, custom-built sensors (light, temperature, heat) and custom software.

Mere Pis at 3rd Lisbon Architecture Triennial

A window in Lisbon; sensing microclimates, for Mere Pis

On September 19 Mere Pis launches at Close, Closer the 3rd Lisbon Architecture Triennial, curated by Beatrice Galilee with Liam Young, Mariana Pestana and José Esparza Chong Cuy. Mere Pis is an exploratory sonification of non-human and residual materials of a city (tectonic vibrations, dust, heat, humidity, shadows, insects).

The project includes a live Internet transmission, digital downloads, and two performances at Sinel de Cordes Palace - a formerly-abandoned 18th c. palace now serving as Triennale headquarters.

The title Mere Pis is a simple anagram of the word 'empires,' and conceptually relates to the Merz projects of Kurt Schwitters - compositions made from all kinds of refuse and found materials...the residue/remainder of kommerz...

"Close, Closer, the third edition of the Lisbon Architecture Triennale examines the political, technological, emotional, institutional, and critical forms of global spatial practice." -Triennale statement

Sinel de Cordes Palace, Lisbon

"Grey Ecologies: Sonic Transfers and Monuments" at TransX Symposium, Deep Wireless Festival, Toronto

Abinadi Meza presenting in Trans X: Transmission Art Symposium

Full text here: http://naisa.ca/symposia/trans-x/transx-2013-proceedings/#12

Listen to the presentation here: http://naisa.ca/wp-content/audio/RWB13/12_Transx2013_may20_aft_AbinadiMeza.mp3

May 17-20, 2013. TransX Transmission Art Symposium at 12th Annual Deep Wireless Festival of Radio & Transmission Art, Toronto. With Anna Friz, Tetsuo Kogawa, Steve Bates, Csenge Kolozsvari, Robert Mackay, Alyssa Moxley, Robin Koek, Samwell Freeman, Victoria Estok and many others.

Limited-edition Tape Release at Expo Chicago Contemporary Art Fair, Navy Pier

Fourth of July, limited edition tape series, 2012-13

Fourth of July is a limited-edition tape release at ACRE's special exhibition in the 2013 Expo Chicago Art Fair. Vernissage Thurs. Sept. 19th 6-9pm. Fair hours Sept. 20-22. Navy Pier, 600 E Grand Ave
Chicago, IL 60611.

Folded Sound

Glass, Sound, Space

studio detail, Ruins in Reverse, glass, sound.

Between Plant and Ghost

Archival giclée print from Chaos, Birth of a Star

Archival giclée print from Chaos, Birth of a Star

Archival giclée print from Chaos, Birth of a Star

Sound Sweep: Sonic Territories and Zones of Forgetting

Coverage map of clandestine mobile radio transmissions in Los Angeles. Read more here.

Sheaf of Times, San Francisco

Installation at Yerba Buena Gardens. Sounds of plant-human interactions; sound as interface. Collaboration with Lina Dib, curated by Craig Campbell.

Melencolia

Two channel video installation, sound, custom software. Continuous loop.

Stills from two channel video installation. View excerpt here.