Sep 18 2024
Energies Symposium | Energy in Art with Caroline A. Jones and Jad Atoui
Wed | 6PM
SI is pleased to present the first chapter of the Energies Symposium, a series of lectures, panels, performances, and film screenings that address ecological, social, and geopolitical dimensions of energy, historically and today, while highlighting the power of community-driven infrastructural solutions.
Charting the intersections of energy and artistic practice, this first chapter will begin with an introduction by SI director Stefanie Hessler on the varied thematic concerns of the Energies exhibition. This will be followed with a lecture by art historian Caroline A. Jones that provides a comparative analysis on energy and entropy between Robert Smithson’s site-specific projects and the self-organizing community efforts in the East Village in the 1970s. The evening will conclude with a sonic performance, “Synergies,” by sound artist and improviser Jad Atoui, who explores the fluidity of memory and connections between energy and the natural world through modified hard disks, water, wind and acoustic resonance.
Please RSVP to rsvp@swissinstitute.net.
Caroline A. Jones is Allen Professor in the History, Theory, Criticism section of the Department of Architecture, also serving as Associate Dean for Strategic Initiatives in the School of Architecture and Planning at MIT. She studies modern and contemporary art, with a particular focus on its technological modes of production, distribution, and reception, and on its interface with sciences such as physics, neuroscience, and biology. Her essays on modern and contemporary art have appeared in journals ranging from Artforum to Critical Inquiry to Science in Context; she is solo author of several books and exhibition catalogues, and a co-editor of volumes that examine technology and the senses, art and neuroscience, and art history and history of science as parallel inquiries. Collaborative work with historian of science and physicist Peter L. Galison will culminate in a book on scientific and viral images of environmental harm, titled Invisibilities: Seeing and Unseeing the Anthropocene (forthcoming with Zone Books at Princeton University press). Her research has been supported with fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Humanities Center, the Institute for Advanced Studies, the Radcliffe Institute, the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, the Max Planck Institute, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Social Science Research Council, and other foundations interested in interdisciplinary inquiry emerging from art history. Currently researching biologically-active art forms, she co-curated the exhibition Symbionts: Contemporary Artists and the Biosphere, October 2022, which is accompanied by a publication from MIT Press. Her co-authored paper on Generative AI will be released in 2024.
Jad Atoui, a Beirut-based sound artist and improviser, explores various sonic creative practices including live performance, composition, installations, and workshops. His focus on electronic and electro-acoustic music is shaped by his experiences in New York’s avant-garde scene, where he acquired improvisational techniques while working at The Stone at the New School, New York, and The Guggenheim Museum, New York. Atoui has created commissioned sound compositions for ensembles and institutions such as Yarn/Wire, Distractfold Ensemble, and The Riyadh Biennial. Beyond performance and composition, Atoui is dedicated to amplifying material and creating instruments within the realms of installation art, commissioned compositions, and educational workshops. His work has been featured at institutions including e-flux, New York, Cafe Oto, London, The Flag Foundation, New York, Sharjah Art Foundation, UAE, and Beirut Art Center, Beirut.
The Energies Symposium is made possible in part through support from the Terra Foundation for American Art.
Image: Jad Atoui, Vibrant Pools, Irtijal Festival 2024. Photo by Malek Hosni.