The Arts Center at NYU Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) is hosting the Middle East premiere of DATA NOT FOUND, a multimedia concert by visionary guitarist, composer, and Golden Globe nominee Kaki King. The performance runs from Wednesday, November 13 to Friday, November 15 at 8pm in The Black Box at The Arts Center at NYUAD.
From Brooklyn, New York, one of the world’s greatest living guitarists Kaki King presents the Middle East Premiere of DATA NOT FOUND to Abu Dhabi audiences. The concert is an enthralling high-tech audio-visual journey which seamlessly blends new music, spoken text, projection mapping, and other performative technologies. The captivating audio-visual experience is an enthralling, novel performance experience.
Co-commissioned by The Arts Center at NYUAD, DATA NOT FOUND, explores a broad range of contemporary issues, including big data, artificial intelligence, digital afterlife, and personal empowerment.
DATA NOT FOUND is directed by Annie Dorsen, whose recent project, Infinite Sun (2019), premiered at the Sharjah Biennial 14. Dorsen’s work, which explores the intersection of algorithms and live performance, earned her a 2019 MacArthur Fellowship, often referred to as the “Genius” award. DATA NOT FOUND is a result of an ongoing investigation and collaboration between a talented cast of performers, contributors, and researchers.
Executive Artistic Director of The Arts Center at NYUAD Bill Bragin said, “DATA NOT FOUND pulls together many of The Arts Center’s interests over the past few years: groundbreaking artists who are pushing the boundaries of their artforms, and the intersection of the arts and technology. Kaki King is one of the most amazing acoustic guitarists I’ve seen, but in recent years, she’s become more interested in pushing beyond her virtuosic technique to reimagine the concert form. In this piece, she builds on a previous work, Bruises, to use immersive video to look at the role data increasingly plays in everyday life.“
Bragin further explained, “Following a site visit last year to the Liwa desert to explore the role of sand in relationship to data – think hourglasses or the role of silica in computers – we connected Kaki with NYUAD Digital Humanities professor David Wrisley, who was inspired to design a semester-long course, Quantified Self. Kaki’s visit includes deep engagement in his classroom, sharing her process and inspiration and inspiring student works in response to her approach. It really takes advantage of the interaction of The Arts Center with the academic programs at NYUAD.”
Professor Wrisley further expands, “When I met Kaki and (video designer) Max Bernstein last year on a site visit at NYU Abu Dhabi and they joined my class on digital mapping, a whole new world opened up for me as an educator and a digital humanist. I created the course Quantified Self in response to that visit as a way of exploring how the self-reacts–and what the self can become–in its encounter with data. Incorporating a performance element into teaching digital humanities has opened new windows for me onto exploring the relation of self and all the devices–the digital things–that have permeated our lives.”
The Arts Center’s Off The Stage workshop series will introduce participants to the interactive technologies used in the performance. Two workshops will take place on Wednesday, November 6 at The Arts Center. The first workshop will be hosted by Video Designer and Performer Max Bernstein and will be a hands-on demonstration and tutorial on projection mapping and live video control software, Resolume. The second workshop will be hosted by Sound Designer Chloe Thompson and takes participants through programming and manipulating sound for live performances with Bernstein using Ableton Live.
For more information on the concert, please click here.
The Arts Center at NYUAD is a performing arts center that presents distinguished professional artists from around the world alongside student, faculty, and community productions. Its mission is to become one of Abu Dhabi’s leading performing arts institutions, presenting artists from all over the world and fostering creativity among the UAE community.
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