Please note this talk will be held at Adam Art Gallery Te Pātaka Toi, Gate 3 Kelburn Parade, Victoria University of Wellington.

Seth Kim-Cohen is interested in the ways new technologies link developments in politics and in art. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, tape recorders and photocopiers transformed the value and meaning of information, making it possible to ‘leak’ documents. US President Richard Nixon is remembered for bugging his own office, with the thought that the tapes could be used as bargaining chips and for blackmail. Unless needed, the tapes were meant to go unlistened to. Kim-Cohen relates this to a work by early conceptual artist Christine Kozlov. In her Information: No Theory (1970) a reel-to-reel tape recorder captures ambient sounds. Equipped with a loop tape, it continually records over previously recorded sounds, erasing that content.

Seth Kim-Cohen is an artist, musician, and writer, and is Associate Professor of Art History, Theory, and Criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He is author of Against Ambience (2013), In The Blink of an Ear: Toward a Non-Cochlear Sonic Art (2009), and One Reason to Live: Conversations About Music (2006).

This talk is presented by City Gallery Wellington in conjunction with Eavesdropping, opening on Saturday 17 August 2019. It is co-hosted by the Adam Art Gallery Te Pātaka Toi, Victoria University. Thanks to Liquid Architecture, Melbourne.