No Microphone performance series: A studio practice for the material of presence
Concept, art direction, curation, poster design, copywriting
No Microphone is a performance series held exclusively in Manhattan art spaces that I conceived of and which I promote and curate. On this page are wheat-pasted posters from three of the iterations of the series. Underground performance series in the contemporary art world don’t tend to employ taglines— if they have one it’s nested inside of a mini-essay passed around among networks of people already in the know. I came up with the sentence “a studio practice for the material of presence” at least a year before the series tangibly existed. I held onto it like a spine, repeating the phrase in conversations with New York City curators to get them on board with my idea that artists needed a place to try out untested work in front of an audience, to feel the tension of eyes on what one is doing that makes the actions an actual work of performance. My vision eventually came to life as No Microphone, a series for performance experiments, held in a different Manhattan arts institution each time (because Manhattan needs to pony up and make space for the risk-taking that produces the culture it banks on). It has so far been held at The Kitchen, Hauser & Wirth Books, Participant Inc, and The Poetry Project, and dozens of artists have participated. The mini-essay for the series is below.
No Microphone is an evening of performance experiments; a platform for trying something before exactly knowing what it is. A studio practice for the material of presence, No Microphone aims to provide more access to the luxuries of time, space, and human attention. The series brings artists together across disciplines, scenes, and institutional affiliations, opening up space for psycho-emotional expansion as a direct tactic for surviving/transcending late capitalism and strategizing together towards an uncertain future. Each iteration of the event is held in a different Manhattan location, weaving like a parasite through the landscape of arts institutions and cliques, propagating an atmosphere of possibility and alliance among artists in the city.
