November 4-27, 2011

Opening Reception: First Friday, November 4th, 6-8PM


An audio recording documents a sound happening in a specific time and place. Many factors affect a recording: is the room echoey, what kind of microphone is being used, how far is the mic from the singer’s lips? Once the recording is made, there are an infinite number of ways to further transform, augment, distort, and manipulate (mix) the original. During the month of November, Bill Moriarty will showcase his fascination with curious and remarkable noises, and celebrate the ingenious, historical, and tactile process of creating and manipulating sound.

Bill Moriarty is a mixing artist, recording engineer, sound designer, and record producer. He has worked with such bands as Dr. Dog, Man Man, Hoots & Hellmouth, and American Babies. He has also designed sound for theatrical productions, including Hell Meets Henry Halfway for Pig Iron Theatre Company, for which he won a Barrymore Award. This past March he appeared on a SXSW panel about producing records in the 21st century.

Bill distinctly remembers the first time he played guitar through an echo pedal, producing a sound that was otherworldly and full of immense possibilities. Today, as computer programs make recording and mixing techniques easier and more accessible than ever before, most people never have a chance to experience how physical the process of recording can be. This exhibition gathers both analog and digital equipment that provide a hands-on encounter with sound making and mixing, offering a tangible connection to both the history and future of playing with sounds.

“In September 1940, after seven years of exile, Walter Benjamin crosses the Pyrenees in a desperate attempt to escape the Nazis.

According to the official version, Walter Benjamin did make it across the French-Spanish border successfully. But when he arrived in the Catalan town of Portbou, a sudden change in legislation impeded his entry into Spain and he was obliged to spend the night at a local hotel under the close vigilance of three guards, whose orders were to deport him the following morning.

In utter despair, Benjamin took his own life, swallowing an overdose of morphine. The local doctor, however, declared it a natural death and Benjamin was given a Catholic burial in the municipal cemetery, under a wrong name.
Did the doctor conceal some hidden cause of Benjamin´s death? Was there really a change of legislation? Was Walter Benjamin aware that Portbou was a pro-Franco town virtually occupied by the Nazis?

Who killed Walter Benjami reaches for answers among the suspicious circumstances of his death. Giving at the same time, a portrait of a frontier town anchored between two fronts, constant witness of evasion, persecution and false hopes.

Who killed Walter Benjamin not just a reconstruction of a death but the living portrait of the scene of the crime.”

Watch the trailer below, and register here to watch the entire film online.

Issue 4 of the long awaited Manzine has just arrived at Art in the Age!

A publication focused on the male phenomenon, featuring: grudge walking and polite driving, mountaineering boots, nuclear bunkers, Quincy Jones, pencils, and much more!

The Quarta Edizione is going fast and has already sold out from most vendors, so pick up your copy today!

Daniel Bell was a sociologist and a professor emeritus at Harvard University, best known for his seminal contributions to the study of post-industrialism. Bell, who passed away last month, has been described as “one of the leading American intellectuals of the postwar era.” His three best known works are The End of Ideology, The Coming of Post-Industrial Society and The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism.

Below, Harvard University Press Executive Editor for the Humanities Lindsay Waters remembers how Bell convinced the board of the importance of Walter Benjamin’s work, which resulted in HUP publishing of 3,000 pages of Benjamin’s essays.

The distinguished German publisher Siegfried Unseld (head of Suhrkamp Verlag) came one day from Frankfurt to Cambridge to see Arthur and me to bring me a plan for a comprehensive but nonetheless selective edition of the writings of Walter Benjamin. The list of what Unseld thought needed to be in what would have to be a multi-volume work was extensive. My postmodernist friends, the ones who liked Heidegger, had introduced me to Benjamin. To gather firepower to win the Syndics discussion of the Benjamin, I turned to the then Harvard art historian T.J. Clark, and he wrote a great review of the plans for the edition. But when we got to the Syndics meeting I was overwhelmed by worry. How could the august Syndics approve the publication of volumes of a man Selected Writings whose dissertation at the University of Frankfurt was turned down? Who was this schlemiel Walter Benjamin, the little rag-picker? How could publishing thousands of pages of this slacker-dude’s essays and notebooks be grand enough for Harvard University Press? Before the meeting I’d done no lobbying of the Syndics. At the meeting an inevitable question arose: “OK, he sounds like an impressive critic and thinker, but why do we have to publish thousands of pages of his work?” And Dan answered without a pause: “Because he is a critic, and he’s not a theorist. If he were a theorist, he’d have presented his ideas systematically, and we could publish a well-chosen selection of his work that would represent his thinking beautifully, but he’s a critic, not a theorist, which means his ideas are scattered across all the pages of his work, and the only way to publish his work adequately is to publish hundreds and hundreds of pages of it so readers can see how his ideas emerge as he gets caught up in analyzing hundreds of concrete situations.” Arthur was convinced and the Board was convinced, and we have now published about three thousand pages of Benjamin’s writings, including an edition this spring of his Early Writings, 1910-1917.

If you’d like to experience Walter Benjamin’s work yourself, stop by Art in the Age and check out our selection of Benjamin essays, including the editions from HUP mentioned above.

(via arttattler.com)

We unilaterally advocate that “Jack of All Trades” be revised henceforth to “Henry of All Trades.” Our fave anarchist, Henry David Thoreau…WHAT A GUY. Despite Nathaniel Hawthorne’s less-than-glowing description of the Maine Woods/Walden author (“[He is] ugly as sin, long-nosed, queer-mouthed, and with uncouth and rustic, though courteous manners, corresponding very well with such an exterior. But his ugliness is of an honest and agreeable fashion, and becomes him much better than beauty”), Thoreau’s appearance certainly belied the beauty and breadth of his earthly oeuvre.

The Harvard-educated Concord, Massachusetts native cultivated many projects outside of his experiments in solitary lean-to living, including a pursuit of particular intrigue…PENCIL-MAKING! Henry’s father, John, took up the trade in the 1820′s in their hometown. Many unsuccessful trials in the manufacture of these implements had taken place in the shops of other Concord woodworkers. However, it was Henry who succeeded in creating a high quality medium by mixing graphite with clay to achieve various opacities. He and his father also developed new equipment for assembly and grinding of materials. J. Thoreau pencils were coveted by artists and draftsmen…

…and by us, currently. A bona fide set of these rustic crayons would give a whole new life to standardized testing.

“Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something.” ~HDT

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More quips on transcendental topics and updates on The Tamworth Lyceum project at TAMWORTHLYCEUM.COM

Learn, Make, Do, Print, Dig, Plant, Sow, Show, Write, Climb, Explore

The TAMWORTH LYCEUM would like to extend an opportunity to spend a summer in New Hampshire participating in all of those verbs (in the present tense).

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How to apply…
All applicants must submit a cover letter, CV, artist bio, contact information for three references (include personal and professional contacts), and a portfolio of representative and recent work in PDF format by FEBRUARY 15, 2011. Interviews will be conducted in Philadelphia in early Spring.

Send all application materials & inquiries to Robin McDowell: robin@artintheage.com

(Shoot me an email if you “think you’ll be running late” today. Unlike a small handful of our deceased Transcdendentalist icons, we are not entirely without secular love for our Art in the Age Family)

CLICK HERE FOR ALL THE DETAILS & DOWNLOAD A PROSPECTUS…

An amazing article on conservationist pioneer Aldo Leopold, from the June 1978 article in Backpacker Magazine, is a great primer to Leopold and his “land ethic”.

Be sure to check out Leopold’s influential book, A Sand County Almanac, available at your local library.

(via Cold Splinters)

The Industrial Revolution, or roughly the period of time from 1750-1830, wrought myriad and lasting chances to the infrastructure of both British and American society. National economies, public health sectors, and education systems (to name a few) evolved to accommodate the massive changes wrought by “steam power and new manufacturing technologies.“

A young Friedrich Engels wrote The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 in response to the filth and poverty he witnessed and lived in. In this piece, Engels coined the term “Industrial Revolution”

This panel discussion from BBC sheds light on the social, economic, and political consequences of this epoch on England, while comparing & contrasting the short and long-term effects of early Industry on American society via cultural diffusion.

From BBC…

“Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the far-reaching consequences of the Industrial Revolution.

After more than a century of rapid technological change, and the massive growth of its urban centres, Britain was changed forever. Lifestyles changed as workers moved from agricultural settlements to factory towns: health, housing and labour relations were all affected. But the effects were both social and intellectual, as thinkers originated theories to deal with the new realities of urban living, mass production and a consumer society”

Guests include:

- Jane Humphries Professor of Economic History and Fellow of All Souls College, University of Oxford

- Emma Griffin Senior Lecturer in History at the University of East Anglia

- Lawrence Goldman Fellow and Tutor in History at St Peter’s College, University of Oxford

There are many lifestyle choices that you can make that help out your community and the Earth.

These efforts not only make an impact on the resources, but help out your wallet and well-being.

We also make a strong effort to do our part at AITA, so we are sharing some of the lovely products to help you do the same.

Resolution #4: TO BE MORE GREEN

1. Wally Woolly: One Indoor $49

2. Landreth Seeds: Coral Beauty Zinnia $1.75

3. Sort of Coal: Chikutan Sticks $25

4. Utility: Gardening Apron $44

5. MCMC Fragrance: Garden $35

5. Peg and Awl: Reclaimed Cedar Nesting Boxes $100