Photo by Anjelica Jardiel. Courtesy the artist.
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There are ceramic works and aquaria, and what has slowly gained a reputation as the finest manufactory of personal electronic musical instruments in the hemisphere. (The biannual music festival held at Morgre, in which composers come from all over our world to have their works performed, was one of the joys of my adolescence.)
— Marq Dythe describing the city of Morgre, from Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand, Samuel L. Delany, Bantam Books, Paperback, 1985 (p. 112-113)
Artist and engineer Johann Diedrick organizes If the stars align..., an OPEN STUDIOS program inspired by Samuel L. Delany's novel Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand where Delany imagines the Morgre Festival, a gathering where composers traverse vast distances to experience music performed on electronic instruments yet to be invented. In Delany's wider work, from Nova to The Einstein Intersection, we encounter instruments that exist in the realm of the speculative and evocative. Considering such tools that expand our notion of what musical instruments can be and are able to express, Diedrick invites inventive electronic musical practices found on our terrestrial home, inspired by the earthly concerns of our times and our aspirational dreams found floating among the stars, with works in development by Rena Anakwe, Sonic Liberation Devices, and Femi Shonuga-Fleming.
OPEN STUDIOS is a series of work-in-progress showings held regularly throughout the year, organized by guest curators, and serves as an incubator for new work, inviting the public into the artistic process.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Johann Diedrick is an artist and engineer who makes listening rooms, spaces for encountering new sonic possibilities off-the-grid. He works to surface resonant histories of past interactions inscribed in material and embedded in space, peeling back vibratory layers to reveal hidden memories and untold stories. He shares his tools and techniques through listening tours, workshops, and open-source hardware and software. He is the founder of A Quiet Life, a sonic engineering and research studio that designs and builds audio-related software and hardware products. He is currently a 2023-25 Just Tech fellow and recently a 2023-24 Performance AIRspace Resident at Abrons Art Center. He was the Director of Engineering at Somewhere Good, a 2022 Future Imagination Collaboratory Fellow at the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU, a 2022 Wave Farm artist-in-residence, a 2021 Mozilla Creative Media Award recipient, a 2020 Pioneer Works Technology resident, a community member of NEW INC, and an adjunct professor at NYU’s ITP program. His work has been featured in Wire Magazine, Musicworks Magazine, and presented internationally at the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum, MoMA PS1, Dia Art Foundation, NYC Parks Department, the New Museum, Ars Electronica, Science Gallery Dublin, Somerset House, and multiple New Interfaces for Musical Expression conferences, among others.