Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art presents the 7th annual MediaLive, a new media festival bringing together art, technology, and digital culture. MediaLive consists of a month-long exhibition of media installations as well as digital performances, workshops, and events by contemporary artists and thinkers working internationally in media art. MediaLive also serves as the Arts Track for Boulder Startup Week, an event that brings together technologists from across the US.

MediaLive 2019: Subterranean
Extraction of material resources on a mass scale, secretive government actions, and decisions made by Artificial Intelligence (AI) — we are immersed in a world of activities that take place undercover and underground. Technology inevitably makes its way into every part of this story, made of and disposed back into the earth, used to reveal and conceal.

MediaLive: Subterranean will consider what technology buries and what it unearths, and will experiment with curatorial approaches that consider the role of earthly materials in the festival’s programming and process.

MEDIALIVE EVENTS:

Opening Performances + Reception
April 25, 6:30-8pm
Join us for a performance by avatar LaTurbo Avedon created for the festival, as well as a one-night screening of a work by Anna Ridler. We will also celebrate the opening of MediaLive 2019’s installations including video, sound, and interactive works from Michelle Ellsworth, Brian House, Tabita Rezaire, Rick Silva, and Francis Marion Moseley Wilson.

Fungal Technologies Workshop
Mushroom Networks & Sustainable Mycelium Objects
May 13, 6:30-8:30pm
How does fungus complicate notions of technology? This workshop will consider that question in two parts, and present an overview of mushrooms and mycelium. First, representatives from the Colorado Mycological Society will introduce the ways in which mushroom underground networks facilitate plant communication, and address general protocols for mushroom foraging in Colorado. Then, Kendle Mcdowell will present a hands-on component in which workshop attendees will learn to use mycelium (the branching structures under mushrooms) as a technology to produce sustainable materials. Attendees will get to take home starter kits to make their own fungal notebook cover.

Closing Performance + Reception
May 22, 6:30-8pm
Remember the days when friends would come together to hear new music at listening parties? Our closing performance will reference those intimate gatherings and present a new performance by the duo Matmos. Matmos is known for composing accessible music out of a vivid palette of sounds, and their new album Plastic Anniversary is no exception. It considers the political dimensions of plastics, and is produced of sounds generated by materials as disparate as police riot shields, plastic bags, and medical synthetics. Join us for a closing celebration of MediaLive 2019, in which Matmos will present a sonic and visual array of plastics in a virtual concert, mailed to the museum via snail mail as a means for the group to participate in the festival while taking the environmental concerns of travel into consideration.

The festival’s installations will be available for exploration at the museum daily from 11am-5pm. All events are free and open to the public.

ARTISTS & PRESENTERS:

LaTurbo Avedon

Colorado Mycological Society

Michelle Ellsworth

Brian House

Kendle McDowell

Matmos

Tabita Rezaire

Anna Ridler

Rick Silva

Francis Marion Moseley Wilson

TEAM

Maya Livio, Curator

Frank Lucero, Interim Exhibitions & Operations Manager

Gwen Burak,
Deputy Director

Kiah Butcher, Visitor Services Lead & Event Coordinator

PARTNERS

Allegra
Boulder Startup Week
City of Boulder
Sterling-Rice Group

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