Visiting Artist Ali Momeni October 11
The University of Maine Intermedia MFA program is pleased to announce the second presenter, Ali Momeni, for their fall 2011 Visiting Artist series co-sponsored by the Cultural Affairs/Distinguished Lecture Series. The artist will present a public lecture titled, “Ali Momeni and the Social Life of Objects, Plants and Animals” on Thursday October 11th at 7pm in Lord Hall on the University of Maine campus in Orono.
Ali Momeni is a builder, composer and performer interested in the poetics of gesture, affect and timing. His work makes use all manners of technology to explore the social lives of objects and their embedded performative qualities. His creative output ranges from kinetic sculptures and sound installations, to urban interventions and music theater performance.
Momeni was born in Isfahan, Iran and immigrated to the United States at the age of twelve. He studied physics and music at Swarthmore College and completed his doctoral degree in music composition, improvisation and performance with computers from the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies in UC Berkeley. He spent three years in Paris where he collaborated with performers and researchers from La Kitchen, IRCAM, Sony CSL and CIRM. After four years as an assistant professor in the Department of Art at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, where he directed the Spark Festival of Electronic Music and Art, and where runs urban projection collective called the MAW, Momeni currently teaches at Carnegie Mellon University.
For more information about the artist visit: www.alimomeni.net
The Masters of Fine Arts in Intermedia at the University of Maine provides substantial advanced study for individuals interested in interdisciplinary study in the arts. The program emphasizes intensive development of students’ creative and innovative abilities through a diverse engagement with multiple research processes, critical thinking skills and creative production tools and technologies. The visiting artist series supports and reflects the wide variety of disciplines represented by the program including but not limited to, Art, New Media, Theater, Dance, Philosophy, Art History, Engineering, Communications, Media Studies, Music, Psychology, Natural Sciences, and others.
For more information about the Intermedia MFA: www.intermediamfa.org
This event is sponsored by the Intermedia MFA Program, the New Media Department and the University of Maine Cultural Affairs / Distinguished Lecture Series.
For more information contact Bethany Engstrom at bethany.engstrom@umit.maine.edu