DJ Spooky installation at Design Indaba 2008

Design Indaba is pleased to announce the presentation of the New York Is Now music-visual installation by Paul D Miller (DJ Spooky that Subliminal Kid) at Michaelis School of Fine Art. Forming part of Design Indaba’s South African Design Week, this free event offers unique entry into the world of DJ Spooky.

Selected for the African Pavilion at the 2007 Venice Biennale, New York is Now is a response to the conditions that art engages with in the 21st-century’s fast-paced and networked global culture. Using archival footage and early avant-garde cinema mixed with his own music, New York Is Now is an exploration of memory through a multimedia digital opera about a city made of improvisations, disjunctions, overlapping histories and multiple rhythms.

“It kind of reverse-engineers some of the issues that started Surrealism – mainly how Europe appropriated many of the themes of what was going on in Africa, Asia and Latin America. I wanted to create a portrait of New York as a series of fictions and video poems, but crafted with Africa in mind,” DJ Spooky told James Webb in the latest Design Indaba magazine.

Miller has long been at home in the global digital culture scene – as an artist, musician, and writer. His work has focused on urban culture as a globally interconnected platform of digital media. Most recently, Miller released Creation Rebel (2007), which is a follow-up remix of the previous year’s critically acclaimed double disk archive of Jamaican music from Trojan Records – In Fine Style: DJ Spooky presents 50 000 Volts of Trojan Records. Linking contemporary music production with traditional techniques forged by musicians such as King Tubby and U-Roy, the album has been lauded for showing that hip-hop was originally born in Jamaica, not New York.

“It’s amazing to have such a stalwart of the music and visual arts scene here in Cape Town. This is yet another event in the free programme that supports the Design Indaba main event. We are certain that Paul will be as inspired by us as we are in awe of him,” said Ravi Naidoo, founder of Design Indaba and director of Interactive Africa.

Miller agreed: “I’m looking forward to presenting my work at the foot of Africa. Cape Town has a hotbed of creatives that I’m sure will appreciate my work.”

Exhibition from February 24 to March 10, 2008
Gallery opening times: 10 to 6pm Monday to Saturday

Michaelis School of Fine Art
University of Cape Town
32 to 37 Orange Street
Gardens, Cape Town