Programming EMPAC, Vol II: Days 4,183–6,116

The second volume of Programming EMPAC features over 442 pages of commissions, residencies, productions, and events developed and presented at EMPAC / Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center between 2015–20. The first volume, Programming EMPAC: The First 4,158 Days, spans EMPAC’s first project in 2003–14.

Each entry in this volume is an archival snapshot of a production, residency, or event and includes a brief description by the curator of the project along with vivid images, from production stills to performance documentation. The book produces a portrait of EMPAC’s program that encompasses the work of hundreds of artists, scholars, researchers, and students from a wide range of backgrounds and disciplines who have created new projects in collaboration with EMPAC’s team.

PREFACE

Many people from a wide range of backgrounds and disciplines—artists, scholars, researchers, and students—come to the Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) to create new work in the building and in collaboration with EMPAC staff. Art and research at EMPAC are time-based: performances, sound installations, moving images, and interactive and immersive environments; concerts and music theater; explorations into new technologies, human-computer interaction; and real-time data visualization. Thousands of visitors have experienced premieres of new works commissioned by and produced at EMPAC, attended lectures and programs, and participated in workshops across time-based visual art, dance, music, and theater.

In keeping with EMPAC’s fundamental premise that the senses are the portals to perception and understanding, we place this tactile, physical object in your hands. This second volume of Programming EMPAC completes the chronicling of events, projects, and works developed and presented over the 6,116 days of EMPAC’s artistic program. The first volume spans the years 2003–14, while this volume follows from the beginning of 2015 and ends with the temporary closure of EMPAC at the start of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. This book is a window through which to view what has been accomplished at EMPAC to date. The main section of the book is dedicated to each individual curatorial project or event at EMPAC, stepping backward in time. At the end of each section is a focus on projects that exemplify the hundreds of academic and campus events that take place annually in the building.