for 'Post-Score' at co-opt research & projects
wicked|hallowed for the autoklavierspieler (MIDI-controlled mechanical piano) and 5.1 audio entangles acoustic and digital algorithmic rituals between Boston—the home of the artist and of actor Mark Wahlberg—and Graz—the home of the autoklavierspieler in the Institute of Electronic Music (IEM) and 18th-century theorist Johann Joseph Fux.
Wahlberg’s Hollywood ascent has paralleled the mainstreaming of white Christian nationalism in the United States. As sociologist Andrew L. Whitehead defines it, white Christian nationalism is “a cultural framework that idealizes and advocates a fusion of Christianity with American civic life” in order to preserve hierarchies of race and gender (Whitehead, 2022).
Between 1986 and 1992, Wahlberg was charged with three racially motivated hate crimes in Boston (where the word wicked serves as emphatic slang). Since then, he has rebranded himself through public performances of penitence—capitalized by lending his voice to Hallow, a popular Catholic prayer phone application (downloaded 23 million times between 2018 and 2025) in which he holds an equity stake.
The installation stages a confrontation between agentic devotions by juxtaposing SuperCollider-transfigured samples of Wahlberg’s voice from Hallow with SuperCollider-generated realizations of William Schottstaedt’s Automatic Species Counterpoint (1984), a C encoding of Fuxian counterpoint rules. These rituals—ancient and modern, acoustic and digital, sacred and profane—operate together within a shared space of uneasy reverence.
A diverse collection of plants from around the world live together in the Boston Public Garden, embodying the ideals and contradictions of the United States. Heralded as the "first public botanical garden in the United States," this historic site reflects a uniquely American paradox: the aspiration for multicultural democratic inclusivity juxtaposed with the tenants of colonialism. Nature is not left to thrive on its own terms but meticulously curated, shaped to conform to Victorian notions of beauty and order. jaden piblik is an electroacoustic soundwalk setting of the Haitian-Cantabrigian poet Jacques Fleury's Haitian-Creole translation of the English-language poem "Treeness" by Jason Allen-Paisant. The work bridges languages and traditions, resonating with the complex, layered histories embodied in the Public Garden itself.
for 'Post-Score' at co-opt research & projects
rachel devorah - sound;
carl testa - sound;
melanie wilson - image.
orchestra for femmes & laptops
matthew burtner - soprano saxophone;
kevin davis - cello;
ryan maguire - pedal steel guitar;
rachel devorah- horn.
kimberley a. sutton - cello & electronics;
kristina warren - voice & electronics;
rachel devorah - horn & electronics;