Pauline Oliveros

Keynote address:
“Tripping on Wires: The Wireless Body”

The author describes her career in the development of electronic and electro-acoustic music -- her trip with wires and tripping over wires from the 1950s to the present. Looking to the future when there are no wires -- just direct connections -- as the hybridization of humans and computers proceeds apace.

Biography

Pauline Oliveros has built a loyal following in response to her many concerts, recordings, and publications. She has written numerous musical compositions for soloists and ensembles in music, dance, theater, and inter-arts companies. She has also provided leadership within the music community. She was the first Director of the Center for Contemporary Music (formerly the Tape Music Center at Mills College), and she was Director of the Center for Music Experiment during her fourteen-year tenure as professor of music at the University of California at San Diego. She frequently acted in an advisory capacity for organizations such as The National Endowment for the Arts, The New York State Council for the Arts, and many private foundations. She now serves as Distinguished Research Professor of Music at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Darius Milhaud Composer in Residence at Mills College, and Professor of Music in the Bard College summer MFA program. Oliveros has been vocal about representing the needs of individual artists of all ages, about the need for diversity and experimentation in the arts, and promoting cooperation and good will among people.

“Powering Up/Powering Down” is sponsored in part by the University of California Institute for Research in the Arts (UCIRA), the Center for Research in Computing and the Arts (CRCA), and the UC San Diego Department of Music in connection with the departments of Visual Arts, Music, and Literature at UCSD along with the UC Riverside and Los Angeles campuses.