Machine Dazzle in Conversation with Elissa Auther

Machine Dazzle has been dazzling stages via costumes, sets, and performance since his arrival in New York in 1994. Credits include Taylor Mac’s A 24-Decade History of Popular Music (2016-present), Taylor Mac’s The Lily’s Revenge (2009), Justin Vivian Bond’s Lustre (2008), Big Art Group’s House Of No More (2006), Julie Atlas Muz’s I Am The Moon And a You Are The Man On Me (2004), among many others. In September 2019, Dazzle premiered his new original show, Treasure, at the Guggenheim Museum as a commission by Works and Process. In November 2019, his work was exhibited at Parsons School of Design in New York City. Residencies include Tyler School of Art at Temple University, Moody Center for the Arts at University of Houston, Harvard University's Theater, Dance & Media Department and Mana Contemporary in Jersey City, NJ. In 2020, he will unveil a piece for THE BIG SPLASH, commissioned by Hancher Auditorium in collaboration with the municipality of Iowa City and the University of Iowa. (Photo by Gregory Kramer.)

Elissa Author is the Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs and William and Mildred Lasdon Chief Curator at the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD). Previously, she was the Windgate Research Curator at MAD and Visiting Associate Professor at the Bard Graduate Center, where her teaching focused on the intersection of craft and contemporary art. Her most recent curatorial exhibitions for the Museum of Arts and Design include Surface/Depth: The Decorative After Miriam Schapiro and Vera Paints a Scarf: The Art and Design of Vera Neumann. A feminist public intellectual, Auther founded and co-directed for ten years the program “Feminism & Co.: Art, Sex, Politics,” which focused on issues of women and gender through the lens of creative practice.