PAMM Pérez Art Museum

HAROON MIRZA
21 July 2017 – 29 July 2018

Haroon Mirza (b. 1977, London) is a multimedia artist who works with audiovisual materials, electronic equipment, amplifiers, and found objects to create immersive environments and kinetic sculptures. His work amplifies phenomena that are often imperceptible––such as electricity––and seeks to create or distort the relationship between optics and acoustics, giving unexpected visual and sensorial analogs to what we hear. Mirza uses a particular visual and material vocabulary to modify architectural spaces, including colored neon and sculptural acoustic foam, creating installations that offer a precise, highly mediated experience of sound and light.

PAMM commissioned Mirza to produce a new work for its double-height gallery. For this project, A C I D G E S T, created a specialized technical system that transmits an electrical current through speakers and light-emitting diodes (LEDs) that act in coordination with one another so that different colors are activated by corresponding noise frequencies. This system produces a choreographed experience of sound and light based on a concrete poem the artist has created, which serves as a score for a dynamic installation that redefines our phenomenological experience of the space.

Mirza received his BA from Winchester School of Art at the University of Southampton, United Kingdom, and an MA from both Goldsmiths at the University of London and Chelsea College of Arts, London. His work has been featured in exhibitions worldwide, including the Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver; Pivô, São Paulo; Nam June Paik Art Center, Seoul; Museum Tinguely, Basel; the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; Villa Savoye, Paris; the Hepworth Wakefield, United Kingdom; and Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, United Kingdom. He is the recipient of the Calder Prize, the Nam June Paik Art Center Prize, the Zurich Art Prize, and the Silver Lion of the 54th Venice Biennale.