Mike Rugnetta
Mike Rugnetta
Mike Rugnetta is a Composer, Programmer, Performer and Host of the PBS Idea Channel. He resides in Brooklyn, NY and makes his living as a composer for performance (theatre and dance) or video, a Freelance live and studio Mix engineer, and teaches Max/MSP and Protools to all manner of folks who might be interested.
Music
"The work I make generally centers on two ideas: complexity, and human relationships.
Not necessarily romantic relationships, though sometimes; it's more like how you and I relate to one another.
And how I relate to your best friend.
And how that relationship can influence our relationship.
There are these differently weighted points of control throughout our structure of sociality which are at once very easy to intuit - you certainly don't have to sit down and think about how you should be interacting with someone, do you?
- but very complicated to spell out.
Nothing I make, though, is ever really about human relationships. I just use my perceptions and ideas about the way human relationships work to arrange the elements involved in any given piece. I think this is the secret to giving complex work a more approachable, more poetic personality. My interest in complexity is a direct result of my technology background. It's amazing to think that with all the information available to us... or even all the information we are unwillingly subject to on a 15 block walk through Manhattan.. we do not turn into person-mush. We are able to deal with huge amounts of complexity. But why? And How? Have we always been this way? Does the INTERNET have something to do with this? And so I try to make things which test the limits of our ability to process information, to make remote logical connections; trying to test and expand through performance what could be explained and codified by neurology. And so from there, many subjects are fair game. My pieces are about physical phenomena, pop stars, war, love, community. Francis Bacon. It's all legit, because after a while you start to realize that it's all connected in one way or another, anyway. Usually through Kevin Bacon."
Performences
3rd Ward: Brooklyn, New York
20 Greene: New York
The Center for Performance Research: New York
The Chocolate Factory Theater: New York
Columbia University: New York
Cybera 2013: Banff, AB
Dance New Amsterdam: New York
Danspace at St. Mark's Church: New York
FIT (The Open Video Conference): New York
Gaite Lyrique: Paris, France
Gene Frankel Theatre: New York
Governor's Island Building 110, LMCC: New York
HERE Arts Center: New York
Hackers on Planet Earth, 9: New York
IgniteNYC X (Web 2.0 Conference): New York
Judson Memorial Church: New York
The Kitchen: New York
Lincoln Center: New York
Mass MoCA: North Adams, MA
MIT (ROFLCon II): Cambridge, MA
Mt. Tremper Arts: Mt. Tremper, NY
New York University: New York
NXNEi 2014: Toronto, ON
Social Media Week Sao Paulo: Sao Paulo, Brazil
The Walker Center for the Arts: Minneapolis, MN
The Wexner Art Center: Columbus, OH
Wild Project Theater: New York
Weiden+Kennedy (ROFLCon Summit): Portland, OR
WOMAD: Adelaide, Australia
XOXO 2013: Portland, OR
Yale University: New Haven, CT
Panels
MIT (ROFLCon II): Cambridge, MA
Phoenix Comicon 2014: Pheonix, AZ
Playlist LIVE!
2013: Orlando, FL
VidCon 2012: Anaheim, California
VidCon 2013: Anaheim, California
VidCon 2014: Anaheim, California
Web 2.0 Expo 2011: San Francisco
Weiden+Kennedy (ROFLCon Summit): Portland, OR
Guest lectures
College of Staten Island
Hunter College
New York University
SUNY Purchase
Shows
The Ailey-Citigroup Theater: New York
The Baryshnikov Art Center: New York
CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Art: San Francisco, CA
The Chocolate Factory Theatre: Queens, NY
Dance New Amsterdam: New York
Danspace at St. Mark's Church: New York
HERE Arts Cetner: New York
Mass MoCA: North Adams, MA
Live mix engineering
The Bowery Ballroom
The Chocolate Factory
HERE Art Center
Le Poisson Rouge
Mass MoCA
Mercury Lounge
Public Assembly (formerly Galapagos)
Wild Project
The Workshop Theatre