Конрад: Авангардист, музыкант және математик өмірі мен шығармашылығы

American artist, musician, writer (1940–2016)

Conrad was born in Concord, New Hampshire, to Mary Elizabeth Parfitt and Arthur Emil Conrad, and raised in Baldwin, Maryland and Northern Virginia. Conrad's high school violin lessons with symphony violist Ronald Knudsen introduced him to just intonation and double stop playing. After briefly studying violin at Baltimore's Peabody Conservatory, Conrad graduated from Harvard University in 1962 with a degree in mathematics. While studying at Harvard, Conrad was exposed to the ideas of experimental composers John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen. After working as a computer programmer, Conrad became involved in New York City's avant garde arts scene. The Theatre of Eternal Music utilized just intonation and drones to produce what the group called "dream music"; Conrad's mathematical knowledge contributed to the Theatre's systematization of just intervals, and he also encouraged the ensemble to adopt electronic amplification. Conrad would later leave the Theatre in a dispute over Young's attempt to assert more deliberate compositional influence over their performances and refusal to grant him or Cale shared credit for the ensemble's music or access to its recordings, and in 1990 protested a concert by his former bandleader with a manifesto titled "Composer La Monte Young Does Not Understand 'His' Work" outlining his grievances and accusing Young of "orientalism and [a] romanticized personality cult mark[ing] him among the most regressive of contemporary artists." In 1963, he joined his former Harvard classmate and Fluxus associate Henry Flynt in his anti art demonstrations against "elitist" New York cultural institutions. In 1964, Conrad and Cale were recruited by Pickwick Records to serve as a backing band, The Primitives, to perform the Lou Reed penned single "The Ostrich"/"Sneaky Pete". Conrad and Cale played guitar and bass, Walter de Maria played percussion, and Reed sang. Conrad and Cale's instruments were tuned to Reed's "Ostrich tuning", with every string the same pitch class. After the Primitives disbanded, Cale and Reed formed The Velvet Underground. Conrad was indirectly responsible for the name of The Velvet Underground, although he was never a member of the group; after moving into Conrad's old apartment on Ludlow Street in New York City, Reed and Cale found a copy of The Velvet Underground which Conrad had left in the apartment, and took its name for the band.

Conrad's first musical release under his own name was a collaboration with Faust, Outside the Dream Syndicate, released by Caroline in 1973. This remains his best known musical work and is considered a classic of minimalist music and drone music. One of Conrad's early films was Coming Attractions, which was released in 1970. This film led indirectly to the founding of Syntonic Research and the Environments series of natural sound recordings. Conrad began to work in video and performance in the 1970s as a professor at Antioch College, where he replaced the filmmaker Paul Sharits. In 1976, Conrad joined the faculty at the Center for Media Studies at the University at Buffalo. While in Buffalo, Conrad was part of a scene that included Sharits, as well as Hollis Frampton, Steina and Woody Vasulka, Peter Weibel, James Blue, Cathy Steffan and Gerald O'Grady. Their practices in film, video, performance, and other forms were documented in the 2008 book Buffalo Heads: Media Study, Media Practice, Media Pioneers, 1973–1990, edited by Vasulka and Weibel. In the mid 1970s, Conrad began performing film. With Sukiyaki Film he decided that the film should be prepared immediately before viewing. Sukiyaki was chosen as the paradigm for the work because it is a dish often cooked immediately before eating, in front of the diners. Conrad cooked sukiyaki in front of an audience: egg, meat, vegetables, and 16mm film; and literally "projected" onto the screen behind him.

PUNKCAST#1143 02 Live @ Swiss Institute NYC on May 2, 2007. (Flash)