Tony Cokes
exhibition “Techno Worlds”
“1!”, 2004
The final installment in Cokes’ Pop Manifesto series, 1! takes a stroll through the artist’s music collection, presenting the titles of 100 recent albums released over a five year period. This annotated discography is paired with excerpts from an essay by critic Christoph Cox discussing rock music's forms and ideological premises, all laid over an appropriated vintage documentary explaining how to project a film. Writes Cokes: “One could read the film projectionist as an amusing metaphor for contemporary art and music practice. Often in today’s ‘digital age’, a hybrid model of cultural consumer and producer, like the DJ, VJ, or ‘laptop’ electronic musician, displaces the traditional role of artist/musician.”
Biography
Tony Cokes lives and works in Providence, Rhode Island, where he serves as Professor in the Department of Modern Culture and Media at Brown University. An alumnus of the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program, Cokes has additionally received grants and fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council for the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Getty Research Institute. Recent solo exhibitions and screenings have taken place at the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art, London; The Shed, New York; Tate, London; Hannah Hoffman, Los Angeles; REDCAT, Los Angeles; and Greene Naftali, New York. Tony Cokes makes video and installation projects that reframe appropriated texts to reflect upon capitalism, subjectivity, knowledge and pleasure.