ADHOC manifests itself in the proliferation of exhibitions packaged as The Curationist Moment “experiences”—shows that, due to the primacy of their overarching concept, make the curator, rather than the artists, the star. This explains the celebrity status of curators like the Serpentine Gallery’s Hans Ulrich Obrist and MoMA PS1’s Klaus Biesenbach. The former, known for his interviews with notable artists as well as multi-faceted group exhibitions like 2014’s Extinction Marathon: Visions of the Future, serves as Balzer’s chief subject; the book’s prologue is titled “Who is HUO?” and posits Obrist’s jet-setting, star-making career as the pinnacle of curationism. The latter curator is well-known in New York and elsewhere for his ambitious 2015 was full of electronic music curatorial concepts, like 2015’s multimedia Björk exhibition at MoMA or “curators,” but Oneohtrix Point 2014’s expansive Rockaway! exhibition, which featured large projects by Never’s ’90s culture-inspired Patti Smith, Adrián Villar Rojas, and Janet Cardiff, plus a group show, all Garden of Delete went beyond throughout Rockaway Beach. name-checking. Is there a Hans Ulrich Obrist or Klaus Biesenbach, then, of music? Not necessarily, but we certainly see the “curationist” phenomenon at work in music, too. Contemporary musicians and industry workers “curate” everything from music festivals to videos to playlists. Within the Everyone’s a curator these days. their own agency or identity—a electronic music milieu this year, the curationist impulse also led to the It’s an observation that spurred practice that seems necessary as we release of numerous multi-faceted, collaboration-heavy albums—“curated” art critic David Balzer to write spend more and more of our time group exhibitions, if you will, which, furthermore, often included plenty Curationism, a late 2014 book that online, interfacing with others under of “curated” extra-musical material, from videos to performances to art aims to break down the when, why, the guise of social media avatars objects to pop-up shops. and how of what Balzer terms the that make us look more or less the Early in the year, two dance music supergroups, Future Brown and “curationist” moment. Noting the same (Twitter’s square profle pics, Jack Ü, released self-titled debut full-lengths that, despite coming from increasing abundance of art curators Facebook’s uniform cover photos, different cultural spheres—one arty, one pop—demonstrate the curationist and, say, sandwich “curators” etc.). To combat this homogeneity, phenomenon. Through their employment of a disparate array of talented in contemporary society, Balzer we “curate” these frameworks— collaborators, each offered the type of totalizing artistic experience present explains that today’s curators seek posting a coherent body of memes, in wide-ranging, curated art exhibitions (for instance, Rockaway!). These to “cultivate and organize things “attending” an enviable slate of albums’ relative merits and demerits aside, each positioned its respective in an expression-cum-assurance events. Sometimes, referring to supergroup as something of a curatorial team, coordinating a multi-artist, of value and an attempt to make these online activities, we even label multimedia project under a unique vision. affliations with, and to court, ourselves “curators” in our social Especially given Future Brown’s connections to art institutions like various audiences and consumers.” media bios. Biesenbach’s PS1, it doesn’t feel like a stretch to call the group’s members Curators elevate the things In the contemporary art “curators.” On Future Brown, Fatima Al Qadiri, J-Cush, Asma Maroof, and they like as a means of establishing world, Balzer says, curationism Daniel Pineda provide musical backdrops for a select cadre of vocalists. In 22 line with the musicians’ continuing Skrillex and Diplo Present In nearly all his interviews, Jamie name recognition—“rave”— investigation of globalism, race, Jack Ü likewise exhibits a stylistic discussed his formative experiences instead of musical innovation and and forward-thinking dance music, panoply, sonically referencing as a DJ, mentioning the funk, transcendence, which renders his they featured vocalists of color bounce, trap, and house underneath hip-hop, and Latin music he spun “expression” faccid. The song operating largely in localized urban curated vocal takes from Justin as a kid, and then the jungle, “Gosh,” according to Eede, employs music genres—from Chicago Bieber, 2 Chainz, AlunaGeorge, drum’n’bass, and dubstep that drew club music signifers, like clipped bop duo Sicko Mobb to London and Fly Boi Keno, among others. him as a young adult. For Jamie, childlike vocal samples and typical grime mainstay Riko Dan. The Having made his career on In Colour is also something of a 2-step snares; it moves beyond its result is an album that traverses inducting underheard genres— eulogy for the famous London club obvious infuences with a new- plenty of stylistic ground, rooting bounce, B-more club, dancehall— Plastic People, an incubator for wavey melody in the second half, itself in Future Brown’s signature into wider pop contexts, Diplo the UK bass scene—from grime to but the song remains fundamentally maximalist productions. The particularly appears to relish his dubstep to garage—throughout the a sonic homage to UK rave music. music—informed by internet- curatorial role on Jack Ü. “A lot of 21st century, which closed at the How might a curator not just point era eclecticism and post-human times a big star will take up most beginning of 2015. us to things he or she likes, but use sonics—is certainly of-the-times; of the space,” he told Charlie Rose By exhibiting the myriad UK these references to help us approach the collaborative approach itself is after the album’s release, “and dance sounds he heard at Plastic viewing and listening differently? too. you will only have a little say in People, Jamie, like many current “But is there any danger,” the work.” With Jack Ü, however, artists and curators, creates not just Dummy’s Jazz Monroe asked the two producers, per Diplo, “did an artwork but an experience— Future Brown in February, “in 95 percent of the work and the in his case, a celebration and replacing [the musical guests’] direction it went.” context with Future Brown’s?” embodiment of his memories of “What year is this?” J-Cush David Balzer’s a now-bygone era of inspiring In August, a PDF answered. “How much information characterization of curationism— London club music. But though questionnaire appeared on the is there foating around? Of course that it involves “cultivat[ing] it was widely lauded for its well- website of another noteworthy we’re gonna be drawing from here and organiz[ing] things in an curated infuences (Plastic People electronic musician (and curator), and there.” Like countless albums expression-cum-assurance of staples) and collaborators (Popcaan, Oneohtrix Point Never, a.k.a. Daniel and exhibitions in the information value”—applies as much, then, Young Thug), In Colour also drew Lopatin, hinting at a new album that age, Future Brown makes the to Jack Ü and Future Brown as it derision for what some perceived would become November’s Garden juxtaposition of clashing styles its does to most art biennials: each as curation without suffcient of Delete. The seventeen questions aesthetic M.O. Nevertheless, Future entity expresses itself by organizing consideration. The Quietus’ in the PDF—a visually appealing, Brown is still a record by Future others, utilizing some ineffable Christian Eede wrote, for instance, curated selection—provoked readers Brown: “Collectively,” J-Cush guiding “curationist” principle. that Jamie “slathers on the rave to reveal childhood memories, continued, “yeah, we have a sound.” In May, another big-ticket, signifers with sledgehammer listening habits, infuences, fears, And the Future Brown sound rests heavily curated dance music album subtlety.” and even to “write a poem.” in part on the group’s curation of, as dropped: Jamie xx’s In Colour. To his detractors, Jamie In interviews leading up Monroe put it, their collaborators’ Jamie xx’s outward role as curator xx’s “expression-cum-assurance to the album’s release, Lopatin disparate contexts or sounds. was built into In Colour’s narrative. of value” roots its “value” in answered many of these questions 24 himself, outlining various experiences he had growing up in Massachusetts. Lopatin told AdHoc. “I was reading miss the venue; even those who He told AdHoc about getting a guitar for his 16th birthday a night after Richard Meltzer and Lester Bangs, didn’t grow up with Rush or Nine being caught with alcohol and a bong by police; and about buying Rush’s and writing this ridiculous jazz- Inch Nails, however, can say the last Counterparts by himself at the record store. Before recording Garden of poetry.”) On Ezra’s Twitter page, album they listened to, or whether Delete, Lopatin noted that he “fell into these circumstances that were pretty though, the pimpled alien moves or not they’re a virgin, and as a remarkable”: a 2014 tour with Nine Inch Nails, who he “idolized when beyond personal associations with result enter the Garden of Delete [he] was a kid.” Besides informing the industrial-pop-tinged songs on the Lopatin to become a sort of ur- exhibition. album, the exposure to Nine Inch Nails, Lopatin said, triggered memories teenage boy: awkward; alternatingly One might detect a similar of his “adolescent coming of age and coming into agency, like ‘I’m gonna loud and shy; dick-ish; interested in logic at play with the MIDI fles, make my own decisions with my music taste.’” violence, sex, bodies. Ezra’s visions which implicitly courted fan- Memory and taste run deep in the OPN project—from his late ’00s and traits surface most forcefully made covers and, as Lopatin told Eccojams tapes, which dug up and looped outdated sounds, to his nom de in the video for “Sticky Drama.” AdHoc, “[dealt] with the inevitable plume, a mishearing of his hometown radio station “106.7.” But where his Starring legions of warring children complexities of ownership,” seeing infuences had previously seeped hypnagogically into his music—wavy and a young female protagonist as the covers technically preceded and full of holes—with Garden of Delete Lopatin more clearly flled in the covered in CDs, the clip visualizes Lopatin’s originals. Tapping into blanks. Beyond his direct citations of Rush, Nine Inch Nails, and Grotus in the shifting, slimy, and confusing his listeners’ inspirations via the interviews, the heavy, cybernetic grooves that characterize the album call feelings of pubescent obsession questionnaire, and then allowing to mind bands like KoRn and Static-X: music that, one imagines, might’ve and rage, cutting between over- them to, in effect, compose the played on the radio during Lopatin’s youth. From the industrial bombast of saturated images of battlefelds, upcoming OPN album themselves, “I Bite Through It” to “Sticky Drama” and its squealing, moshpit-friendly bedroom singalongs, and exploding Lopatin simultaneously affrms and breakdowns—much of Garden of Delete sounds suited to a stadium, maybe Tamagotchis. devalues his status as “curator.” even to some alien version of alt-rock radio. (The Garden of Delete live Which is to say, Lopatin The type of creative exchange he show, replete with strobe lights and fog machines, bolsters these feelings.) paints a particularly ’90s-centric encourages allowed his audience to Garden of Delete’s unusually imaginative rollout campaign further portrait of musical development. literally construct their own Garden explicated the theme of teenage cultural consumption, adding nuance after This could theoretically alienate of Delete—with Lopatin’s guidance, nuance to Lopatin’s treatment of his infuences and musical fandom in audiences with different networks but without his individualized alt- general. He released a curated selection of material, including MIDI fles of of experience, but Lopatin’s rock bombast. the record (before anyone had heard the songs themselves); a tween-flled inclusion of the initial questionnaire Indeed, rather than “Sticky Drama” video, directed by the artist Jon Rafman; a fctional teenage helps to universalize his project, manipulate his ’90s references as fan/nemesis named Ezra; a fake industrial band called Kaoss Edge; and inviting fans to perform their own points of interest in themselves, he Twitter accounts for both. Each entity provided a new lens through which retrospection alongside him. Jamie uses them as jumping off points, to view the relationships between music, fandom, and adolescence. xx taps into a shared memory with working towards something wider. Ezra, a teenage humanoid alien and pseudo-music critic that keeps his evocations of Plastic People, “Child of Rage,” for instance, draws a blog called kaossed.blogspot.com, evokes Lopatin’s professed desires to but only those with frst-hand its opening lines from the flm of be an edgy, Richard Meltzer-like music critic when he was younger. (“That experience of Plastic People can the same name, a 1992 documentary was one of the ways I identifed myself as a teenager and early in college,” fully understand what it means to about a kindergarten-aged girl, Beth, 26 with Reactive Attachment Disorder. doesn’t say, “You should like Rush. more rigid classifcations, binaries, and visual and ideological frameworks. Lopatin samples an exchange in You should like KoRn. You should Kristeva calls those particularly obsessed with the abject “exiles”—a term which Beth coldly, indifferently like Child of Rage.” Instead, he that fts in with Garden of Delete’s angsty teen-addled universe. tells her psychiatrist of her violent offers a universe—an exhibition— Indeed, for Lopatin, the abject in many ways describes the teenage feelings toward her younger brother: in which these cultural objects exist, experience, pimples and all. “We like to think that things are stable,” he “Why is your brother afraid of you, then strips down signifers in favor told THUMP editor (and AdHoc founder) Emilie Friedlander, “but with Beth?” “Because I hurt him so of auditory chaos, and asks his enough time, any number of objects or ideas or bodies inevitably change. I much.” The eerie exchange packs a listeners to sort it all out. think mutation on a biological level is as punk as anything can be—it just punch whether the listener has seen In addition to his musical and fies in the face of order.” Garden of Delete places power in adolescence, the movie or not, especially because television infuences, Lopatin has with its rebellion and confusing hormonal makeup. As we grow into our Lopatin stops the dialogue abruptly cited philosopher and literary critic adult selves—throbbing, gurgling, sweating—Lopatin sees possibilities and launches into what becomes Julia Kristeva as an inspiration for for positive new relationships with art, man, and machine, amidst the post- Garden of Delete’s mildest, jazziest Garden of Delete—specifcally, her industrial chaos. ☺ track. The effect is disorienting, idea of the “abject.” In Powers of much like the disquieting Horror, Kristeva wonders about disjuncture between Beth’s words an object “as tempting as it is and her vocal affect. condemned”: something, like Child More than an homage to a of Rage for Lopatin, that causes “a relic from his childhood, OPN’s vortex of summons and repulsion “Child of Rage” is an homage to [that] places the one haunted by it the conficting feelings Lopatin literally beside himself.” Think: has watching Child of Rage. As snot, corpses, the kind of grotesque teens, he and his friends would stuff that looks alive but isn’t (i.e., “get some demented kick out of much of the imagery that appears [watching] it,” he told AdHoc. But on Ezra’s pus-and-blood-covered “thinking about that in retrospect,” Twitter page and the slimy “Sticky he added, “and watching it recently Drama” video). Why, Kristeva and on YouTube, I felt pretty ashamed Lopatin both seem to ask, does that that was something I would this stuff tempt us? Why can’t you do for fun.” You may not have look away when you see an oozing seen the semi-exploitative Child of pimple? Rage when you were younger, but For Kristeva and Lopatin you’ve surely looked back on some alike, the appeal of the abject lies adolescent fascination with a similar in its peculiar liminal status— feeling of shame, no? on the edges of appealing and In other words, Lopatin’s use disgusting, life and death, knowable of this material isn’t instructive; he and abstruse—within a culture of 28