Maryanne Amacher: Perceptual Geographies

Bowerbird will delve into the work of pioneering sound artist Maryanne Amacher (1938–2009), a creator of multimedia compositions and visceral, large-scale installations. The project will unpack Amacher’s methodology and artistic philosophy, and interpret her striking combinations of sound, installation, and architecture through two concert presentations, a performance installation using archival audio and visual materials, and a multi-part workshop. Bowerbird will collaborate with the artist group Supreme Connections and Lawrence Kumpf, artistic director of Blank Forms; both groups have presented Amacher’s work internationally for several years. A collaborator with John Cage and Merce Cunningham, Amacher spent her formative years as an artist in Philadelphia, where she studied at the University of Pennsylvania with composer Karlheinz Stockhausen. Over her 50-year career, she created a distinctive body of work that explored the boundaries of auditory perception and acoustic space, often producing phenomena that can only be experienced by a listener who is physically present—what Amacher called "The Third Ear."

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