Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky

Paul D. Miller, also most famously known as ‘DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid’, which is his stage name and self constructed persona, is an experimental and electronic hip-hop musician, conceptual artist, and writer. He was born in 1970 in Washington DC but has been based in New York City for many years. Paul Miller is a Professor at the European Graduate School (EGS) where he teaches Music Mediated Art. DJ Spooky is known amongst other things for his electronic experimentations in music known as both “illbient” and “trip hop.” His first album, Dead Dreamer, was released in 1996 and he has since then released over a dozen albums. He was the first editor of Artbyte: The Magazine of Digital Arts, which has since ceased publication. Miller’s articles have widely been published in, for example, The Source, The Village Voice, Artforum, Paper Magazine, Rap Pages, and many other magazines and journals. The theory behind Paul D. Miller’s eclectic aesthetic can be traced through the book Rhythm Science., Miller’s first collection of essays published by MIT Press in April 2004, and included in several year-end lists of the best books of 2004, including the Guardian (UK) and Publishers Weekly. Sound Unbound, a collection of writing about sound art, digital media, and contemporary composition with writings from Brian Eno, Jonathan Lethem, Chuck D, Steve Reich, Cory Doctorow, Saul Williams, Pierre Boulez, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Jaron Lanier, Moby, and many others, edited by Miller, came out on MIT Press early 2008. 

Miller’s work as a media artist has appeared in a wide variety of contexts such as the Whitney Biennial; The Venice Biennial for Architecture (year 2000); The Venice Biennial of Art 2007 (Africa Pavilion), the Ludwig Museum in Cologne, Germany; Kunsthalle, Vienna; The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh and many other museums and galleries. His 2004 solo show at the Paula Cooper Gallery in New York, Path Is Prologue, echoed his live music/theater/film performance, DJ Spooky’s Rebirth of A Nation, which ran simultaneously at the Lincoln Center Festival after premieres in Vienna and at Spoleto USA in Charleston, SC and continues to tour globally.