Dear Ratti Foundation

As a composer of both sound and objects, I consider my field of research to be that of the human animal and my production works of wonder. The logic and vocabulary of this uncanny production runs parallel to that of alchemy, dreams, horror films and even extraterrestrial encounters and it is from this perspective that I have come to find great respect for the workings of our unconscious mind. Along the way I have performed with luminaries like Charlemange Palestine and Tony Conrad, devoured the writing of Philip K Dick, performed with firecrackers, played pipe organs, discovered the meaning of "non conscious social information processing" as well asFreud's "unheimlech", fallen through trap doors into pools of slime, taught myself handwriting analysis, lost three weather balloon powered UFO's, and recently discovered myself enrolled at the Columbia University's MFA program - where i was quickly introduced to Walter Benjamin Smith, who as an alumni to your course, introduced me to you.

I am very excited to be applying for this course. I believe that in many ways Susan Hiller and I tread a similar path, and while perhaps our materials and process differ, the trajectory of our ideas are in a kind of kinship. I expect something energetic from our proximity, interaction and shared meditations.

Furthermore I feel that surrounded as I now am with the full force of the Academy I must actively confront the tendency to perceive "thinking" as a behavior strictly associated with textuality and specifically concerning the "conscious" activity of a small part of the left hemisphere of the brain. This crisis has developed a desire within me for a compensatory theory of intelligences that include our entire body and all our unconsciousness. Art perhaps in these terms may best be seen as a way to engage these forces directly. A month of intimate reflection on dreams and dreaming could not come at a better, or more useful moment.

I hope to join you in Como and look forward to your reply.

---------------Very Best, mudboy R. Lyon--------------

NOTES: Following is a description of some of my recent projects to give you an idea of my work. They are in reverse chronological order with the newest at the top. At the end is a general statement and an official CV.

In addition I will post online a folder with referenced musical and video samples here: http://www.mudboymusic.com/ratti.zip

A recent LP is in the mail to you directly from the label, which not inconsequentially is run by an another alumni from a previous course, Simone Trabucci. It appears you have already received the LP, in the event that you don't have a record player- the music will also be in the zip folder in MP3 format.

NIGHT EYES (50:00 min, ISEA, DE 2010)and Installation (Mountain Fold Gallery NYC 2010)

This project began as a commission for a surround sound pipe organ and electronics concert to be performed live at the International Electronic Music Festival in Dortmund, Germany(2010). Toward creating, in effect, the worlds largest electro acoustic instrument, a concert hall's pipe organ was fitted with microphones and a series of electronic effects, the score called for participation of the audiences' cell phones. A "meditation" on dream, through sound- Night Eyes envelopes the listener in a series of four musical dream acts, punctuated with sudden awakenings and recurrent themes. The entire composition lifted lightly from field recordings made from my bed, elements and built its motifs off the uncanny (unheimlich) interval which marks most American doorbells, elevators, and not coincidentally- the theme to movie Nightmare on Elm Street,( Wes Craven's 80's masterpiece about a sociopath who kills his victims, not while they sleep- but in the dreams themselves)

The recording of Night Eyes will be released later this year as a 12" on the Weird Forest imprint.

The recording of Night Eyes was then transformed into the sound track of an immersive installation of the same name in New York at the Mountain Fold gallery. Here the development of the uncanny, as a visceral experience is brought into collision with the territory of a shifting kinetic field of lights and imagery.

The goal of the installation was to create a realm of shifting objects towards a viewer experience of shifting subjectivity. All the light projections (referred to as attractors) were hand made using LED's and optical lenses.

A two minute video of the light sculptures along with a bit of the second dream can be found in the download folder as well as on youtube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_SFeghndNA_________________________________________________________________

BEAM residency summer 2010

Together with a group of adolescents at the experimental "BEAM" summer camp in the remote New England woods, we created our own series of "Area 51" projects designed to create wonder and produce the illusion of UFO activity.

Using low tech equipment such as small LED flashlights, and helium balloons we produced a temporary installation or project every day for a week, culminating in an actual UFO.

The UFO was reported by the small town 10 miles away and a small aircraft was sent to inspect it. Winds later tore the UFO from the mooring and sent it into space.

Impossible Duets 12" LP 2009 (Released in collaboration with Hunderbiss records

This LP focuses on four different "impossible" musical collaborations. The "collaborators" were Brian Eno, a vernal swamp, the resonant frequency of the Earth, and a book by Philip K Dick. The extensive liner notes conclude with the words: I take no more than can I give... "You have done your half, please allow me to do mine. Let me bring to this conversation about impossibilities an imagination, let me ask what is possible if we were not so separated by time, or fame or death."

In my collaboration with the Black Creek Swamp I make claims for the fact that the neurobiology of hypnosis overlaps with the neurobiology of music and that the dissociation critical to hypnotic phenomena hinges upon a disengagement of a critical aspect of consciousness in combination with an irresolvable field of change and motion. That there is a close affinity between this irresolvable field of change and the disassociative effects of certain natural and chaotic shapes in nature.

The black swamp track is included in the download folder, however a 3 minute excerpt my be heard online here:

http://mudboymusic.com/columbia/BlackCreekexcerpt.mp3

Other performances:2009 Holedigger- Performance in collaboration with Invernomuto for the opening of Il Giardini dei Laurif *the collection of Angela and Massimo Laura, Chusi, Italy

NETMAGE FESTIVAL BOLOGNA 2009Live Performance - Historic Bologna Castle

In this performance I used a variety of low tech lighting techniques to produce a surround sound seance of a sort, ultimately reviving the dead king of Bologna who was imprisoned and died in the very castle where the performance was taking place. Music is played by the artist on a hand made and adapted instrument know as the mudboy mini. An excerpt of the introductory as were recorded as part of the Staalplaat Mort.Aux.Vaches series of CD's :http://mudboymusic.com/columbia/staalplaatVPRO.mp3

mudboy performances (2005, 2008)

TRUE MAGIC installation (Mountain Fold Gallery NYC) 2008My recent work also trued to use kinetic lights and projections to create visual analogs of the same fractal organization inherent in much of my musical compositions. This mediation of the "shape of life," was the subject for an installation at the Mountain Fold gallery in 2008. 90% of this installation, was made from post consumer waste. Cardboard, LED's, Surround sound.

Additional images

2009 Stairwell Gallery Providence: Solo Show with Peter BlasserKinetic light "painting"

2009 Salvage One: Commission: "Swamp Nest" kinetic light, mobile, chairs and sound

2008 Heaven Gallery, Chicago -"Lyon Family Circus" -installation detail

Statement 2011

There has never been a conceptual divide or distinction between mysound practice, my investigations with kinetic sculpture, my installations, ormy performance pieces. Though the chosen media may change, what has notis the presumption in which my practice is grounded: the work is not aproduct, but a tool, a means by which non-literal, often unconsciousexperiences may be organized and activated toward the sense ofwonder.

Whether we think of a Persian Sultan's commission of elaborateminiatures, or the jewel-encrusted church treasures of the CatholicChurch, traditional art was often engaged toward the creation ofvalue, and the storing of it as wealth. Today, in our cash-rich society, an independent artist must interrogate the form of value which his or her work accumulates; so while there are, therefore, obvious aesthetic and surface analogies between my work and that of say Olafur Eliasson, Peter Fischli & David Weiss, and even Chris Burden, when it comes tothe question of what is worth creating, my own commitments are farmore historical and, arguably, more esoteric.

My intellectual affinity is with a time when the role of theartist, the priest and the doctor were not separated by contemporaryconventions of specialization. Indeed, the operative metaphor for mywork is derived from occult histories of magic and spellcasting, andfrom variations on the shamanic tradition. I lean heavily on thetheoretical writings of authors like Ursula Le Guin and Philip K.Dick, both of whom argue that the production of "fantasy" and"miracle" is a critical, anti-fascist, and ultimately utopianoccupation. If we cannot be shaken out of our ethical and aesthetictorpor by the magic of cellular communication, GPS or even the moderntoaster, then what is left to help us imagine other worlds beyond this one?

It is wonder, in its formal representation as value--and not merelyvalue's shadowy, numerical referent--that I use my work to create. Myart is the most serious of magic tricks, the reversal of entropy- the generation of signal amidst a world of noise.

- mudboy R. Lyon

R. LyonCurriculum Vitae, August 2009

Raphael Lyoneots@riseup.net

www.mudboymusic.com84 Havemeyer Street,

Apartment 2, Brooklyn NY 11211

Born: Albuquerque, New Mexico, 1975Education: BA, Brown University College, 1999Honor Roll, Cum Laude, Art-SemioticsPrimary focus on Cultural Anthropology, Linguistics, and Film StudiesSecondary focus on Biology and Cognitive ScienceMFA Visual Arts Columbia University 2010 -2012

Statement:Raphael Lyon is a composer, and installation artist working around the world. His work focuses on living systems, fractal compositions, and unconscious intelligencies with an interest in creating a sense of wonder and excitement for humans in the modern age.

Recent Honors and Awards2011 Javits Foundation Scholarship for secondary education2010 "Night Eyes" Solo art show, Mountain Fold Gallery NYC2010 International Symposium on Electronic Art 2010 Headline Performance2010 "Sea Dreams” light installation 2010 International Computer Music Conference2010 "Area 51" Collaborative installations, BEAM Camp, New Hampshire2009 Lecture: Syracuse University: “Artist as Magician”2009 Collection: Printed Matter,ABB Kit #1, Jim Drain collaboration poster, Orphan Fairytale-mudboy long form CS+Print2009 Invitational Composition: New work for "Audience- 2009" Surround sound festival in NY and Delhi, India2008 Rhode Island State Council on the Arts grant: "All Bones Build IV "(Large diorama installation with living oyster mushrooms, LED Lights and cardboard)2007 Free 103.9 Wave Farm Summer residency N.Y. "Investigation into Dark Cinema"(Research on the cinematic potential and perceptual and cognitave impact of sound only narrative.)2007 RISCA + Rhode Island Foundation grant: “Experiencing the War in Iraq"(co-curator)2007 Family Store residency L.A. (Includes large onsite permanent public installation.)2007 LASA (Latin American Studies Association) Award of Merit2006 Austin Underground Film Festival Honorable Mention2006 Rhode Island State Council on the Arts Fellowship Award 2006 Drain-Fisher invitational residency (Miami)2005 Rhode Island School of Design Museum permanent collection2005 Rhode Island State Council on the Arts grant:: "Psicklops "

2005 Tarantula Hill residency (Baltimore)2005 Rhode Island State Council on the Arts grant: "Wonder Show of the Universe "(Composition and performance of experimental soundscape for the 1927 Wurltizer pipe organ)2003 guest Juror, Brown University, Juried Art Show

Selected Installations, Exhibitions2010Mountain Fold NYC solo show2010 BEAM, NH- Outdoor collaborative installation series with children 2010 International Computer Music Conference "Sea Dreams" installation 2010 Dub Shop -Kleio Projects/((Audience)) group show 2010 Desert Island Brooklyn, public Installation with Sherri Hay (Collaboration)2009 Holedigger- performance Opening for the collection of Angela and Massimo Laura, Chusi Italy2009 Cinders Gallery, Brooklyn NY: group show: “Cinderama"2009 Red House Arts Center, Syracuse NY: solo show: “Last Wishes" light paintings2009 Kunstcenter, Hasselt, Belguim: solo show: "Sea Dreams" prints and installation2009 Salvage One: Commission: "Swamp Nest" kinetic light and sound installation2009 Stairwell Gallery Providence: Solo Show with Peter Blasser 2009 808 Gallery Boston University College of Fine arts: group show, "Shadow Out of Time"2009 CTM Festival, performance Berlin, Germany2009 NETMAGE Festival, performance, Bologna Italy2008 Art Basel Miami/ Mountainfold: interactive light and sound installation2008 Mountain Fold Gallery NYC-‘True Magic” solo show 2008 Providence Art Windows, RI "All Bones Build IV"- public installation2008 Exit Art Foundation, BRAINWAVES Festival NYC -lecture2008 Artscape- City of Baltimore- public installation2008 Purchase College, Fluxus Festival -indoor kinetic installation2008 Heaven Gallery, Chicago -"Lyon Family Circus" -gallery installation2008 RADAR EYES: A Survey Of Hallucinogenic Printmaking -touring group exhibition2008 Experiencing the War in Iraq touring exhibition (co-curator)2007 Family- "All Bones Build" LA, California- permanent public installation2007 Bent Festival NYC - Eyebeam - exhibition of the Mudboy Mini - Headline performance 2007 RISD Museum Providence RI, "Wunderground" - group exhibition2005 Diepzout Gallery- Netherlands "Kamen Rider" Sculpture - group exhibition2006 PI Performance and Intermedia, National Museum in Szczecin, Poland -soundart2006 SoundLAB festival, Edition IV "m'scape" - touring soundart festival2006 Ear Thunder Festival, Ottawa, - performance and outdoor installation2006 Biennale 3000, San Paulo Brasil - group sound installation2006 Gallery Agniel, RI Printed and Pinned - group exhibition2005 NYC- "Strangers in the Dark", group sound installation2005 Technical Breakdown Festival, Copenhagen- outdoor sound installation2005 Future Friends Art Festival, Connecticut - performance and outdoor installation2003 Gallery Agniel -RI "Body of Work" group exhibition2001 Space 1026, Philadelphia- "Fort Thunder " group exhibition.2000 Space 1026, Philadelphia "Fort Thunder Returns" group exhibition.1999- 2001 Fort Thunder Art Collective- Revolving interactive "TOMY" monthly installations

Additional gallery work has appeared in the following locations-Green Gallery (Milwaukee) Jody Monroe (Milwaukee) Hermetic (Milwaukee)Angstrom/ QED (Dallas/ LA) Drinks and Drawings (Switzerland) Galleria Comercial (Puerto Rico)Hotcakes (Milwaukee) Ghosts Are Everywhere (LA) Polvo (Chicago)Locust Projects (Miami) Other Gallery (Winnipeg) Oooga Booga (Los Angelos)Morgan Lehmann (New York) Gavin Brown Enterprise (NYC) Little Cakes (NYC/Tokyo)Secret Project Robot (NYC) Western Exhibitions (Chicago) One Pixel Gallery (Philadelphia)Quimby's (Chicago) Printed Matter (NYC) Cinders (NYC) Longwood Arts ProjectDesert Island Brooklyn (NYC) Golden Age (Chicago) Thanky Space (Richmond)

Performances, Lectures* My experimental feature documentary on the emergence of networked radical journalists in Argentina during the crisis of 2001 entitled:"i" has been screened over 100 times infestivals and theaters throughout the world. Through distribution by Las Americas Films it has found its way into the permanent collection of nearly two dozen institutions.

* In 2005 The Dark Cinema audio only work "Psicklops" was broadcast on over a dozen radio stations around the world and screened in nearly 50 locations. It is a popular request for sound art festivals and has been selected for WFMU's curated download archive.

* I continue to lecture in the United States and Europe and have presented for such institutions as Free 103.9, Exit Art, Emerson University, Centro Social il Molino(Italy), Clark University, Johns Hopkins University, Brown University, Wesleyan University, The Art Institute of Chicago, RPI, The University of Chicago, and Syracuse University among others.

* As "mudboy" I create experiences using homemade instruments of my own design, surround sound electronics and circuit bent electric keyboards. The musical aspects are dark and minimalist, and have been compared at times to that of Steve Reich and Terry Riley. Over the past 6 years mudboy has toured throughout the United States and Europe several times, headlining the Bent Festival in 2007 and releasing 12 full length solo albums. In 2005 I received a grant to compose several new works for the historic (1927) Wurlitzer Pipe Organ. mudboy has performed alongside acts like Black Dice, Lightning Bolt, Paper Rad and Lucky Dragons and recently created the worlds largest electroacoustic instrument for ISEA 2010 in Dortmund Germany

Ongoing Projects-Artistic Director and Production Manager for Free Matter for the Blind or "Fm4tb." Fm4tb is a music label of sound art and experiments in audio. The library includes, but is not limited to, cutting edge field recordings and investigations into the possibilities cinematic audio audio. To date Fm4tb has released 37 full length recordings on everything from CD to cassette. Much of the out

of print catalog has been accepted into the NY radio station WFMU's curated audio archive.

Selected Screenings

Beauty, Horror and Silence: The Electronic Arts and Music Festival,which will occur at Harold Golen Gallery in Miami, FL from December 4—6.2009 Festival of "Beauty, Horror and Silence”- Miami, Art Basel, Harold Golen Gallery2009 ‘Spirit Enlightened’ December 09 to July 10 Maharashtra, India, San Francisco2008 Harold Golen Gallery Miami The Electronic Arts and Music Festival,2008 Exit Art Foundation, NYC, Brain Wave Festival2008 Exit Art Foundation, NYC, Signs of Change- Social Movement Cultures, 1960's to Now.2007 "i" Museum of Contemporary Art, Barcelona Spain2007 "i"Austin Underground Film Festival2007 "i" North Of Nowhere Expo Edmonton 2006 "i"Detroit Film Center, Detroit Michigan2006 "i"Latin American Film Festival (Bordeaux)2006 "i"Ann Arbor Film Festival2004-2005 Slomo Video Festival (Touring)2005 Carriage House Theater- RI, RISCA funded performance of Psicklops2005 NewMediaFest, Copenhagen, (collaboration with D. Fischer)2004 Violence Online Festival, Net festival, Copenhagen,2003 Lost Film Festival, (Touring Festival) USA and Europe,2003 Chicago Documentary Film Festival,2003 Rotterdam International Film Festival,2002 Amnesty International's Human Rights Film Festival2001 NY Underground Film Festival2000 Hi Mom Film Festival

Video and Film Releases2009 Mupped experimental video based on the muppets Wizard of OZ (mudboy) 4 min2008 Mud Mantra for Conquering Death experimental video animation (mudboy/ David Fischer) 6 min2007 Othern Lights- experimental geometric video animation (mudboy/David Fischer) 8 min FM4tb2006 "i" Indymedia, Argentina, and the Questions of Communication - feature length documentaryA meditation on the rise of networked radical journalism. Co-Directed with Andres Ingoglia,screened widely, Broadcast on Deep Dish Television, Distributed by Las Americas Films2005 SLOMO DVD Compilation :Includes: "errruh erruhah" video (1 min), "93" video (1 min) "Louis Louis" video (1 min)2005 DVISION "CONTRABAND"- Tactical Media Magazine Compilation:Includes: "Eye of the Storm” Available on DVD2003 "Eye of the Storm" documentary Video on the Argentine Uprisings of 2001 (23 min)Available on VHS and DVD, Distributed by AK Press2000 "CP Rail Kanada, and Other Strange Tales" compilation VHS, includes:"Bionic Bunny" 16mm and Video, experimental narrative 3 min(2000), "Providence Age" 16mm and video,experimental narrative 14 min(1999), "CP Rail Kanada" Super-8 documentary- about train hopping acrossCanada 23 min (1997) "Hungry Man's Dream" 16mm experimental narrative 8 min (1995)

Musical Releases as mudboy*=full length albums*2010 mudboy’s Impossible Duets LP: Hundebiss Records (IT)*2009 mudboy LiveCD: VPRO Staalplaat (NL/DE)*2009 mudboy and Orphan Fairytale Live Amsterdam: Long form CS, FM4TB Records2009 Music For Any Speed 7”and Illusion Poster Lexi Disques (BE)*2009 The Planatarium Project Double CD with Area C Sedimental Records*2008 MUDBOY BEATS Volume III- Metal USA" C40 Breaking World Records*2008 mudboy Live at the PPAC –postcard Download The Sound Projector Magazine2008 "5608" C20 with roll-out poster, (Collaboration with Dave Lifrieri and Stefan Neville)- FM4TB Records2008 mudboy's MuDMuX Volume I 7" - (Muxing of Extreme Animals and The Dark Dark Dark) DNT Records.2008 The All Bones Build Fantasy Playset with looping Soundtrack by mudboy CD and sculpture kit FM4TB 2008 Usa is a mudboy- Kites is a Monster (Collaboration with USA is a Monster) split CS/CD-r Mass Dist 2008 "Study for a Sleep Album, 2nd Movement" - Ambient Not Ambient Compilation CD Audio Dregs*2008 MUDBOY BEATS II Half Ice Half Wasted - (Collaboration with DJ Jassy Jexx) , CS/CD-r FM4TB *2007 mudboy Volume 5 - Hungry Ghosts!- These Songs are Doors." CD Digitalis Industries LP on NotNotFun Records*2007 MUDBOY BEATS I, C40, FM4TB Records*2006 mudboy Volume 6- Let It Be A Nightingale Then, Whose Words Are My Words, LP -Bread and Animals (BE)2006 Haunted Ghosts + Auk Theater (Split CS with Irene Moon) Imvated Tapes (BE)*2006 mudboy Live "Escape Velocity-Italy etal, cd-r, FM4TB Records*2006 mudboy Live 2006-" Ffflying Llama" CD-r FM4TB2006 "Terry Shiva" -The Invisible Pyramid: Elegy (6-cd box set compilation) Last Visible Dog Records-*2005 mudboy Volume IV "This is Folk Music" CD -Last Visible Dog Records*2005 TOMY Holiday Album, FM4TB Records2005 Far Afield: A Webbed Hand Compilation CD Webbed Hand Records.(IT)2004 mudboy and Tomy Organism Sampler CD-r FM4tb Records*2004 mudboy "LIVE AT THE SAFARI" -CD Retina Scan (DE)*2001 mudboy volume II - Resnik Loves Me,(Or Further Adventures in Space Time, Math…) Cd-r FM4TB Records*2000 mudboy volume I -Limited edition Full length CS :Limited edition self release.