ISSUE’s 2012 Artists-in-Residence: Hunter Hunt Hendrix

“During my residency I intend to expand the vocabulary of Liturgy and Transcendental Black Metal along three trajectories.  First I will explore and enhance resonances between the “burst beat” concept with techniques from the European avant-garde and American experimental traditions.  Secondly I’ll explore multi-channel sound installation, creating an Ecstatic Space using autocatalysis, motion sensor and video elements.  Third I will write and present in lecture form a Treatise on the Arkwork.  These developments are en route to the composition of an apocalyptic Blakean minimalist black metal opera in the spirit of Scriabin, to be titled 01010n.”

Photo by Jason Nocito

Hunter Hunt-Hendrix is the singer, guitarist and songwriter for the Brooklyn black metal band Liturgy. Born 1985 in NYC, he matriculated at Columbia University with a B.A. in philosophy. During that time he also studied contemporary composition (electroacoustics, extended techniques and a seminar with Tristan Murail) while also maintaining a close connection to the D.I.Y. Brooklyn music scene, playing in hardcore, metal and math rock bands. In 2008 he formed Liturgy, a self-christened “Transcendental Black Metal” band committed to developing and enhancing resonances between black metal and various domains of avant-garde culture: serious music, contemporary art and contemporary philosophy. Liturgy has toured extensively in the US and Europe and gained a reputation for straddling the worlds of experimental music, indie rock and metal — playing festivals as diverse the Roadburn Festival, the Donau Festival and the New Yorker Festival — and has received accolades from the New York Times, Pitchfork, Berliner Zeitung, Decibel and others. In 2009 Liturgy released their first full-length on 20 Buck Spin, an underground metal label. Later that year Hunt-Hendrix delivered the lecture “Transcendental Black Metal” at the now-legendary Hideous Gnosis black metal theory symposium. The text of the lecture was subsequently published in the academic journal Lacanian Ink. In 2011, Thrill Jockey records released Liturgy’s sophomore release Aesthethica (called “one of the year’s most bracing” in a recent NYT review), cementing Liturgy’s place on the vanguard of experimental rock and stirring great controversy within the metal community. Hunt-Hendrix has also participated in a number of multimedia collaborations, including a performance with Kai Althoff, Brandon Stosuy and the Mirror Me Group (Dispatch gallery, 2009) and the Pipeline project with Kingsboro Press (W/ gallery, 2011). Current projects include an ongoing collaboration with abstract painter Erik Lindman and work on a new video art piece entitled “Genesis Caul”.

Established in 2006, ISSUE’s AIR program provides emerging artists with a 3-month residency including rehearsal space, production, curatorial, and pr/marketing support to create new works, to reach the next stage in their artistic development, and gain exposure to a broad public audience. ISSUE’s Artist-in-Residence program is made possible, in part, through generous support from the Jerome Foundation, the Suzanne Fiol Memorial Fund, and with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the New York State Council on the Arts, celebrating 50 years of building strong, creative communities in New York’s 62 counties.