DJ Spooky and Greg Niemeyer Launch Quantopia

Teaming up with Internet Archive and data artist Greg Niemeyer, composer/multimedia artist Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky created QUANTOPIA: The Evolution of the Internet, featuring performances by DJ Spooky, Classical Revolution and San Francisco Girls Chorus.

QUANTOPIA, defined as the utopia of quantification —the dream that we can count, measure, and weigh everything and reach a perfect understanding of the world despite its paradoxes— brings new, fresh perspectives on the 50-year evolution of information technology. Philosopher Marshall McLuhan said that the new media “works us over completely. It is so pervasive in its personal, political, economic, aesthetic, psychological, moral, ethical, and social consequences that it leaves no part of us untouched, unaffected, un-altered.”

DJ Spooky creates live loops and layers of sound, enveloped by data visualization, live strings and youth choir. The hour-long experience is a multi-sensory journey illuminating ever-present issues of inclusion and exclusion, echo chambers and small-world phenomena. A celebration of the history of the Internet, QUANTOPIA is a tribute to the depth and high stakes of free speech and creative expression involved in our daily use of media.

QUANTOPIA is commissioned by the Internet Archive, created with funding from a Hewlett 50 Arts Commission from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and presented in association with YBCA. Produced by Sozo Artists, Inc. with additional support from Sozo Impact, Inc.

Paul Miller aka DJ Spooky using a VR DJ system developed by Greg Niemeyer and Medium Labs for the multimedia concert Quantopia, 2019