Dead Air (2017, Cohen Gallery, Brown University)

This group exhibition presented by the Brown Arts Initiative featuring works by Tony Bragg, Cooper Holoweski, Martin Smick, and Ziyang Wu. Framed by Herman Melville’s meditation on the sea’s hidden forces, the exhibition explored the evolution of consciousness—from its speculative origins in deep time to its fragmented, digitized state in the present. The show asked: What is consciousness, and how has humanity’s pursuit to understand and control it shaped both the world and the self?

Through sculpture, sound, video, and print-based installation, Dead Air examined the aesthetics of scientific discovery, mythology, and colonial exploration, while drawing on science fiction and metaphysical inquiry. Bragg’s sculptural astronaut/diver hybrid and satirical drawings reflect the collapse of heroism and the imperial legacy of conquest. Holoweski’s sound work Ashes and video Food Shelter Clothing trace consciousness from the Big Bang to digital abstraction, evoking cyclical patterns of inquiry and invention. Smick’s large-scale print installation Stave My Soulfeatures a lone dolphin floating beneath the ocean’s surface—prompting questions about non-human intelligence, reflection, and the anthropocentric lens through which we view other forms of life. Wu’s animated video The Last Subwaypresents a dreamlike narrative that shifts between real and virtual worlds, highlighting the influence of gaming and globalized media on identity and perception.

Together, the artists offered speculative, critical, and poetic responses to consciousness as both a shared and fractured experience. Dead Air ultimately explored how our inner worlds are shaped by broader systems—natural, technological, and cultural—and asked what lies ahead as we drift deeper into mediated and contested realities.