Samuel Hertz (b. Washington, DC, USA 1987) is a sound artist and researcher working at intersections of Earth-based sound, sonic sensualities, and climate change. Having studied composition with experimental music pioneers Pauline Oliveros, Fred Frith, Maggi Payne, and Zeena Parkins at the Center for Contemporary Music at Mills College, Hertz works fluidly between the worlds of composed music for ensembles, electronic music and installation, performance, and film. Alongside his performances exists a strong research component based in Anthropocene studies and encompassing relationships between sound, geography, climate, and social ecologies. A prime motivation is investigations of hearing practices as practical engagements with environments and non-human scales.
Hertz is currently a AHRC/Techne-funded PhD candidate at the Royal Holloway, University of London Centre for GeoHumanities, researching sound-sensing networks of climate change research at the scales of the atmospheric, geologic, and bioacoustic conservation. His research can recently been seen in contexts such as Akademie der Künste (Berlin, DE), Struer Tracks Sound Art Biennale (DK), Kulturmødet Mors (DK), as well as across various journals, publications and academic conferences.
Among a number of on-going collaborations with choreographers and performance-makers, Hertz has two main active projects:
Librations (collaboration with Carmelo Pampillonio): a performance/composition utilizing an Earth-Moon-Earth (EME) radio communications relay used to create ‘Moonbounce’ recordings. Librations premiered at Fylkingen (Stockholm, SE) in February 2020, after production and composition residencies at Elektronmusikstudion (Stockholm, SE), Wave Farm (Acra, NY), and Pioneer Works (New York, NY), and production/residency funding from Goethe-Institut Deutschland (DE) and The Foundation for Contemporary Arts (US). Recently, Hertz and Pampillonio released their “Ephemeral Afterimage” sculpture to the International Space Station, where it remains exhibited for the next five years.
DOOM (collaboration with Layton Lachman): four performers move through a precarious landscape of chaos, magic and collapse — often intensified and distorted by incessant dancing. DOOM premiered at Sophiensaele (Berlin, DE) in January 2021 with support from Musikfonds e.V., and has further followed into a 35’ film, a podcast mix, and an upcoming full-length album with additional support from Musikfonds e.V.
As the first winner of the DARE Prize for Radical Interdisciplinarity (UK), he researches environmental and artificial infrasound alongside climate scientists, music psychologists, and paranormal investigators. Recent work includes: performances at venues across northern Europe, lectures and teaching at the University of Leeds, Royal College of Art, American Association of Geographers, Lancaster University, Westminster University, Drexel University, and Ohio University, three features on the BBC, and residencies at Visby International Centre for Composers (SE), Elektronmusikstudion (SE), and The Tetley (UK). His IMAX film and sound installation A Shadow Feeling was recently added to the permanent Media Arts collection of the National Science + Media Museum (UK). Past projects include the premiere of a cycle of nine songs at the prestigious Macerata Opera Festival (IT) in collaboration with CASA*MARZIANO and the Balleto Teatro di Torino, as well as instructing workshops on sonic geographies at Palais de Tokyo as a part of Tomás Saraceno’s ON AIR carte blanche exhibition (Paris, FR). His work has additionally been seen in places such as the Ars Electronica Festival 2020 (Linz, AT), Zentrum für Aktuelle Künst (Berlin, DE), the BONE Performance Art Festival (Zürich, CH), as well as heard 2km below sea level as a part of the Radio Amnion project (CA).
As a researcher, Hertz has published nine essays on sound, climate, and environment, including research associated with the Berlin-based institution Haus der Kulturen der Welt’s Anthropocene Curriculum, Studio Tomás Saraceno (DE), Sonic Field (“THE BIG BANG and what we left behind”, 2019) , Critical Path/Critical Dialogues (“Condensations”, 2019), and The Centre for Sustainable Practice in the Arts. Hertz was previously a guest editor and essayist at Temporary Art Review, curating a month of interviews, performances and essays. Two recent book chapters authored by Hertz appear in the edited volumes Toxic Temple (De Gruyter/edition:angewandte), and Movement III: Confluences (Onassis Foundation).
Until April 2021, Hertz’s research on ecology is also housed within the School of Infinite Rehearsals within the Onassis Cultural Institute (Athens, GR) under the direction of James Bridle and alongside other artists and researchers.
Samuel is a frequent collaborator of a number of American and European performance and dance companies/choreographers, creating immersive sound design, installations, and live performance situations in such places as ImPulsTanz (Vienna, AT), Tanzplattform Deutschland 2020 + 2022 (DE), ICI/CCN (Montpellier, FR), Sophiensaele (Berlin, DE), Charleroi Danse/La Raffinerie (Brussels, BE), CounterPulse (San Franscisco, USA), Rencontres Chorégraphiques de Seine-Saint-Denis (Paris, FR), NEXT Festival (FR & BE), and UltimaVez Studios (Brussels, BE).
As a performer himself, he has appeared in Mark Jeffery/Judd Morrissey's performance piece The Labors at the Museum of Contemporary Art, The Precession at the Hyde Park Arts Center, Defibrillator Performance Gallery and Arizona State University, and The Operature, premiered in Chicago in March of 2014, after having been performed in various previous iterations at York St. John University (York, UK), Kings College (London, UK), and various locations around Chicago.