By Maryanne Amacher. Edited with introduction by Lawrence Kumpf.
The most comprehensive compilation of the sound artist's working documents for her unrealized media-opera tour de force
Written in the early 1980s by American sound art pioneer Maryanne Amacher (1938–2009), Intelligent Life follows the employees of Supreme Connections LLC, a music entertainment corporation navigating a future in which artificial intelligence generates music faster than composers can. Anticipating an industry-wide downturn, Supreme Connections president Aplisa Kandel seeks advanced technologies that will revolutionize the act of listening, narrating to the audience as she does so. Though the untimely deaths of the opera's would-be patrons prevented Amacher from realizing the work in its intended forms—a serialized radio broadcast and television simulcast—she continued designing "treatments" for the opera for much of her career. This publication makes the most complete presentation of these working documents—including episodic scripts, notes on the use of LaserDisc and an illustrated storyboard for the pilot—available to the public for the first time, and evinces Amacher's prescient ideas about perception, listening and composition.
STATUS: Forthcoming | 4/7/2026
This title is not yet published in the U.S. To pre-order or receive notice when the book is available, please email orders @ artbook.com
FORMAT: Pbk, 8.5 x 11 in. / 490 pgs / 28 b&w. LIST PRICE: U.S. $65.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $98 ISBN: 9781953691231 PUBLISHER: Blank Forms Editions AVAILABLE: 4/7/2026 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Forthcoming AVAILABILITY: Awaiting stock TERRITORY: NA LA ASIA AU/NZ AFR ME
Published by Blank Forms Editions. By Maryanne Amacher. Edited with introduction by Lawrence Kumpf.
The most comprehensive compilation of the sound artist's working documents for her unrealized media-opera tour de force
Written in the early 1980s by American sound art pioneer Maryanne Amacher (1938–2009), Intelligent Life follows the employees of Supreme Connections LLC, a music entertainment corporation navigating a future in which artificial intelligence generates music faster than composers can. Anticipating an industry-wide downturn, Supreme Connections president Aplisa Kandel seeks advanced technologies that will revolutionize the act of listening, narrating to the audience as she does so. Though the untimely deaths of the opera's would-be patrons prevented Amacher from realizing the work in its intended forms—a serialized radio broadcast and television simulcast—she continued designing "treatments" for the opera for much of her career.
This publication makes the most complete presentation of these working documents—including episodic scripts, notes on the use of LaserDisc and an illustrated storyboard for the pilot—available to the public for the first time, and evinces Amacher's prescient ideas about perception, listening and composition.
