CLARK CONFERENCE
Writing aloud
CONVENED BY Dylan Robinson (University of British Columbia) and Caitlin Woolsey (Clark Art Institute)
March 12–13, 2026
The 2026 Clark Conference, Writing Aloud, brings together writers, scholars and artists to trace the intersections between sonic arts practice, listening experience, and experimental writing. What is the expanded role that writing plays in theorizing the materiality of sound, or “writing aloud” as proposed by Roland Barthes? To what extent might critical-creative writing methods draw the reader toward sound’s capaciousness? Such methods also offer the potential to unsettle the normative logics of art historical writing (and the form of the essay more generally). This convening aims to think about the intertwining of sound and writing practices that engage with sonic arts. How might new approaches to writing of and about sound continue to transform the disciplines of art history, visual studies, and sound studies in the future?
This convening is structured as a semi-private two-day workshop with pre-circulated papers, and conference sessions will be devoted to brief remarks from the speakers, prepared responses, and extended group discussion.
The conference will not be live-streamed.
For any questions, please contact [email protected].
speakers
Seth Cluett, artist, composer, writer, Director of the Computer Music Center and Assistant Director of the Sound Art MFA Columbia University, New York, New York
J. Martin Daughtry, associate professor of music and sound studies, New York University, New York
Hendrik Folkerts, Chief Curator of Programme, Kunsthaus Zürich, Switzerland
Annie Goh, artist and researcher, course leader, BA Sound Arts, London College of Communication, London University of the Arts, United Kingdom
Sora Han, professor of sociolegal studies and comparative literature, University of California, Irvine
Natilee Harren, associate professor of art history, University of Houston, Houston, Texas
Masimba Hwati, artist and researcher, Vienna, Austria
jake moore, artist and curator, Head of University Art Galleries and Assistant Professor, School for the Arts, University of Saskatchewan
Michael Nardone, writer and editor, Montréal, Canada
Ethan Philbrick, cellist, artist, writer, Curator-in-Residence at The Poetry Project, New York, New York
Dylan Robinson, co-convener, professor, School of Music, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Caitlin Woolsey, co-convener, Assistant Director, Research and Academic Program (RAP), Clark Art Institute
respondents
Dan Byers, Senior Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA), Williamstown, Massachusetts
Seth Cluett, artist, composer, writer, Director of the Computer Music Center and Assistant Director of the Sound Art MFA Columbia University, New York, New York
Christoph Cox, philosopher, critic, curator, Executive Dean of Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts, The New School, New York, New York
Luke Fischbeck, artist, writer, researcher, lecturer in the Department of Art and Art History, Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts
Natalie Ginsberg, M.A. student (’26), Williams Graduate Program in History of Art, Williamstown, Massachusetts
Image: Ethan Philbrick and Justin Wong performing in Philbrick’s “Instrument” as part of the exhibition Boffo: After Sunset at kurimanzutto, New York, New York, October 2024. Photo by Nir Arieli.