Ken Ueno’s somatic films (and secret meridians—a Uenoian term for temporally specific video captures) extend his practice as a musician and performer, a practice that resists the neoliberal surveillance mode that datafies our bodies. Datafication flattens ontologies, whereas Ueno champions the unique experience of each individual life as sacred.

A recipient of the Rome Prize and the Berlin Prize, Ken Ueno (b. 1970) is a composer/vocalist/sound artist who currently holds the Jerry and Evelyn Hemmings Chambers Distinguished Professor Chair in Music at UC Berkeley. Ensembles and performers who have played Ueno’s music include Kim Kashkashian and Robyn Schulkowsky, Mayumi Miyata, Teodoro Anzellotti, Aki Takahashi, Wendy Richman, Greg Oakes, BMOP, Alarm Will Sound, Steve Schick and the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, the Nieuw Ensemble, and Frances-Marie Uitti. His music has been performed at such venues as Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, MusikTriennale Köln Festival, the Muziekgebouw, Ars Musica, Warsaw Autumn, Other Minds, the Hopkins Center, Spoleto USA, Steim, and at the Norfolk Music Festival.