Where We're At Podcast – No. 10
Richard Powers
Richard Powers is the author of to-date nine novels, and the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship. His most recent novel, The Echo Maker, was awarded the 2006 National Book Award. He is one of the most important novelists currently working in the United States, and has fearlessly taken on many of the Big Ideas that define our times — racism (The Time of Our Singing), industrial pollution (Gain), the boundary between machine intelligence and human consciousness (Galatea 2.2) — and in the process has demonstrated that literature still matters in the 21st Century. He has a habit of making intellectual leaps that result in startling connections, like intertwining the discovery of the DNA double helix with the keyboard music by J.S. Bach (The Goldbug Variations). His writing is heady and cerebral, but also lyrical and tender.
Powers has a long and enduring connection to the University of Illinois. His is currently the Swanlund Professor of English and Writer-in-Residence at the Beckman Institute. Equally important, he is an alumnus of UIUC, having earned both B.A. and M.A. degrees in English in the late 1970's.
To celebrate both Powers' literary accomplishments and his contributions to the University of Illinois, the Provost's Office commissioned production of five short video works, each of which interprets a passage from one of Richard Powers' novels – The Goldbug Variations, Galatea 2.2, Plowing the Dark, The Time of our Singing, and The Echo Maker. The videos are a collaborative endeavor between Powers and a group of artists and designers from the School of Art + Design.
Over the next several months ninthletter.com will publish all five video works. This interpretation based on The Time of Our Singing is the first installment.
Credits
Editing & Composing
Travis Austin
Becky Nasadowski
Art Direction
Daniel Goscha
Sound Design
Travis Austin
Voice Over
Richard Powers
Text From
The Time of Our Singing, by Richard Powers
