TONSPUR 96: Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky

Paul D. Miller — DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid
Democracy. A Composition
Supported by Fulbright Austria
TONSPUR für einen öffentlichen raum 2026

27 Apr—6 Jun 2026
Preview • Sunday 26 Apr • 17:00
Welcome • Georg Weckwerth
On the collaboration • Hermann Agis (ED Fulbright Austria)
On Paul Miller • Timothy Morton
On the piece • DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid

TONSPUR_passage | Micro Museum for Sound
Museumsquartier Wien
Museumsplatz 1 • 1070 Vienna
daily 10:00 to 20:00

DJ SPOOKY • DEMOCRACY. A COMPOSITION • TONSPUR 96

Pleonexia (πλεονεξία) is the Ancient Greek term for an insatiable drive for acquisition—a “ruthless greed” that disregards the welfare of others. In the 4th century BCE, Aristotle identified it as the root of all injustice, while the Sophist Thrasymachus argued it was humanity’s natural state, restrained only by the “unnatural” force of law. Today, this concept provides a vital lens for the “polycrisis”—the interlocking threats of hyper-consumerism, democratic backsliding, and a global oligarchic class detached from the nations that fostered their power.

Our modern governance is an inheritance from the Athenian “Golden Age.”
In 508 BCE, Cleisthenes overthrew an entrenched oligarchy to empower the demos. This shift acted as a catalyst for an unprecedented explosion in critical thought, producing foundational figures such as the playwrights Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes; the historian Thucydides; and the mathematician Democritus. At the heart of this experiment was the Kleroterion, the world’s first “democracy machine.” By using a stone lottery system to select citizens for office, it utilized chance to ensure equity and prevent the corruption of pleonexia.

As part of a Fulbright Specialist residency, DJ Spooky presents Democracy. A Composition. The piece is a central element of his larger project, The Pleonexia Sessions, which includes a series of lectures at universities in Linz, Graz, and Salzburg. Commissioned by TONSPUR Kunstverein Wien, this work utilizes data sonification to translate the variables of the Democracy Index into living musical structures. The sound exhibit is accompanied by 7 limited edition prints made by DJ Spooky on the theme of the 250th Anniversary of the United States.

By applying the “chance operations” of the ancient Kleroterion to contemporary political datasets, the artist generates complex strata of sound. At their core, these compositions use data and pattern generation to interrogate the heart of 21st-century democracy, creating sound art that is—much like the democratic experiment itself—inherently modular, constantly in flux, like an unfinished symphony in perpetual motion.