Cecyl Ruehlen (b. 1984) is an intermedia artist, performer, educator and curator. They morph actions, objects, and idiosyncratic recording processes into topological contortions with an array of chimeric, hand-made instruments and mercurial sound forms. Their forensic mode of composing is guided by deep listening and meteoric super-impositions that distort, abstract, decompose, and explode internal and salvaged materials, shaping a practice of devoted study and drifting obsessions. Ruehlen's collaborative art life has placed them at the nexus of underground and experimental scenes in the western United States in recent years, pouring forth albums, performance ventures, shifting monikers, and cultural alliances, largely through their operating of a label, DIY spaces, teaching, and touring sporadically since the late '00s.
They have shown work in countless D.I.Y. spaces, basements, temporary performance zones, music venues and art spaces. More formally this include the Denver Art Museum, Dogstar Orchestra in Los Angeles CA, Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, The Center For New Music in San Francisco, The Tank: Center For The Sonic Arts, Indexical in Santa Cruz, CA, The 2016 MediaLive Festival at Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, Gallery 1412 in Seattle WA, Treefort Music Festival in Boise ID, Automata Gallery In Los Angeles, Sound Praxis in San Diego CA, Tucson Museum of Contemporary Art, Squeaky Wheel Media in Buffalo, NY, Kimball Art Center in Park City, UT, OutSound in San Francisco, CA, Westminster College in Salt Lake City, UT, AS220 in Providence, RI, Vox Populi in Philadelphia, PA, 2014 Currents International New Media Arts Festival in Santa Fe, NM, The Paseo Media Art Festival in Taos, NM, The 2020 Borealis Festival's Radio Space in Bergen, Norway, the 2015 Biennial of the Americas-Denver, 2021-22 Co-Incidence Festival of Experimental Music as well as the 2021 High Desert Soundings festival in Joshua Tree, California. They have published multimedia textual work with Incite: Journal of Experimental Media, Materialities of Literature - Impactum Journal, & Lunamopolis Press. Their recordings and performances have been featured on such networks as the BBC and NPR and have work in numerous collections including The Tate in London and The Whitney Museum / New School in New York. They have released a many albums since the early-mid '00s -- more recently releasing on Shadowtrash Tape Group, Harmonic Ooze Records, Full Spectrum Records, Never Anything Records, Ingrown Records, Ephem-Aural Recordings, Falt Records, and 2182 kHz Recording Company. Ruehlen is formally represented by 2182 kHz Recording Company.
Their work has been described as, “Emotive and suggestive, each soundscape gestures toward the impending collapse” (Foxy Digitalis), “Constantly-evolving atmospheres that veer into pulse-quickening noise” (Bandcamp Daily), “Ruehlen’s fascination with topographical disorientation lays the groundwork for quicksilver movements in sudden formation, an inability to recognize, becoming lost in familiar environments” (Tabs Out Podcast). “Ruehlen’s gliding, infinitely malleable musicality, lends a quivering vibrancy to their performances; one that percolates with potent life-igniting propellents, and which lacks a discernible consistency of form” (Thought I Heard A Sound). Their projects, “Seek to subvert traditional artistic conventions…incorporating elements of improvisation, indeterminacy and philosophical playfulness to fascinating effect” (Dallas Observer), “Positing it as a natural force unto itself” (The Wire).
A true polyhyphenate, they drift between roles as a performer, organizer, instrument builder, sound designer, media archaeologist, educator, multi-instrumentalist, visual artist, operator of Harmonic Ooze Records, and co-programmer of the experimental arts venue Wave Archive, with John Melillo. They have received various awards including the 2017 Project Society of the Integrated Remote and In Situ Sensing Program research grant from the IRISS Grand Challenge Society and was a recipient, with the Flinching Eye Collective, of the 2014 Idea Fund Grant, a program of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.
Ruehlen received a BFA in studio arts from Fort Hays State University in 2007, an MFA in studio arts at the University of Colorado in 2013 and a PhD in Intermedia Art, Writing, and Performance at the University of Colorado in 2019. They teach sound technology and installation art courses for the University Of Arizona's College of Information Science. While they have led a relatively nomadic life across the US, Ruehlen has lived in the Sonoran Desert for the better part of a decade, where they are perpetually building an artist compound/residency on their property, The Center For Harmonic Ooze.