PAUL D. MILLER – DJ SPOOKY AKA THAT SUBLIMINAL KID

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 in addition to using different techniques of artificial intelligence to analyze the democracy data index. 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.


Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid, born in Washington, DC, USA in 1970, lives and works in New York City, USA. Fulbright Specialist artist in residence, hosted by TONSPUR Kunstverein Wien.

On Paul Miller
By Timothy Morton

Paul is that very rare person who can fuse sound and thinking. We talk glibly about sounds of ideas (“sounds good”) every day, but what if this were actually true? The best pop musicians can sing their phrases as if they were talking them into an autotune. And the best philosophers can describe the thoughts implicit in musical phrases, as if channeling angels and demons. Paul is able to do both. I won’t forget in a hurry Paul’s work for a class I was teaching on Victorian drama three years ago. For the class, I commissioned Paul to produce music about British imperialism, using only found sounds from the Victorian period. The result was breathtaking. It takes a unique fusion of thought and sound to be able to do that. Paul Miller’s music is…stirring, intense, scary (in the best ways). It is for the soul. Paul pushes the body-mind into places it needs to go to locate what Maya Angelou calls “new steps of change.”

TONSPUR 96
PAUL D. MILLER – DJ SPOOKY
DEMOCRACY. A COMPOSITION
TONSPUR FÜR EINEN ÖFFENTLICHEN RAUM 2026

Democracy. A Composition • 8-channel soundwork, 7-part series of A1 images • duration 25’01’’ • concept, composition, A1 images Paul D. Miller – DJ Spooky • installation set up Peter Szely • production TONSPUR Kunstverein Wien • artistic director Georg Weckwerth • Special thanks Timothy Morton, Fulbright Austria

Opening • Sun APR 26, 5 p.m.

TONSPUR_passage | Micro Museum for Sound
APR 27 – JUN 6 2026
daily 10 a.m. – 8 p.m.
25’01’’