Editing Nicolas Collins (section)

==Biography==
In the 1980s Collins was "a pioneer in the use of microcomputers in live performance, and has made extensive use of 'home-made' electronic circuitry, radio, [[found art|found sound]] material, and transformed musical instruments."<ref name="kalvos.org">{{cite web|url=http://www.kalvos.org/collins.html|title=Nicolas Collins, Nonpop New Music Composer|website=www.kalvos.org|access-date=17 February 2019}}</ref> Trained in the experimental compositional tradition of [[Alvin Lucier]], [[David Behrman]], and [[David Tudor]], all of whom he worked with closely, Collins also immersed himself in the New York Improvised Music scene of the 1980s. Using home-built instruments that combined circuitry, simple computers and traditional instruments such as trombones and slide guitars, he collaborated and performed with [[Tom Cora]], [[Shelley Hirsch]], [[Christian Marclay]], [[Zeena Parkins]], [[John Zorn]] and others. Collins's compositions frequently ask performers to respond to unpredictable musical cues, as in ''Devil's Music'' (1985), in which the performer DJs with snippets of live scanning radio, or ''Still Lives'' (1993), in which a solo trumpet player improvises against a skipping CD of Renaissance brass music. More recent works include ''In Memoriam Michel Waiswicz'' (2008), in which a birthday candle 'plays' a light-sensitive circuit until it burns down; and ''Speak, Memory'' (2016) in which the digital data of photographic images is played as sound in a room, where it is allowed to decay, and the decay is reflected in the photograph, which changes and eventually disappears as sound fades to silence.

As a studio artist at PS1 in 1983-84, Collins exhibited sound sculptures of 'backwards guitars'—found instruments modified so the pick-ups resonated the guitar strings with live radio signals. Subsequent installation projects at [[Musée Malraux]] (Le Havre), [[Kunstmuseum Den Haag|Gemeentemuseum]] of the Hague (now named the Kunstmuseum), [[ZKM]] (Karlsruhe); and the Sonambiente sound art festival (Berlin), featured performing devices such a model train that 'plays'a long amplified wire, as well as multi-channel video works.

Collins' musical compositions have been presented at venues around the world, ranging from [[CBGB]] to the [[Concertgebouw, Amsterdam|Concertgebouw]]. 
As a composer-performer he has presented concerts and workshops on every continent save Antarctica.
<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.lovely.com/bios/collins.html|title=Nicolas Collins|website=www.lovely.com|access-date=17 February 2019}}</ref>

He has also been active as a curator, policy adviser, and board member for numerous cultural organizations, since first taking on the post of Curator of Music Performances and Sound Installations at PS1/The Clocktower (now [[MoMA PS1]]) in 1985.<ref name="hyperreal.org"/> In 1992 he left New York to become Artistic Director of [[STEIM]] (Studio for Electro Instrumental Music) in [[Amsterdam]], and later moved to [[Berlin]] on a [[German Academic Exchange Service]] (DAAD) composer-in-residence fellowship.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.issueprojectroom.org/2010/02/17/loud-objects-nicolas-collins/ |title=Nicolas Collins with Ben Neill and Andrea Parkins+ Loud Objects – ISSUE PROJECT ROOM |access-date=2010-08-30 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110921174554/http://www.issueprojectroom.org/2010/02/17/loud-objects-nicolas-collins/ |archive-date=2011-09-21 }}</ref> From 1997 to 2017 Collins served as Editor-in-Chief of the ''[[Leonardo Music Journal]]'', a peer-reviewed academic journal published by the [[MIT Press]].,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.leonardo.info/lmj/collins.html |title=Leonardo On-Line: About Nicolas Collins |access-date=2010-08-30 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110716235911/http://www.leonardo.info/lmj/collins.html |archive-date=2011-07-16 }}</ref> and he sits on the editorial boards of ''Resonance: the Journal of Sound and Culture'' ([[University of California Press]]), ''Acoustic Arts & Artifacts: Technology, Aesthetics, Communication'' ([[Fondazione Giorgio Cini]], Venice), the ''Journal of Sound Studies'' (The Netherlands), and ''Resonancias – Revista de Investigación Musical'' (Chile).

Collins is Professor of Sound at the [[School of the Art Institute of Chicago]],<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.saic.edu/faculty/fac_lists/index.html#alphasections/SLC_6091 |title= Faculty alpha listing : SAIC - School of the Art Institute of Chicago|website=www.saic.edu |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100527121355/http://www.saic.edu/faculty/fac_lists/index.html |archive-date=2010-05-27}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://whitney.org/Exhibitions/ChristianMarclay/Bios |title=Whitney Museum of American Art: Christian Marclay: Festival |access-date=2010-08-30 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100830083040/http://whitney.org/Exhibitions/ChristianMarclay/Bios |archive-date=2010-08-30 }}</ref> and has been guest professor at Institute of Sonology, [[Royal Conservatory of The Hague]]; Kunsthochschule Kassel, Germany; [[Universität der Künste Berlin]]; [[Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile]], Santiago; and [[Technische Universität Berlin]], among other locations.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://ausland-berlin.de/hardware-hacking-nicolas-collins|title=Hardware Hacking with Nicolas Collins - ausland-berlin|website=ausland-berlin.de|access-date=17 February 2019}}</ref>

In 2006 Collins' book ''Handmade Electronic Music:  The Art of Hardware Hacking'' was published by [[Routledge]], and a second edition was published in 2009. A broadly expanded third edition, released in the summer of 2020, documents the grass-roots spread of 'Hardware Hacking' through local art and music organizations and collectives, often in conjunction with feminist and/or regional cultural concerns, from Brazil to Indonesia. He was a major influence on the establishment of the [[Musical Electronics Library]] in [[New Zealand]].<ref>{{cite web|last1=Kraus|first1=Pat|title=MEL prehistory 1|url=https://musicalelectronicslibrary.wordpress.com/2014/03/24/mel-prehistory-1/|website=Musical Electronics Library|date=24 March 2014|access-date=15 July 2014}}</ref>

Collins lives and works in Berlin, Chicago and rural Massachusetts.