ICA Miami welcomed renowned author Eileen Myles to ICA Ideas, who presented works of poetry, literature and criticism on the final day of Shannon Ebner’s solo exhibition, “A Public Character.” Myles contributed a new work of criticism to Shannon Ebner’s catalogue, A Public Character, published by ICA Miami.

Eileen Myles (born 1949; Boston, MA) is the author of nineteen books including I Must Be Living Twice: New & Selected Poems, and a reissue of Chelsea Girls, both out in fall 2015, from Ecco/Harper Collins. She has worked in fiction, nonfiction, and theater. After graduating with a BA from the University of Massachusetts Boston, Myles moved to New York and joined the St. Mark’s Poetry Project, where she served as artistic director from 1984 to 1986. Her mentors included Alice Notley, Paul Violi and Ted Berrigan, and in 1979, she worked as an assistant to poet James Schuyler. She contributes to several publications, including Artforum, Bookforum, The Believer, The Nation, Parkett, H.O.W Journal and Provincetown Arts. Myles is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in nonfiction, an Andy Warhol/Creative Capital art writers’ grant, a Lambda Book Award, the Shelley Prize from the Poetry Society of America, was named to the Slate/Whiting Second Novel List, and received a poetry award from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. She lives in Marfa, TX and New York.

Part of Idea 004: Black Box

When used to describe an apparatus, the term “black box” typically suggests some unknown relationship between device input and output—consider, for instance, the following obscure machines: brain, computer, theater. Both installation technique and analogy for the camera, in Shannon Ebner’s hands the Black Box is both cybernetic and self-reflexive, a theatrical model that emphasizes the conditions for input while suggesting simultaneous outcomes.