The work of Melbourne-based artist Aden Miller is invested in a deeper exploration of the material dimensions of our culture. For instance, most of his recent work sees Miller scouring bulky waste dumps and recycling centres for material — yet the lessons of readymade and assemblage are at best adequate technical descriptions. Ultimately, this practice is invested in ideas of energy, expenditure and metabolism. This preoccupation applies not only to dead matter, in the case of discarded objects, but also to living matter, in particular the human body, as well as broader cultural processes of cultural consumption. Through an interplay of established, often ‘outdated’ conventions of medium or style, Miller exploits their coded meanings toward new ends.
The exhibition ‘Intelligence’, produced on site for the Kunstverein, develops along the cyclical paths described above. Drawing on a suite of ‘minor’ art-historical methods, Miller considers metabolic processes at the intersection of external and internal worlds. One example of this within the exhibition is an examination of Wilhelm Reich’s seemingly bizarre research on orgone energy and, subsequently, the use of his invention of a rain machine (‘Cloudbuster’). Miller focuses less on the obscurantism of this intellectual movement and more on Reich’s theory’s attribution of certain energetic qualities to every material, conceiving of their combinations in complex equations.
Aden Miller (*1999, AUS) lives and works in Naarm (Melbourne). He makes sculptures, installations, photographs and paintings. He studied at the Victorian College of Arts and Monash University. From 2021 to 2024, he co-directed the house gallery Asbestos alongside Joshua Krum and Brittany d’Argaville. ‘Intelligence’ is his first solo exhibition outside of Australia.
