Creative provocateur Machine Dazzle has been dazzling stages via costumes, sets, and performance since his arrival in New York in 1994. An artist, costume designer, set designer, singer/songwriter, art director, and maker, Machine describes himself as a “radical queer emotionally driven, instinct-based concept artist and thinker trapped in the role of costume designer, sometimes.” Machine designs intricate, unconventional wearable art pieces and bespoke installations.
As a stage designer, Machine has collaborated with artists from the New York downtown scene and beyond. Machine’s costumes and sets were featured in Taylor Mac’s Pulitzer Prize-nominated A 24-Decade History of Popular Music (a documentary film about which is currently streaming on Max). In 2019, Dazzle was commissioned by the Guggenheim Museum and The Rockefeller Brothers Fund to create Treasure, a rock and roll cabaret of original songs with an accompanying fashion show, which debuted at Joe’s Pub in New York City in the fall of 2022. That same season, he opened his first solo exhibition, Queer Maximalism x Machine Dazzle, at New York City’s Museum of Arts and Design. He won the 2017 Henry Hewes Design Award, was a 2022 United States Artists Fellow, and most recently won the 2023 Obie for sustained achievement in design.
The Penny Stamps Distinguished Speaker Series Fall 2023 Season
This winter, the Penny Stamps Distinguished Speaker Series brings respected leaders and innovators from a broad spectrum of creative fields to Ann Arbor’s historic Michigan Theater for weekly in-person events.
Detroit Public Television and PBS Books, in partnership with the Stamps School, will stream each week’s event Fridays at 8pm.
See the full schedule of events livestreamed by PBS Books here.
Some programs may not be available online, depending on artist requests. Interested in receiving notifications before online videos go live? Sign up to receive a reminder before each event begins streaming.
