Meet Anthony Sertel Dean | Sound Artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Anthony Sertel Dean and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Anthony, is there something that you feel is most responsible for your success?
I am thankful to be writing this for “Shoutout” because I would like to shout out my generous and brilliant collaborators. My success is intrinsically linked to the people I create with. I often describe myself as a “hypercollaborative” artist since the people with whom I am privileged to share my work are essential to realizing the full artistic impact. My first artistic home was the post-punk band “Shemp” that I formed with my high school classmates. We formed a uniquely intimate connection playing together, through which we were able to discover truths about ourselves and make even more potent music for our audiences – most importantly ourselves. Since that group disbanded, I have been lucky to find multiple other artistic homes in which to create, where I find other artists to discuss practice, technique, opinions, and life. These discussions are vital to artwork with a vision. Without my collaborators, my work would lack the foundation upon which it grows from multiple sources. With my great collaborators, we are able to support one another – with deep trust, we play various roles in the mutual goals of “good art” and “good life”. These goals take serious work and dedication, but it is the most wonderful act I have found in this world.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I am a sound artist, educator, and technologist focused on telling stories of community and self. My work pulls from practices of electroacoustic composition, oral history, and experimental performance, utilizing my skills as a creative technologist to build environments for communal understanding. All of my works begin as conversation – a mutual curiosity or adoration of a topic that may carry us closer together. From there, we play, and hopefully, that play does good.

I have been making art since my youth, but it wasn’t until I was in college at Wesleyan University that I made the dedication to be an artist. Of course, there is much work that comes after a decision, and that work has taken time. I do not believe that the work and life of an artist needs to be a linear one, and I am thankful that I have been able to incorporate multidisciplinary perspectives over long periods of time. My work has existed in theater at venues like The Kitchen and The Kennedy Center, in film scores and sound designs, radio and podcasts like my Neo-Futurist show “Hit Play”, gallery installations on which I trained at grad school, and music performances where I found my first artistic love. This winding intersection of fields has taken time to explore, and it will likely take a much longer – a lifelong journey. I argue against the notion that artists should aspire to a meteoric rise or fast recognition. As a time-based artist, I collaborate with time to allow the flavors of my art to develop. For years, I have claimed that my favorite part of being an artist is simply that: being an artist – seeing art in the world, sharing that in community with other artists, and the act of doing the work.

These works exist as publicly as radio broadcasts and as privately as personal messages sent through a telephone, sharing amongst them a common motivation to bring listeners together. There is an intention of support that carries throughout my practice: the support of others, joy, exploration, and revelation, for I believe that collaboration is innate in cultivating a greater community.

I find my community in the in-between spaces – from family crossing our ancestral homes in Türkiye and the Nanticoke coastland, to the quickly pitched performance spaces we drift through and call home, to the streets of my hometown New York, to workshops that never had any intention of creating something final. That’s where I will be. That’s what I will reflect in my art.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I grew up in and around NYC, so there are plenty of memories and spaces I love sharing. First though, we’d start with breakfast at my apartment; I love to cook, so I would wake up early to ensure I had time to make a full breakfast and of course a fresh dessert and perfectly paired pot of tea. I’m a big city walker, so we would likely spend much of the day wandering around, catching up, and stopping in at some of my favorite spots like Supermoon Bakehouse, Kopitiam, Spicy Village, Lava Shawarma, Oasis Jimma Juice, Al-Sham Sweets – I could make a full itinerary depending on the neighborhood. I would also tap into my friend network ahead of time to see if anyone had work up in galleries around town to add as extra stops on our walk. If we wanted to get making art ourselves, I’d bring you to Mercury Store in Gowanus – a performing arts residency space where I work as the Production Manager and where I craft my own projects. If we need to pick up art supplies along the way, I will bring you to Materials for the Arts: a creative reuse center in Queens and one of this city’s great treasures. The perfect way to end a night in NYC is by seeing The Infinite Wrench in the West Village. If I am not working on the show that week, I love to attend as an audience member to see what’s new, and to share my artistic home with friends; since there are 30 plays within the show, there’s bound to be something that makes a strong connection. We should probably part ways after that because I will be pooped from all that walking.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
For the past nine years, I have been a member of the experimental performance collective, The New York Neo-Futurists. Without a doubt, I would not be the artist I am today without this group of people and our way of making. Many groups claim the label of “experimental”, but we truly embody this practice. By persistently creating new work in our weekly everchanging show “The Infinite Wrench” – our attempt to perform 30 plays in 1 hour – we continuously discover new ways of using the container of performance to reflect our world. I rarely brag about my own feats, but I will frequently claim that The New York Neo-Futurists are the greatest theater company in this city. These are people who make bad-ass art which looks like nothing else, and we’ll make it again next week!

Website: https://www.anthonydean.org/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/anthonysdean/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthony-sertel-dean/

Image Credits
01 – Untitled Phone Booth Project #1 02 – Anthony performing with Kyra Sims 03 – Anthony performing with Chaesong Kim 04 – The Kitchen Project 05 – Anthony performing with Mimi Park 06 – Characters Disappearing, Connor Sen Warnick