Biography:
Michael Trigilio is a multimedia artist living in San Diego. Born and raised in San Antonio, Texas, he received his B.A. in Humanities from the University of Texas at San Antonio. His fear of religion notwithstanding, he was ordained as a lay Buddhist priest in 1997, a role from which he resigned five years later. He received his M.F.A. from Mills College in 2003. Michael's work is inspired by material that balances sarcasm and prayer, giving rise to works that examine religion, humor, narcissism, and demystification. His film, "Bodhisattva, Superstar" (2010), was included in the HERE NOT THERE exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. In December 2010, Michael joined Katie Faulkner, artistic director of San Francisco's Little Seismic Dance in a residency at the Maggie Allesse National Center for Choreography. Together they created the ambitious, large-scale dance-media work "We Don't Belong Here" as a commission for Dancers' Group in San Francisco's Union Square in Fall 2011.
Michael is a founding member of the independent radio project Neighborhood Public Radio which was included in the 2008 Whitney Biennial exhibition. This work in public-practice/public- culture/public-sonification was recently hosted in a three-month residency at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles in the Spring of 2011. Michael's work in video, sound, and radio has been presented in many venues nationally and internationally, notably the Anthology Film Archives in New York, Southern Exposure in San Francisco, the Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain in Strasbourg, the Contemporary Museum in Baltimore, and a commission for a soundwork at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Michael teaches courses in Media Arts and Sound at UC San Diego.
