Street: How did you create the name The Mural and the Mint?
Michael Kiley: I write all my projects under that name—it’s my band. It’s about art versus
commence and kinda being silly–oriented with public art murals and then money. I stared
this project as a kind of way to avoid the music industry. It’s about the disproportionality
of how everyone gets paid before the artist—I want to reverse that, and put everything in
control of the artist a little more.
Street: From where did the inspiration for this project come?
MK: I was always thinking of new ways to have an experiential relationship
with music. I did a lot of work with theater productions. I’m constantly thinking about
space. I’m also really interested in using public spaces. That led me to think about how I
use a public space for an experience.
Street: Of all the city’s parks, why did you pick Rittenhouse Square as the site for
this project?
MK: One big reason is that I’m hoping for this to be a series, and I wanted to get all the
places around town. I knew this was a really popular place, and I knew I could get an
audience here. It’s also quite beautiful and historic.
Street: Did you think about the visual experience of walking through the park
interacting with the aural experience of your app?
MK: Sure. Most importantly, I’ve worked with the layout of the park and the actual
architecture of it. That really affected how I thought sound would function. I wanted it
to be very accessible… I wanted there to be an element of music—a complete song. I
thought of the park as having topography, with the center of the park as the highest point.
Once you reach that point, it’s a fully realized song. If I did this in some other area, it
probably wouldn’t function in this way.
Street: So how can artists utilize their surroundings in making meaningful art?
MK: Paying attention to places is really important, and bringing art out into public
spaces is really important. So much of the public art in our city kind of tells you what to
feel—it’s very didactic. I’m into art that’s more open to interpretation.
Street: How did you get the idea for the project to take the form of an app—as
opposed to just a downloadable piece of music?
MK: So the very the thing I love about it is that the smart phone sits in your pocket and
uses the technology in a kind of way that’s invisible. That’s what I’m most proud of,
really. I think the way art comes into play is finding ways to use technology in the right
way.
Street: Where do you see technology taking you in the future?
MK: I want to develop this application into an interface, so that in a couple of years
down the line, you can download this to your computer, and anyone could use it.
The Mural and the Mint will perform live for the public at 8 pm on April 5 at the
Rittenhouse Tavern of the Philadelphia Art Alliance.
