Telharmonium

Canary Test is pleased to announce _Telharmonium_, a video installation by New York-based artist John Menick. The exhibition opens June 12 with an opening reception 6-9pm and remains on view through July 15, 2026. John Menick's _Telharmonium_ is a generative film exploring the automation of culture through one of the earliest electronic instruments: the Telharmonium. As in much of Menick’s work, the film links the history of technology with contemporary anxieties about artificial intelligence and the mechanization of creative labor. Like the telharmonium, Menick’s film is conceived as a complex machine, algorithmically changing in real time. At its core, the film is controlled by a readymade computer simulation that models the effects of automation on a hypothetical economy. Menick wrote new software to route the simulator’s data to video editing and audio software. Menick’s software uses the data to change both the montage and the score, the latter composed in collaboration with New York-based composer Ben Shirken. The original data remains hidden, the final work is constantly changing, its sound and image never repeating. _Telharmonium_, by John Menick, is presented with support from KADIST.