Machine Dazzle

Beloved downtown bon vivant and all-around 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 – including Julie Atlas Muz, Big Art Group, Mx. Justin Vivian Bond, Taylor Mac, Basil Twist, Godfrey Reggio, Jennifer Miller, The Dazzle dancers, Big Art Group, Mike Albo, Stanley Love, Soomi Kim, Pig Iron Theatre Company, Opera Philadelphia, the Bearded Ladies Cabaret, the Curran Theatre, and Spiegelworld; and has created bespoke looks for fashion icons including designer Diane von Furstenberg and model Cara Delevingne for the 2019 Metropolitan Museum of Art Gala.

Machine’s costumes and sets were featured in Taylor Mac’s Pulitzer Prize-nominated A 24-Decade History of Popular Music. For these designs, Dazzle was the co-recipient of the 2017 Bessie Award for Outstanding Visual Design and was awarded a Henry Hewes Design Award by The American Theatre Wing. The original stage production has been adapted into an HBO Original Documentary Film directed by Jeffrey Friedman and Rob Epstein and co-produced by Pomegranate Arts. Photographs of Taylor Mac wearing an iteration of each of the 24 costumes created by Machine Dazzle were photographed by New York-based photographer Gregory Kramer and are currently presented by CLAMP. He has continued his collaboration with Taylor Mac and Matt Ray in their rock opera meditation on queerness, Bark of Millions, as both costume designer and performer.

In 2019, Machine was commissioned by Guggenheim Works and Process and The Rockefeller Brothers to create Treasure, a rock-and-roll cabaret of original songs including a fashion show inspired by the content.

Recent collaborations include the Catalyst Quartet on Bassline Fabulous – a reimagining of Bach’s Goldberg Variations at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and his debut collaboration with Opera Lafayette, for the historic premiere of the never-before-seen Rameau comedic opéra-ballet, Io. He delivered a TED Talk at TED Vancouver in 2023.

Machine Dazzle’s work has been exhibited internationally. His first solo exhibition, Queer Maximalism x Machine Dazzle, was held at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City in 2022 followed by Art and Intention at the Harbourfront Centre in Toronto. Machine Dazzle’s first exhibition of sculptural works, Formalities, was on view at Materials for the Arts in Long Island City, NY through January 12, 2024.  Most recently, the University of Michigan Museum of Art and the U-M Stamps School of Art & Design awarded Machine the annual Roman J. Witt Residency for their 2023-2024 season. As part of his residency, UMMA and Stamps invited Machine to deliver a Penny Stamps Speaker Series lecture as well as commissioned Machine’s first major museum installation: Ouroboros.

In April 2024, Machine received the TDF/Irene Sharaff Kitty Leech Ascending Artist Award in recognition for his success in the field of costume design. He was also awarded a 2024 EMMY for “Outstanding Costume Design for Variety, Nonfiction, or Reality Programming” for his work in the HBO documentary “Taylor Mac’s 24 Decade History of Popular Music.”