About Us

The 12:19 Library was originally conceived by Ron Berry and Phil Soltanoff. The project is being developed in conjunction with The Fuse Box Festival and the Austin Museum of Art. We have since invited Scott Wilcox to join the creative team to help spearhead the technology component.

As the project continues to grow and evolve, we are gradually adding more members to the creative team, which currently includes the following:

Ron Berry
Phil Soltanoff
Scott Wilcox
Palo Chalupka
David Rose
John Erik Metcalf

BIOS

Ron Berry (Austin)

Ron Berry has been nominated for and won over 50 awards for his work as an actor, director, artist and writer. His play Orange was nominated for the American Theater Critics Association national New Play Award and was deemed by Michael Barnes of the Austin American-Statesman "the most ambitious play ever produced by an Austin theater company." His installation, The North Project, was voted the #1 Art Event of by Robi Polgar of The Austin Chronicle. As the Artistic Director of Refraction Arts, Ron has guided the organization through eleven years of critically acclaimed programming for the stage, gallery and screen. Their work has been nominated for and won over 150 awards, their short films have played all over the world, and they their performances and installations have been voted #1 Art Event of the Year by the Austin Chronicle four out of the past six years. Most recently, Ron created the annual Fuse Box Festival—a ten-day hybrid arts festival presenting innovative artists from all over the world.

Phil Soltanoff (NYC)

Phil Soltanoff is an experimental theatre artist based in New York City. His latest creation, I/O created in collaboration with sound artist Joe Diebes, premiered at Theatre Garonne in November 2008. Original and site-specific creations include to whom it may concern (BITEF), Strange Attractors (Mass MoCA), five movements for people and sound, TIME/PIECE, wrench, Experimental Actions (Mass MoCA), Peter Handke’s The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Otherand LEMNATION (Mass MoCA). In 1999 Phil Soltanoff teamed with performing artist Hanne Tierney to create five myles, an alternative performance/exhibition space in Brooklyn, NY. They received an OBIE Award in 2000. Since 2002, Mr. Soltanoff has created two works in collaboration with Aurelien Bory and CIE111, based in Toulouse, France. Their two collaborations, PLAN B and MORE OR LESS, INFINITY have performed at many theatres including Theatre Garonne (Toulouse), TNT (Toulouse), Kampnagel (Hamburg), Eurokaz Festival (Zagreb), Trafo (Budapest), Vidy Theatre (Lausanne), Maison de la Danse (Lyon), Queen Elizabeth Hall (London), Patra Vadi (Bangkok), Theatre de la Ville (Paris), BITEF (Belgrade) and the New Victory Theatre (NYC). Mr. Soltanoff was nominated for a Moliere Award in 2007. His work is dedicated in loving memory to his wife, Stephanie Mnookin.

Scott Wilcox (Austin)

A Co-Founder of Refraction Arts, Scott is also the Chief Technical Officer for SXSW Conferences & Festivals. Most recently, Scott worked as an actor in Spencer Parsons' Complicitly Yours and as a sound artist with Eliot Haynes for Vargas-Suarez Universal's Mental Blueprints at Thomas Erben Gallery, New York and Space Station Dystopia: 1939/1964/2001 at Queens Museum of Art, Flushing Meadows Corona Park, New York.