Climate change meets music beats and turntables when DJ Spooky brings a multimedia performance to the Lied Center on Friday evening.

Paul Miller, aka DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid, will perform “Terra Nova: Sinfonia Antarctica” on Friday evening at the Lied Center.

The performance features music matched with field recordings and images from Miller’s 2007 trip to Antarctica. Miller combined the sound of ice with his photos of the landscape.

“It’s like classical music meets hip-hop,” Miller said. “It’s a climate change symphony.”

A trio of KU students — violinist Kelly Simmons, pianist Nathanael May and cellist Tom Maples — will provide the music for the performance.

May, Janesville, Wis., doctoral student, said it would be his first time performing with sounds that were manipulated live on stage.

“It’s not that often that I get to collaborate directly with someone with more main-stream music,” May said.

During his time at the University, Miller will also participate in several events on campus, including a book signing this afternoon.

Tim Van Leer, executive director of the Lied Center, said Miller’s performance would give students an intellectual and entertaining experience dealing with a contemporary topic.

“As we look to this important issue of global warming, I think students will be interested in how he might bring this scientific matter with his artistic matter to the audience,” Van Leer said.

Here’s a closer look at DJ Spooky:

Describe your performance on Friday.

Basically the Terra Nova project and Antarctic symphony is a musical meditation on climate change, and what it means to go away from everything you know, everything you’re familiar with and see what happens when you’re out of your comfort zone. It’s a DJ mix applied to cinema. I wrote the score to the piece and am having a string ensemble play the score while I DJ it. My biggest influence for the project is John Cage’s piece “Imaginary Landscape” — it’s the first composition written for turntables — in 1939. It’s 2009 now, so hey...

Why did you pick climate change as your “topic” of performance?

The city is an ecosystem. Everyone tends to think that somehow we’re separate from nature, and that somehow if we just change our consumer habits, and you know, don’t have as much plastic bags et cetera that things will all of a sudden get better. We need massive change to match the way the planet is changing.

Describe your trip to Antarctica.

The whole idea was getting out of your comfort zone. I wanted to go to think about not only the climate issue but to also think about how the city has changed. It’s an art piece and I’m an artist. It’s a lyrical take on the ice. I went for about four weeks and went to several of the main ice fields. I brought a system to Antarctica and we had to get equipment out there to record the ice.

How did you get involved with music and performing?

I was never really planning on being a DJ. I majored in macro-economic policy the first couple of years of university, and then switched to philosophy and French literature. I ended up doing 2 degrees. Music was basically always a hobby and I never really took it seriously. Basically it’s still a hobby, but a globalized and totally bizarre hobby.

How did you get the name DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid?

It’s basically when you press play and there’s no one there. I gave myself the name as a sense of humor about music in the 24-hour info-drenched world we all call home. It’s an English update of what Sigmund Freud was talking about when he came up with the term

“Unheimlich” — uncanny. I took my other nickname “That Subliminal Kid” from William S. Burrough’s novel “Nova Express.” It’s all samples!

— — Edited by Carly Halvorson