Michael Leslie Brewster (August 15, 1946 – June 19, 2016)[1] was an American artist, recognized for coining the term “acoustic sculpture.” He worked with sound to create sonic environments beginning in the 1970s until 2016.

In 1973, Brewster began teaching at Claremont Graduate University, where he remained for forty-one years, building the studio art program, chairing the department, and expanding the school's reputation nationally.

I like to think about what an expanded sculptural experience could be: a full bodied bunch of sensation around being here, in the realm of the actual, the physical, in this multi-dimensional world.

Brewster describes these works as follows: "A typical Acoustic Sculpture is a mix of electronic tones emitted into a bare room by a single loudspeaker.

This work relies on the coincidence of intervals to draw ‘holes’ in the activity, producing moments when, through a union of all elements, nothing happens.

These pieces generated scholarship by the sound theorist Brandon LaBelle and are in the permanent collection of the MOCA LA and The Guggenheim in New York.

[citation needed] Throughout his career, his work was exhibited at Artists Space, New York; Galleria del Cavallino, Venice, Italy; the Marum Overpass- Kw IX A, Groningen, the Netherlands; MoMA PS1, New York; San Francisco Art Institute and the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc).

[10] In 2002, “‘See Hear Now:’ a sonic drawing and five acoustic sculptures,” a retrospective exhibition of Brewster’s work was shown at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, and in 2012, he participated in “It Happened at Pomona Part 3: Pacific Standard Time”, sponsored by the Getty Foundation at Pomona College Museum of Art, Claremont, CA.