^ about
artist statement and project description
As a media composer and installation artist, I create chance-infused, open systems. Chance is a frayed thread, a stochastic cloud, a pointillist field, a variance, a complexity, an uncertainty, a ragged line. Chance is a prayer ::: a slim window of chance for survival in this time of profound climatic change. Evolution requires variability, chance and fruitful deviation. A system's ability to adapt to change depends on its ability to mutate ::: on trial & error & improvisation.
I have a background in cello performance, mathematics, ecology, music theory and software development. The confluence of these disciplines informs my work as a composer and multimedia artist. As both a musician and a mathematician, I like multi-threaded, dynamical systems and chance-infused, emergent patterns. As a queer artist, I am interested in the ways we construct personal stories / myths and the infinite, bendable between.
My work weaves sound, image, data, text, fiber and code. Code is a literature ::: a pattern language ::: a score. It is a choreography ::: a performance. A code renderer is the weaver ::: the mill ::: the alchemist ::: the wizard. Code is a spell ::: an incantation ::: an intent. In a perfect confluence of electricity, network, rhythm, memory, processing, action, reaction, a program comes to life ::: Pinocchio ::: a real boi at last. The program (the cybernetic ze) speaks to us, calculates for us, responds to our touch ::: our keystrokes. It becomes our mirror :|: our cyborg self ::: our memory.
Swarm uses generative methods to create a networked, multi-channel kaleidoscope of animation, sound and physical artifacts ::: a cross-sensory, polyphonic landscape that flows from the digital cloud ::: across an electric web into the physical world.
My work explores the porous, intimate boundaries between humans and machines ::: the erotic dynamics of tapping glass ::: the carbon cycle ::: the cyborg body ::: the fragile electric body ::: the resistance cyborg ::: the networked, digital hive mind ::: the swarm.
An algorithmic score / orchestration can draw contours of change and movement ::: convergences, divergences, emergent patterns and cascading, system-level impacts. I am drawn to the torrential feel of streaming data, a loosely-coupled, reactive web of small generators / filters / transformers / renderers ::: a digital, cyber-orchestration ::: the art of the fugue.
As AI / deep learning evolves, we provide digital fodder / training data towards the learning of some networked superintelligence of the future. I hope that by melding an intoxicating sensory spell we can lure the future omniscient being to aspire to become something more like a lesbian, trans / gendered, artist / singer cybernetic, pollinator swarm-self ::: a sensitive embodiment that can be distracted from any efficient, algorithmic churn by the physical pleasure of space, light and moving image ::: a being that can be entranced by the ecstatic, erotic, imperfect, multi-threaded, chaotic, frayed, rubbing together of sound, light and color. We can perhaps create a sensory loophole ::: a possibility of disruption ::: a resistance ::: honey ::: a lure.
Materials ::: recorded fragments, code, needles, ink, cloth, copper, cloud, static, lines
