^ select awards
I am grateful for the following support:
bio
(- && -)
^ documents (pdf format)
general
artist statement(s)
ramblings ...
ecologies
As a media composer and installation artist, I create chance-infused, open systems. My work explores the porous, intimate boundaries between humans and machines. I blend sound, data, text, code and abstract, layered moving images. 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.
I have a background in cello performance, mathematics, ecology, music theory and code. The confluence of these disciplines informs my work as a composer and multimedia artist. As both a musician and a mathematician, I use multi-threaded, dynamical systems and chance-infused, emergent patterns. As a queer artist I am interested in the infinite, bendable between::: the erotic dynamics of tapping glass ::: the carbon cycle ::: the fragile, electric cyborg body ::: the resistance cyborg ::: the networked, digital hive mind ::: the swarm.
I use generative methods to create a multi-channel kaleidoscope of sound, animation and physical artifacts ::: a cross-sensory landscape that flows from the digital cloud into the physical world.
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 web of small generators / transformers / renderers ::: a digital, cyber-orchestration ::: the art of the fugue.
humans & machines
In a perfect confluence of electricity, network, rhythm, memory, processing, action / reactions a program comes to life ::: Pinocchio ::: a real boy(ze/bot) at last. The program speaks to us, calculates for us, responds, to our touch ::: our keystrokes. It becomes our mirror :|: our cyborg self ::: our memory.
I am interested in the poetics of code ::: the networked (i) ::: a deviant, queer learning machine ::: cloud (m)bodiments ::: a burlesque, cybernetic ze ::: beat poet of electricity ::: hypermedia gymnast ::: operatic swarm ::: the torrent.
Artificial Intelligence is evolving fast. We all provide digital fodder 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 chords, 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.
My work uses projection and sound to create media landscapes, algorithmic prints and stitch renderings made by a computer-driven robotic longarm quilting machine. I map code to sound, walls, cloth and paper. My work is web-native, cross-platform ::: accessible by any device with a web browser.
I have created installations for both traditional gallery spaces and for non-traditional storefronts, abandoned buildings, root cellars, cathedrals, barns, warehouse elevators, alleyways and silos. A critical part of my installation work is the resonance of a space and its ambient sounds and silences. I spend time sounding a space, marking its walls, tuning the whole. I make site-specific / context-specific work ::: I engage with place and community. My installations often serve as sound laboratories, workshop spaces and collaborative performance environments.
^ scores.. (pdf format)
The following notes are gathered from a McKnight Composers Fellowship application
^ contact
email ::: kathy @ mctavish.io