Join bespoken and the International Contemporary Ensemble for a free, four-part online series focusing on the intersection of technology and art. Each session will have different speakers discussing their artistry and practice across four disciplines – moving image, audio engineering, live-sound, and video – and how their work intersects within each area. How does technology and art come together in performance? How do we begin to work across disciplines? The series is not only educational but also a platform for empowerment, breaking down the barriers to using technology in an artist’s practice, & specifically for women & gender non-conforming artists.
After hearing from each artist about their artistic journey, we will go into two topic-specific breakout rooms - sound and video - spaces for more detailed questions related to each area and getting to know each other better. Please feel free to bring questions related to your own work/projects you are working on!
Presented by bespoken and the International Contemporary Ensemble
Speakers: Monica Duncan, Video and Performance Artist; Senem Pirler, Intermedia Artist and Sound Engineer; Yulan Grant, Multidisciplinary Artist; Mona Jimenez, Media Conservator, Materia Media; Danielle McPhatter, Interdisciplinary Artist & Creative Technologist.
letsbespoken.org (Gina Izzo & Eunbi Kim, Co-founders)
YULAN GRANT, Multidisciplinary Artist
I’m a New York based multi-disciplinary artist from Kingston, Jamaica. As a creative positioned between Caribbean and American culture, my work interrogates ideas of identity, notions of power, perceived histories and the entanglements that happens within these topics.
MONICA DUNCAN, Video and Performance Artist
She/Her/Hers
Monica Duncan is a video and performance artist. Her time-based work investigates the nature of visual perception, audience-performer relations and queer potentiality through camouflage, stillness and collective image-making. Duncan’s video and performances have been exhibited Künstlerhaus Mousonturm, Hebbel am Ufer HAU1, Frankfurt Lab, zeitraumexit, Komuna//Warszawa, The Kitchen, Hallwalls, La Casa Encendida, ZKM, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, amongst others. She has been a visiting artist at the Atlanta College of Art, Signal Culture, Experimental Television Center, Scena Robocza, Institute for Electronic Arts and PACT Zollverein. She holds a MFA from the University of California, San Diego and a MA in Choreography and Performance from JLU Gießen, Germany. Duncan joined the faculty of the Department of Music, Multimedia, Theatre & Dance at Lehman College in Fall 2019.
Photo: Dean Erdmann
SENEM PIRLER, Intermedia Artist & Sound Engineer
She/Her/Hers
Senem Pirler is an intermedia artist whose interdisciplinary work crosses over into sound engineering, sound art, video art, performance, and installation. Pirler’s recent work has been exhibited at EMPAC, Roulette, BAC, Montalvo Arts Center, Mount Tremper Arts, and Collar Works. Her work has been recognized by grants, residencies, and awards including most recently PACT Zollverein residency, Signal Culture residency and The Malcolm S. Morse Graduate Research Enhancement Award to honor the work of Pauline Oliveros and Deep Listening in 2018. Pirler earned her M.M. in Music Technology from NYU Steinhardt, and her Ph.D. in Electronic Arts from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Pirler joined the Bennington College faculty in Fall 2018.
Photo: Katy Whitt
MONA JIMENEZ, Media Conservator, Materia Media
She/Her/Hers
Mona Jimenez specializes in conservation/preservation of independent media and media art collections in libraries, archives and museums. From 2003-2017 she was on the faculty of the Moving Image Archiving and Preservation Program (MIAP) at New York University and led curriculum development in areas of video preservation, collection management, and media art conservation. Jimenez is dedicated to collaborative and cross-disciplinary models for media archiving and preservation, founding NYU-MIAP’s international program Audiovisual Preservation Exchange and initiating the Community Archiving Workshop model. She is the co-editor, with Kathy High and Sherry Miller Hocking, of The Emergence of Video Processing Tools: Television Becoming Unglued (Intellect Books, 2014).
Photo: Juana Suárez
DANIELLE MCPHATTER, Interdisciplinary Artist & Creative Technologist
She/Her/Hers
Danielle McPhatter is an interdisciplinary programmer, musician and artist interested in alternative modes of interactive storytelling that explore the intersections and various modes of connectivity between media and technology. Danielle expresses her passions for the sonic and visual arts via the creation of interactive narrative experiences, games and installations. Her experience with virtual and augmented realities, motion tracking, creative programming and physical computing in both the visual and audio domains combine with her knowledge of a variety of programming languages and software environments to forge new forms of interaction with technology.
Performances and commissioning activities during the 2019-20 concert season are made possible by the generous support of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, A.N. and Pearl G. Barnett Family Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Paul M. Angell Family Foundation, Aaron Copland Fund for Music Inc., Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts, Amphion Foundation, Ernst von Siemens Musikstiftung, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, Pacific Harmony Foundation, Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation, Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, mediaThe foundation inc., The Casement Fund, BMI Foundation, as well as public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the New York State Council for the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, and the Illinois Arts Council Agency. The International Contemporary Ensemble is the Ensemble in Residence of the Nokia Bell Labs Experiments in Art and Technology. Yamaha Artist Services New York is the exclusive piano provider for ICE.