Yolande Harris
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ABOUT

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“The Möbius strip of expanding awareness moves out from one’s own body to immediate place, to other phenomena, on to remote environments and back to the self in Harris’s rich body of thought and art. These are powerful works, in concept and realization. The sense of interdependence which they evoke and encourage is vital to our transformation into good stewards of our environmental neighborhoods.” (Annea Lockwood)

“Shifts in time and space, and undulations in daily perception, are active elements within the work of artist Yolande Harris, and brought forward through a deep curiosity for the world. A gap or fissure seems to appear, to break in – between seeing and believing, between material fact and poetical imagining, and between the near and the far, along with the ineffable and animate threads that may also connect and therefore disrupt such dichotomies. The gap, and the threads that traverse and link, and which invite us to enter their subsequent web of associations and slippages, disorienting layers and close-ups, and from which new perspectives are generated.” (Brandon LaBelle)

Yolande Harris is a composer, sound and video artist with an internationally recognized research practice that focuses on the transformative potential of sound and listening in times of environmental change. Her projects explore respect and advocacy for the environment and other species, approached through a sonic sensibility. Her audiovisual installations, walks, videos and performances create visceral experiences that heighten awareness of our relationship to the environment. How does a composer work with the environmental crisis? How can our conscious listening affect the world around us? How can learning to listen to underwater sounds transform us, and transform our relationship to the environment? Yolande’s work considers techniques of orientation and navigation, expanding perception beyond the range of human senses, the technological mediation of underwater environments and our relationship to other species. Her projects on underwater sound aim to bring us closer to this inaccessible environment, encouraging connection, understanding and empathy with the ocean. Through these audio visual experiences Yolande sets up hope that an expanded sonic imagination can contribute to re-balancing human relationships to our environments.

Her series Taking Soundings (2006-8) explores historic, contemporary and animal navigations using sound; Sun Run Sun: On Sonic Navigations (2008-2010) expands this into instruments and installations of sonified and visualized GPS data; and Scorescapes (2009-2012) examines relationships between sound, image and place, especially in underwater environments. Listening to the Distance (2015) explores expanded sensorial perceptions, the technological mediation of distant environments and the animals that inhabit them. Recent projects include: a sound walk at Dundee harbor with underwater sounds from the Arctic in Whale:Dundee (2017); a series of sound walks using ocean sound recordings from the Monterey Bay, Melt Me Into The Ocean (2018); and a multichannel immersive installation using video and sounds from tagged whales in From a Whale’s Back (2020). Yolande created a highly resonant sound work commissioned for the inaugural international Listening Biennial held in Berlin That Unseen Vibrance (2021) and a video work A Waterfall of Falling Sounds that I catch Dreaming/Listening to Whales at Roden Crater (2022). Her new work Vertigo and the Sound Portal (2023), exhibited in Amsterdam, explores the possibility of simultaneous presence of distant environments through displaced sound and video.

Yolande studied at Edinburgh University and contemporary music practices at Dartington College of Arts, she holds an MPhil from Cambridge University in Architecture and Moving Image and a PhD from Leiden University in ‘Sound, Environment and Sonic Consciousness’. She presents her work internationally, past exhibitions include Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, the House of World Cultures Berlin and the Exploratorium in San Francisco. Awards include Individual Artist Stipends from the Dutch Funds for Visual Arts Architecture and Design and research fellowships at the Orpheus Research Center in Music in Ghent, the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne, the Jan van Eyck Academy of Visual Arts in Maastricht. Yolande was Assistant Professor in video and open media at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), and is currently Lecturer in digital media art at San Jose State University and Lecturer and Research Associate in electronic music and media art at the University of California Santa Cruz.

Contact email: yo@yolandeharris.net

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Education:

  • Ph.D., ‘Scorescapes: Sound, Environment and Sonic Consciousness’, DocArtes, Orpheus Institute Ghent and Faculty of Creative and Performing Arts, Leiden University, The Netherlands. Awarded Best PhD Abstract, Leonardo International Society for Arts, Sciences and Technology, 2012

  • M.Phil. Architecture and the Moving Image, Cambridge University Moving Image Studio (CUMIS) Department of Architecture, University of Cambridge

  • B.A.Hons. Music, Contemporary Performance and Composition, Dartington College of Arts

  • Music, History of Art, Philosophy, University of Edinburgh

  • Music: Performance: flute, piano, harp. Composition: studies with Lou Harrison, Louis Andriessen, Peter Sculthorpe, Frank Denyer, Pauline Oliveros, Alvin Lucier, David Dunn.

UNIVERSITY RESEARCH AND TEACHING:

  • 2016- present Associate Researcher and Lecturer, Music, Art and Digital Arts Departments, University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC)

  • 2020- present Lecturer, Digital Media Art, Department of Art and Art History, San Jose State University

  • 2020 Artist in Residence, Atmosphere of Sound, Art|Sci Center, University of California Los Angeles (UCLA)

  • 2019 Artist in Residence, Roden Crater Project, Herberger Institute of the Arts, Arizona State University

  • 2015-16 Assistant Professor, Department of Film/Animation/Video, Rhode Island School of Design (RISD)

  • 2013-15 Artist in Residence and Adjunct Faculty, Center for Digital Arts and Experimental Media (DXARTS), University of Washington

  • 2011-13 Research Fellow, Orpheus Research Center in Music (ORCiM), Ghent

  • 2007-8 Artist in Residence, Netherlands Media Art Institute (NIMK) and STEIM, Amsterdam

  • 2006-7 Artistic Fellow in Sound, Department of Arts and Media, Academy of Media Arts (KHM) Cologne

  • 2005-6 Lecturer in Interaction Design, Department of Industrial Design, Technical University Eindhoven, NL

  • 2003-5 Artistic Researcher, Jan van Eyck Academy of Visual Arts, Design and Theory, Maastricht

MAJOR ARTIST/RESEARch STIPENDS:

  • 2012-16 Individual Artist Stipend, (Basisstipendium), Mondriaan Fonds NL

  • 2008-12 Individual Artist Stipend, (Basisstipendium), Netherlands Fund for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture, NL

  • 2008-11 Doctoral Research Grant, Orpheus Institute for Advanced Research in Music, Ghent, BE

SELECTED SOLO* AND GROUP EXHIBITIONS AND PERFORMANCES

  • 2022 A Waterfall of Falling Sounds and Whale Walk, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt

  • 2021 That Unseen Vibrance, From a Whale’s Back, Melt Me Into The Ocean, Ars Electronica Los Angeles*

  • That Unseen Vibrance, The Listening Biennial, Errant Sound, Berlin

  • From a Whale’s Back, print series, Ipercubo Gallery, Milan

  • A Waterfall of Falling Sounds, Integratron, Joshua Tree National Park, CA

  • 2020 From a Whales Back, solo exhibition, Radius Gallery, Santa Cruz*

  • From a Whales Back, Loud Spring: Polarized, La Cite Fertile, Paris

  • Whale Walk, Festival of Music and Ideas, University of Sussex, UK

  • 2019 Listening to Whales, The Exploratorium, San Francisco

  • Taking Soundings, The Notational Turn, Contemporary Art Museum of Castilla y Leon (MUSAC), Spain

  • Sound is Round, sound from James Turrell’s Roden Crater, Arizona State University

  • Whale (Lincoln), Lincoln Pops Festival, Nebraska

  • 2018 Melt Me Into The Ocean, Walk and Performance commissioned featured artist, Indexical, Santa Cruz*

  • Melt Me Into The Ocean Installation Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History, Santa Cruz*

  • Liminal River Bubbles Up commissioned by Santa Cruz Arts Council for Ebb&Flow Festival, Santa Cruz

  • Melt Me Into The Ocean: Whale Walks Individual sound walks with selected artists,

  • scientists and healing professionals

  • 2017 Whale (Dundee) commissioned by NEoN Digital Arts, Dundee, Scotland*

  • Eagle and Light Entering My Room, Balance/Unbalance Conference Exhibition, Plymouth University UK

  • 2015 Listening to the Distance, Woodbury Art Museum, Utah Valley University, Orem Utah (catalogue)*

  • Bonneville Blue Whale Center for Contemporary Arts, Santa Fe

  • Pink Noise Currents New Media Festival, Santa Fe

  • Pink Noise Balance/Unbalance Conference Exhibition, Arizona State University, Phoenix

  • 2014 Displaced Sound Walk, University of Washington Seattle

  • Sense|Signal, Art and the Environment, University of Washington Seattle

  • 2013 Pink Noise, MADATAC New Media Art Festival, Madrid

  • 2012 El Camino, Satellite Sounding, Sensing Place, House of Electronic Arts, Basel

  • Tropical Storm, Displaced Sound Walk, Cage100, Contemporary Art Museum, Leipzig

  • You Me Swim Blackbird, Soundworks, Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), London

  • 2011 Scorescapes: Sonic Unconscious, Issue Project Room, New York*

  • Taking Soundings, Sextant, Satellite Sounding, Tracing Mobility, House of World Cultures, Berlin

  • Swim, Fishing for Sound, Dump Time, Shedhalle, Zurich

  • Pink Noise, WRO Media Art Biennale, Wroclaw, Poland

  • Taking Soundings and Navigating by Circles, Ground Level, Hayward Gallery UK

  • 2010 Fishing for Sound, Sonic Acts XIII Festival, Paradiso, Amsterdam

  • Fishing for Sound, Ear to the Earth Festival, Electronic Music Foundation, New York

  • Therapy for Future Flooding, Machine Project, Hammer Museum UCLA, Los Angeles

  • Scorescapes, Resonator, A/V Festival, Newcastle, UK

  • Pink Noise, Esemplasticism, Transmediale, Berlin

  • Displaced Sound Walk, Orpheus Institute for Advanced Research in Music, Ghent

  • 2009 Now Stripe Time DNK concert series, Amsterdam

  • Tropical Storm, Ponce Inlet and Bell Buoy, Atlantic Center for the Arts, Florida

  • Sun Run Sun: Satellite Sounders, Playing the City, Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt

  • Sun Run Sun, Netherlands Media Art Institute, Amsterdam

  • Sun Run Sun, Netherlands Royal Society of Musicology, Utrecht

  • 2008 Sun Run Sun, performance, Re:Visie / Netherlands Film Festival, Utrecht

  • Sun Run Sun: Satellite Sounders, PICNIC08 Virtueel Platform, Amsterdam

  • Taking Soundings Scores, MACBA, Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona

  • Sun Run Sun: Satellite Sounders, NIME, Contemporary Art Museum Genova

  • El Camino, LOOS Foundation The Hague

  • Sun Run Sun: Satellite Sounders, Temporary Museum Amsterdam

  • Sun Run Sun: Satellite Sounders, V2_Institute for the Unstable Media, Rotterdam

  • Sun Run Sun: Satellite Sounders, Netherlands Media Art Institute

  • Sun Run Sun: Dead Reckoning, Netherlands Media Art Institute

  • Navigating by Circles, Eco-Aesthetics TAG Gallery, The Hague

  • Sun Run Sun: Sun Running, STEIM Amsterdam

  • Sun Run Sun: Amphibian, Dag in de Branding Festival, TAG Gallery, The Hague

  • 2007 Taking Soundings, SNO Contemporary Art Projects, Sydney*

  • Navigating by Circles, Center Contemporary Non-Objective Art, Brussels

  • Taking Soundings 2, Musica 13, Nau Coclea, Catalunya

  • Taking Soundings 2, DNK/Mediamatic, Amsterdam

  • 2006 Spin, Stichting Intro, Maastricht, NL*

  • Taking Soundings, Academy of Media Arts, Cologne

  • Sketch for a Score for an Inside Out Instrument, Shanghai Zendai Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai

  • 2005 A Collection of Circles or Pharology, Center for Contemporary Non-Objective Art, Brussels*

  • Helix/Spiral (after Dan Graham), ‘Stepping Out’, Jan van Eyck Academy Gallery Maastricht

  • Light Phase VideoDance Festival, Thessaloniki, Greece

  • Score Spaces, Jan van Eyck Academy, Maastricht

  • 2003 - 2004 Spark!#1 flute and electronics, Jan van Eyck Academy, Maastricht

  • Light Phase, Jan van Eyck Academy, Maastricht, NL

  • Between: Two, duet for Mobile Video Players (live portable projections), Entre Deux, Maastricht, NL*

  • On silence and gaps exhibited email exchange with Michael Archer, Modern Art Oxford

  • Live video, Kraakgeluid and Gaudeamus week, STEIM, Amsterdam

  • Video Walk#1and #2 Forest; Video Walk#3 Beach live portable projections, Emporda Spain

  • 2001 - 2002 Tidal Nomad Mad, composition for Barcelona Municipal Orchestra, LEM Festival, Barcelona*

  • Inside-Out Video-Organ performance, Nau Coclea, Emporda Spain

  • Paradise for Video-Organ performance, MediaLabEurope, Dublin

  • MediaEval Video-Organ performance, Casino de Alicante, Spain

  • MediaEval Video-Organ performance, Musica a Metronom, Barcelona

  • Digital Day at Media House, Video-Organ, Metapolis Architects, Mercat de les Flors, Barcelona

  • Lift and Sagrada stairs video installation, inauguration of MetronomLab, Barcelona

  • BAT Video-Organ performance, Musica a Metronom, Barcelona

  • 1996 - 2000 Explorations in Movement audio-visual moving score, with Evan Parker, Dartington

  • Invisible Cities graphic score, flute piano cello, Sheffield University

  • Swallows piano and live electronics Dartington International Summer School

  • Birds for Sculthorpe graphic score Composers Ensemble, Dartington International Summer School

  • Montbretia graphic score prepared piano for Joanna Macgregor, Dartington International Summer School

  • Syrens 3 graphic scores, 3 flutes, 3 pianos, Dartington College of Arts

  • Walking the Line, performance of 66 page graphic score, Dartington College of Arts*

  • Sail for an Absent Public, 7 day Sargasso Sea/Bermuda Triangle, Atlantic Ocean*

  • Walk for an Absent Public, 4 day walk, sound sculptures, Dartmoor, UK*

SELECTED COLLABORATIVE PERFORMANCES and ENSEMBLES

  • 2019 Sounds of the Ocean, video projections and harp in sound event, Pacific Cultural Center, Santa Cruz

  • UCSC Balinese Gamelan Ensemble, performing member of traditional Balinese Gamelan, UCSC

  • 2018 Dolphinarium (by Kristin Erickson), harp in electronic theatre performance KYMA International Sound Symposium, UCSC

  • Gopher Holes harp in experimental music performance, Seedbed: A Soil Symposium, UCSC

  • 2017 UCSC Balinese Gamelan Ensemble, performing member of traditional Balinese Gamelan, UCSC

  • 2010 S.W.A.M.P. #2, (with Christopher Williams) Certain Sundays, Sowieso Neukoelln, Berlin

  • 2009 S.W.A.M.P. (with Christopher Williams) Diapason Gallery Brooklyn, New York

  • 2006 Divide by Zero, (with Zafer Aracagok) Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Centre, Istanbul

  • 2005 Meta-Orchestra #5 Mine (director) Genk, Belgium

  • 2004 Meta-Orchestra #4 (co-director with Bert Bongers) Stichting Intro|In Situ, Maastricht

  • 2002 MetaOrchestra #3, (performing member of electronic ensemble) Musica a Metronom, Barcelona

  • 2001 Meta-Orchestra (performing member of electronic ensemble) Felix Meritis and de Ijsbreker, Amsterdam

  • 1998 Meta-Orchestra (performing member of electronic ensemble) Dartington International Summer School

  • 1994 Edinburgh University Symphony Orchestra, Edinburgh University Contemporary Music Ensemble: Flute

Other AWARDS, GRANTS and SCHOLARSHIPS (selected)

  • 2021 Santa Cruz Arts Council, Cultivate Grant

  • 2020 Santa Cruz Arts Council Grant, for Radius Gallery solo exhibition

  • 2019 University of California Art & Design Placemaking Initiative Grant Santa Cruz Arts Council, Develop Grant

  • 2018 Scholarship, Leonardo Convening 50th Anniversary, San Francisco

  • 2015 Grant Award, catalogue production and design, Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation, US

  • Honorable Mention, juried exhibition ‘Land Mark Show’, Center for Contemporary Art, Santa Fe

  • 2014 Commission, video installation Eagle, Woodbury Art Museum, Utah Valley University

  • New Mexico Humanities Council Award, Project at Currents New Media Festival, Santa Fe

  • UCIRA Grant, Design Media Arts, University of California Los Angeles

  • 2012 Best PhD Abstract, LABS, Leonardo International Society for Arts, Sciences and Technology

  • Scholarship, International Symposium for Electronic Arts, ISEA12 Albuquerque

  • 2008 Travel Stipend to ISEA08 Singapore, Mondriaan Foundation

  • 2006 British Council Award, performance at Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Centre, Istanbul

  • 2005 Euregio Government Funding, Artistic Director of the Meta-Orchestra V

  • 2004 Editorial Board Award, Jan van Eyck Academy, Artistic Director of the Meta-Orchestra IV

  • 2000 Kettle’s Yard Brancusi Grant, University of Cambridge

  • Performing Rights Society Scholarship, UK

  • 1998 Dartington Arts Scholarship, UK

  • 1997 Dartington Arts Student Initiative Award

Other ARTIST RESIDENCIES (selected)

  • 2010 Deep Listening Retreat with Pauline Oliveros, Nau Coclea, Catalunya

  • 2009 Associate Artist Award, Residency with Alvin Lucier, Atlantic Center for the Arts, Florida

  • Artist in Residence, STEIM (Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music) Amsterdam

  • 2007 Artist in Residence, STEIM (Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music), Amsterdam

  • 2006 Composer in Residence, Stichting Intro In Situ, Maastricht

  • 2002 Artist in Residence, STEIM (Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music) Amsterdam

  • 2001 Artist in Residence, ZKM (Centre for Art and Media Technology) Karlsruhe, Germany

  • 1999 Artist in Residence, STEIM (Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music) Amsterdam

  • 1998 Advanced Composition with Peter Sculthorpe, Dartington International Summer School

  • Interactive Electronic Music, Dartington International Summer School

  • Advanced Electro-Acoustic Composition at Dartington International Summer School

  • 1997 Advanced Composition with Lou Harrison, Dartington International Summer School

VISITING ACADEMIC LECTURES, WORKSHOPS, CRITIQUES (selected)

  • 2021 Guest Critic, La Salle School of Architecture, Barcelona

  • 2020 Public Lecture, Ars Electronica Festival, LA/Linz Austria

  • Public Lecture, Laznia Contemporary Art Center, Gdansk Poland

  • Public Lecture, LASER, University of California Santa Cruz

  • Guest Lecture, Center for Integrated Media speaker series, California Institute of the Arts

  • 2019 Public Lecture, LASER, San Jose State University

  • 2017 Public Lecture, LASER, University of California Santa Cruz

  • 2016 Guest Lecture, Visual Art Department, Brown University, Rhode Island

  • 2015 Guest Lecture, Kunsthal Aarhus and Aarhus University, Denmark

  • 2014 Guest Lecture, Center for Integrated Media speaker series, California Institute of the Arts

  • Guest Lecture, Design Media Arts, Broad Art Center, University of California Los Angeles

  • Guest Lecture, Media Arts and Technology, University of California Santa Barbara

  • Guest Lecture, Media Design Practices, Art Center College of Design, Los Angeles

  • 2013 Guest Lecture, Arts Media and Engineering (AME), Arizona State University

  • Visiting Artist, Emergent Digital Practices, University of Denver

  • 2012 Visiting Artist, Department of Art, University of Memphis

  • Workshop Leader, Academy of Fine Arts/ Contemporary Art Museum, Leipzig

  • Guest Critic, Center for Integrated Media MFA, California Institute of the Arts

  • 2010 Guest Lecture, College of Fine Arts, University of New Mexico

  • Guest Lecture, Sam Fox School of Art and Design, Washington University St Louis

  • 2009 Guest Critic, Triangle Arts International Residency Program, Brooklyn New York

  • Guest Lecture, ArtScience InterFaculty Colloqium, Royal Academy of Art, The Hague

  • Guest Lecture, Laboratory for Applied Bio-Acoustics, Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Barcelona

  • 2008 Workshop Leader, Navigation and GPS in Media Art, Academy of Media Arts (KHM), Cologne

  • Guest Lecture, Design Media Arts, Broad Art Center, University of California Los Angeles

  • 2007 Guest Critic, in collaboration with Nokia, Gerrit Rietveld Academy of Fine Arts, Amsterdam

  • Guest Lecturer, Department of Design, Architecture and Building, University of Technology Sydney

  • Workshop Leader, Interactive Electronic Art, Masters in Industrial Design, Technical University Eindhoven

  • 2006 Workshop Leader, Academy of Visual Arts Maastricht

  • 2005 Guest Lecturer, Department of Media Arts, Academy of Media Arts, Cologne

  • 2004 Guest Lecturer, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam

  • 2003 Guest Lecturer, Aalborg University, Denmark

CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS (SELECTED)

  • 2019 Underwater Sound and Oceanic States of Mind, International Symposium of Electronic Arts, Gwangju, Korea

  • 2015 Listening to the Ocean in the Desert, Balance-Unbalance Conference, Arizona State University, Phoenix

  • 2012 Techno-Intuition, International Symposium of Electronic Arts (ISEA2012), Albuquerque

  • 2010 Scorescapes, Sound and Score International Symposium, Orpheus Institute, Gent

  • Making the Inaudible Audible, International Symposium of Electronic Arts (ISEA2010 Ruhr), Dortmund

  • Sound Flares and Scorescapes, Certain Sundays Sound Salon, Sowieso Neukoelln, Berlin

  • Tuning In and Spacing Out, Collaborative lecture with Edward Shanken, Sonic Acts Festival Amsterdam

  • 2009 Scorescapes: between the Map and the Music, Netherlands Royal Society of Musicology (KVNM) Utrecht

  • 2008 Sun Run Sun, International Symposium of Electronic Arts (ISEA2008), Singapore

  • Sun Run Sun, Eco-Aesthetics symposium <>TAG, Mediamatic Amsterdam

  • 2006 - 2007 Taking Soundings, Mutamorphosis International Conference, Prague

  • Taking Soundings, 4th Mobile Music Workshop, Waag Society, Amsterdam

  • Collaborative Score Spaces, Etonaal Symposium on digital music, Utrecht University

  • Sound Strata, Helen Chadwick Fellowship, British School in Rome/Oxford University UK