Cathy van Eck is a composer, sound artist, and researcher in the arts. She focuses on composing relationships between everyday objects, human performers, and sound. Her artistic work includes performances with live-electronics and installations with sound objects which she often designs herself. She is interested in setting her gestures into relationships with sounds, mainly by electronic means. The result could be called “performative sound art”, since it combines elements from performance art, electronic music, and visual arts.
Cathy’s Sounds Unheard Studio Talk series, “Sounds from somewhere else”, explores her work with speakers, microphones, sensors and systems. Over four videos, Cathy introduces a number of her works and explains the concepts and technology behind her creative output.
In “Sounding the Body”, the third episode of this series, Cathy discusses her work “Song No. 3” (2010). In this piece, arm gestures normally used by singers are used as a means to control electronic sound. The input volume of Cathy’s microphone controls the computer’s sound processing, which is then diffused through a loudspeaker placed in front of her face. Cathy speaks about her selection of sounds, and how she curates particular meanings or effects in this piece.
Join us next Wednesday for the fourth and final episode of Cathy’s Studio Talk series. For more information on Cathy, please visit https://www.cathyvaneck.net/.
Tags: Cathy van Eck Composer Composing composition sound art