PRESENTERS: ROB MACKAY + LUZ MÁRIA SÁNCHEZ
ROB MACKAY
Rob Mackay is a composer, sound artist and performer. He is currently a Senior Lecturer in Music at the University of Hull in Great Britain.
Recent projects have moved towards a cross-disciplinary approach, including geology, soundscape ecology, theatre, audiovisual installation work, and human-computer interaction. His work has been performed in 18 countries (including several performances on BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 1 and Radio France), and a number of his pieces have received international awards (Bourges (1997 and 2001), EAR (1999), La Muse en Circuit (2007)). He has held composer residencies at Slovak Radio (Bratislava), La Muse en Circuit (Paris), the Tyrone Guthrie Arts Centre (Ireland), Habitación del Ruido (Mexico City), and CMMAS (Morelia).
He has collaborated with a number of poets, including Martin Daws (Young People’s Poet Laureate for Wales, 2013 – 2015) and John Wedgwood Clarke (for the Arts Council funded Dictionary of Stone and Sea Swim with Lara Goodband). This was a natural progression from working on a number of projects based on the theme of geology, including a collaboration with percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie on the Natural England funded Ruskin Rocks project, led by a team of scientists and musicians at the University of Leeds who created two stone instruments (lithophones). He has also created a Jurassic soundscape for Scarborough’s Rotunda museum which is currently installed.
Rob has been a reviewer for numerous international conferences, including ICMC (International Computer Music Conference), NIME (New Instruments for Musical Expression), DHRN (Digital Humanities Research Network), and journals (Organised Sound, Cambridge University Press) and is editor for Interference, a Journal of Audio Cultures.
He has played, written and produced in a number of bands including the Welsh Hip-Hop collective Tystion with whom he collaborated alongside John Cale on the film A Beautiful Mistake (Film 4), as well as recording two John Peel sessions on BBC Radio 1 and supporting PJ Harvey. The band have a chapter devoted to them in Sarah Hill’s book ‘Blerwytirhwng?’ The Place of Welsh Pop Music (Ashgate 2007). Rob has done session work for Super Furry Animals producer Gorwel Owen, songwriter Euros Childs, and Hip-Hop producer Kista. He is currently enjoying playing in the Welsh Afro-tropical collective Drymbago, having supported Quantic and Tony Allen. More information and pieces at: www.soundcloud.com/robflute
LUZ MÁRIA SÁNCHEZ
Luz María Sánchez is a transdisciplinary artist, researcher, and academic. She holds a Doctorate in Art from the Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona and is an Art Member of the National System of Art Creators (Mexico). She also serves as Chair of the Department of Arts and Humanities at Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (Lerma Campus) in Mexico and is part of the Science, Art and Complexity Program of the Center for Complexity Sciences (C3-UNAM).
Sánchez’s work operates in the political sphere with themes of the Mexican Diaspora, violence in the Americas, and the failure of the Nation-State. Her sound works and installations have been included in major sound and music festivals and in museums and galleries in Europe and the Americas. In 2014 she received First Prize at the inaugural Bienal De Las Fronteras (Biennial of the Frontiers) that was in exhibition at the Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil in Mexico City.
Her publications include: Electronic Samuel Beckett: Cochlear Samuel Beckett (UAM: 2016) and The Technological Epiphanies of Samuel Beckett: Machines of Inscription and Audiovisual Manipulation (Fonca/Futura: 2016). She is preparing a commissioned project for the Land Heritage Institute in San Antonio, Texas, and will deliver one of the keynote address at the ISACS 17 – International Sound Art Curating Conference Series (curated by Peter Weibel and Morten Søndergaard) at ZKM in Karlsruhe, Germany September 28-30, 2017.
Sound Art :x: Feminist Art :x: Eco Art 