THE BODY IS THE INTERFACE Comes to REDCAT

On November 2, 2024, Roy and Edna Disney CalArts Theater (REDCAT), CalArts’ center for contemporary arts in downtown Los Angeles, presents a double bill of performances by Oglala Lakȟóta artist Kite (Music, BFA ‘14) and Mexico City-based collective Interspecifics, bringing together machine learning technologies, sound, the body, and Indigenous cosmologies in a program titled The Body is the Interface.

For Wičháȟpi Wóihaŋbleya (Dreamlike Star), Kite performs with a custom computer that translates her body movements into experimental sounds and video by means of two hair braids she manipulates. Kite performs scores she has translated into Lakȟóta visual language, derived from the dreams of women and two-spirit community members, who consider dreaming as a sacred epistemological practice. Using her own body as an interface, each of Kite’s movements trains the machine learning software encoded with a Lakȟóta data set. 

Interspecifics presents Meta Sincronía 1.0, a live sonic and visual composition with a feedback processor that follows rhythms and synchronizations of the human heart. Three performers outfitted with a heart-rate monitor interface with automated ceremonial leather drums—inspired by Rarámuri instruments. Beats synchronize between humans and machines, fluctuating from chaos to unison.

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