I am a sonic artist, which presumably means that I am concerned with audible frequencies as they interact with humans. This is certainly true, but I am more concerned with sounds which are not intended to interact with humans, i.e., those sounds, sequences, and frequencies that fall outside the canon of dominant Western constructions of music. Noise. This interest, of course, has a long history. More specifically, I am a circuit-bender, which involves repurposing electronic devices via short circuiting modifications. I find discarded toys, instruments, and other noisemakers, and I change their circuitry to produce a new palette of sound. The concept of reuse is vital to my process and finished pieces, as it is only through the illumination of each pieces origins, original intentions, and materiality that they move beyond instrument creation to rhetorical composition via hardware remix. It is through this practice of chance electronics, first articulated by Reed Ghazala, that composers have direct and intimate contact with their machines in order to change their instruments; the hardware becomes forced into opensource status and the relationship of human artist–technology artist (coauthors) becomes both illuminated and harmonious. For this reason, the process of bending becomes as important–and indeed synonymous with–the product of the bending. Whether I am producing music, editing video, or circuit bending, I am always concerned chiefly with the circuitous ecosystems in which human and nonhuman agents exist and compose in relationship.
