Tȟaŋmáhel, 2022

Written By Kite .

Description

Kite composes a ‘visual score’ – a form of experimental music notation – entailing symbolic forms that performers and musicians can read and interpret. Deriving ideologies from traditional Lakȟóta artmaking, as seen in their quillwork and beadwork, these processes of visual score-reading are reflected in their geometric designs and translated from the aftermath of a waking or sleeping dream. Similarly to reading and writing music, these designs communicate concepts without verbal language, becoming a semiotic language, a language of symbols that do not have to be explained. Like stories, their meaning changes over time and develops over a lifetime, no longer confined to its original interpretation. Creating a dream narrative from a collection of visions re-enacted through videos, the performance, Tȟaŋmáhel, will assign visions to symbols and weave a complete graphic score into being.

Artworks

Kite, Tȟaŋmáhel, 2022, experimental lecture and performance, including visual score and experimental music notation. 

Previous Showings

“Skill Futures - Tȟaŋmáhel”, Live Lecture and Performance online, Singapore Art Museum, September 28, 2022.

“Art Now: The Soul is a Wanderer,” Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center, performance, September 28, 2023.

Kite .

Kite (Dr. Suzanne Kite) is an Oglála Lakȟóta performance artist, visual artist, and composer raised in Southern California, with a BFA from CalArts in music composition,and an MFA from Bard College’s Milton Avery Graduate School, and a Ph.D. in Fine Arts from Concordia University, Montreal. Kite’s scholarship and practice investigate contemporary Lakȟóta ontologies through research-creation, computational media, and performance, often working in collaboration with family and community members. Recently, Kite has been developing body interfaces for machine learning driven performance and sculptures generated by dreams, and experimental sound and video work. Kite has published in The Journal of Design and Science (MIT Press), with the award winning article, “Making Kin with Machines,” co-authored with Jason Lewis, Noelani Arista, and Archer Pechawis. Kite is currently a 2023 Creative Capital Award Winner, 2023 USA Fellow, and a 2022-2023 Creative Time Open Call artist with Alisha B. Wormsley. Kite is currently Distinguished Artist in Residence and Assistant Professor of American and Indigenous Studies, Bard College and a Research Associate and Residency Coordinator for the Abundant Intelligences (Indigenous AI) project.

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Wóaič’ibleze (Self-Reflection), 2023
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Oíhaŋbleta (In a Dream), 2023