Jay Afrisando
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Music composer. Sonic artist.
Jay uses sound and other media to share awareness of human-nature-technology relationships and diverse hearing profiles. He employs artistic approaches including (but not limited to) music composition, sound installation, mixed media, participatory work, improvisation, field recording, and everything in-between.
His works have been presented at MOXsonic, Sonic Salon Winter, In Situ: Festival for Electronic Music and Sound Art, Aural Diversity Conference, October Meeting Contemporary Music & Musicians, Seoul International Computer Music Conference, International Computer Music Conference, New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, Landmark to Lowertown, Linux Audio Conference, Disability Awareness Week, Drone Not Drones, and Fifteen Minutes of Fame. His works have also been presented at Seattle Art Museum, Montalvo Arts Center, and National Gugak Center.
He has been awarded the Next Step Fund 2020 by the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council (MN, US); the ABT Award 2020 by the Art Music Today, Black Pencil Ensemble, and Trace21 (ID & NL); the Ambassador's Award for Excellence 2019 by the Ambassador of the Republic of Indonesia for the United States (US); the 2016 Minnesota Emerging Composer Award by the American Composers Forum (US); Hibah Seni Karya Inovatif (Innovative Art Grant) 2016 by Yayasan Kelola (ID); and the 2nd Prize composition winner of Prix Annelie de Man 2015 (NL).
He participated at the Improvising Ecosystem 2017 at the Hubachek Wilderness Research Center (MN, US), the OneBeat 2015 residency in California, Oregon, and Washington (US), the 2014 International Fellowship in Study of Korean Music at National Gugak Center (KR), and the Hackteria Lab/Akustikologi 2014 at Bumi Pemuda Rahayu Sustainability Center (ID).
Artist Statement
As human beings, we are equipped with a cognitive system that makes our life colorful and enables us to engage with works of art. At the same time, each of us has different listening apparatuses which create diverse hearing and listening profiles, consequently making our experiences towards works of art unique and personal. People with various hearing and listening abilities have inspired me that musical experiences do not depend solely on sound, as we perceive musical experiences through aural (the ear), visual (the eye), and/or tactile (the skin and the whole body), with the possibility of gustatory (the tongue), olfactory (nose), vestibular (inner ear), and proprioceptive (body muscles).
As a composer and sonic artist, I attempt to capture and convey these phenomena through my artistic works. I work with sound and other media including visuals and physical objects. As the phenomena are varied depending on the context, I work using various media including (but not limited to) composition, installation, participatory performances, mixed media, and everything in between. I also work using fluid approaches including (but not limited to) electroacoustic and acoustic, 2D and 3D, fixed and improvised, software- and hardware-based, and everything in between.
This way, I hope to widen the inclusion of people with diverse hearing profiles in sonic experiences by creating universal sonic design through the means of providing accessibility in my works, while at the same time exploring aesthetics possibilities from the accessibility provided. The interpretation of “universal” here is loose—it depends on contextual meaning I would like to communicate with audiences.
Themes or ‘messages’ that I deliver in my works include (but not limited to) the relationships between humans, technology, and nature. These intricate relationships are significant and pertinent in my pieces as we have been increasingly exposed to ethical considerations than before. Therefore, I create works to encourage my audiences to rethink and reconsider our connections to technology, nature, and the human beings per se.