Jay Afrisando is an Indonesian composer, multimedia artist, researcher, and educator. He works on aural diversity, acoustic ecology, and cultural identity, focusing on disability and environmental justice, arts and accessibility, and decolonizing arts practices. He shares vital experiences and disseminates knowledge through multisensory and antidisciplinary practices, including video, text, spatial audio, fixed media, improvisation, and various collaborative methods.

 

His works have been presented at Sound Scene, Walker Art Center’s Virtual Cinema, ARGOS Projector: The Faraway Nearby, 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 been presented at various spaces, including Smithsonian Hirshhorn National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, HERE Arts Center, Moon Palace Books, Attenborough Arts Centre, Fridman Gallery, George Latimer Public Library, Saint Paul Union Depot, Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics, Cedar Cultural Center, Seattle Art Museum, Montalvo Arts Center, and National Gugak Center.

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He has collaborated/worked with composers, instrumentalists, signers, vocalists, visual artists, choreographers, dancers, writers, mobile app programmers, sound engineers, an actor, stage directors, videographers, researchers, and audiences, including thingNY, Andy Slater, Leah Atwa, Bill Davies, Josephine Dickinson, Ed Garland, Alan Jacques, Jamil Haque, Gelsey Bell, J-Sun, Yan Pang, Arif Angga, Lee Noble, Black Pencil Ensemble, Duo Gelland, Gamelan Kyai Fatahillah, Katie Kummerow, Michael Duffy, Alex Lubet, Mondo Gascaro, Katya Shilonosova, Ng Chor Guan, Daniel de Mendoza, Terry Perdanawati, MN Qomaruddin, Banu Antoro, Gading Paksi, Ere Lievonen, Arend Grosfeld, Anne Veinberg, Slamet Gundono, Dewa Budjana, gamin, Djaduk Ferianto, Purwanto, Jen Shyu, Jemek Supardi, and Cedric Hanriot.

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He is a MAP Fund 2022 grantee (US); a Jerome Hill Artist Fellow 2021-22 (US); a grantee of the Next Step Fund 2020 by the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council (US); the recipient of the ABT Award 2020 by the Art Music Today (ID), Black Pencil Ensemble (NL), and Trace21 (NL); and a OneBeat Fellow 2015. He also received the Ambassador's Award for Excellence 2019 from the Ambassador of the Republic of Indonesia for the United States (US), the 2016 Minnesota Emerging Composer Award from the American Composers Forum (US), Hibah Seni Karya Inovatif (Innovative Art Grant) 2016 from Yayasan Kelola (ID), and the 2nd Prize Winner of Prix Annelie de Man 2015 Composers Competition from Stichting Annelie de Man (NL).

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He participated in 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).

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He is the initiator and a collaborator at Jay & Gatra Wardaya, a group focusing on text-based and contemporary music. He is also a collaborator at TIGAtrio, a trans-continent improvisation group. In addition, he is a collaborator of CHANT, collaborative research by researchers of the University of Minnesota, Ohio State University, and the University of Louisiana Monroe, centering on the nexus of culture, healing, art, nature, and technology.

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His publication includes an article “The Klang Magazine Handy Dandy One Stop Listening Manual” (Klang Magazine, 2023), a book chapter “Music-Making in Aurally Diverse Communities” in Aural Diversity (Routledge, 2022), telematic improvisational film Expanding the Frame Live in collaboration with Lee Noble (Walker Art Center’s Bentson Mediatheque, 2021), soundscape album Rangkaian Pagi untuk Dikenang (2021), score for one-hand piano “Tangguh” (2021), track “Gunung Singgalang” in Alex Lubet’s solo album Three Strings and the Truth: New Music for Mountain Dulcimer (pfMENTUM, 2020), and graphic score “Water Siter” (Donemus, 2015).

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Artist Statement

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Through my works, I invite others to raise consciousness on complex issues that emerge from bodily diversity and ever-changing tools, including aural diversity (diversity of hearings/aural experiences), soundscape ecology, and cultural identity. I aim to decolonize musical practice by centralizing whole-body listening, honoring human and non-human relationships, and emphasizing voices unheard in music practices.

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I contemplate music as an agency providing critical experience and knowledge. Therefore, my artistic practice is entangled with research.

 

I use multisensory approaches—aural, visual, tactile, and imagination—and challenge artistic disciplines using various approaches, including video, spatial audio, text, fixed media, improvisation, and various collaborative methods.

 

My projects and methods tend to be multisensory and antidisciplinary (what and how I work falls into an area beyond the available disciplines and requires proficiency in separate, unrelated existing fields).

My vision of approaching music as a multisensory phenomenon not only expands and diversifies music-making but also sees its direction back to the fundamentals: music is grounded on the people who experience it, which means different kinds of music suggest different kinds of making and understanding. Therefore, the notion of music should be freed from any ideas advocating domination and colonization.
 

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Research Statement

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My research practice intertwines with my artistic practice. My research investigates diverse listening and aural phenomenologies, access as a creative framework, disability aesthetics, disability design framework in the music context, the futurism of cultural identity, improvisation and participatory systems grounded in societal traditions, and political ecologies of listening.

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My research framework includes arts-based research, practice-led research, and research-based practice.

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In the context of arts-based research, I take advantage of an artist’s unique position in research by using arts as methodology since they can stimulate the advancement of knowledge and contribute to education in many meaningful ways.

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