NELLY KATE — STUDIO ARTIST

Expanded practice in sound treating access as a site for poetic translation.


CONTENTS

01 The Difference

02 nowisthe
03 Nevermind
04 FutureFluid

05 [Untitled] 6 Cylinders

06 I Hear You, But I Can’t Hear You
07 Transistors in Translation

08 ~~~~~”...derelict in uncharted space...”
09 pink moon

10 Into the Ground, Into the Body


STATEMENT

My work is motivated by care and a desire to make space for public imagination. I’m interested in ad-hoc solutions that create a sense of belonging. This can look like on-the-fly audio descriptions, live captions, provisional structures, and rearrangements of furniture.

My materials and methods are reflexive. I gravitate toward lo-fi mechanisms—such as reel-to-reel tape loops, transistor radios, photocopiers, and electronic synthesizers—because they reveal electromagnetic frequencies all around us. Their fluttering textures are like our complex embodiments, sensed differently by every being, from every position, in every moment.

For the last few years, I’ve made a lot of furniture, speakers, and screens with repurposed steel barrels. I like the labor, engineering, improvisation, care, and slowness this requires. I like the body-memory evident in the wear, tear, and filth.  And anyway, I believe our budgets reflect our values and I’d much rather pay people than generate more trash.

What if we have everything we need?


The objects I make set the stage for experiences that invite connection, drift, rest, and a relinquishment of clock time. When all these factors converge, I call that ecstatic magic and that’s what I strive for in my practice.


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H0ME • BIO • CV • ︎
NELLY KATE 06 — FEB 2020

I Hear You, But I Can’t Hear You

MADELAINE CORBIN COLLABORATION


We are apprenticed to light and the effect of temporal rhythms on our bodies and our environments. This installation was investigating resolution and dissolution.

The diaphanous blue of cyanotypes intensifies when light falls across their surfaces. Similarly, sunlight will reveal hidden patterns woven into Corbin’s rug as some of its strands are lightfast + fixed, while others are not.
Our chair cycles audible and inaudible tones, resonating sonic  frequencies against the body. Its rocking motion references circadian rhythms and flow.

The more frequently a person sits here, the brighter the weaving will stay as they mask the sun’s rays.
In this way, loss is reversed in a re-valuing of change over time. We resist permanence to encourage ephemerality as a material power.



Printing support from Jordan Knecht
Blueprint Residency; Chicago, IL

 

When I was alive, I aimed to be a student not of longing but of light. —Maggie Nelson, Bluets