Heat Waves Opening Conversation
Ash Arder, Salome Asega, Kapish Singh, Alex Nathanson
August 11, 2023, 6pm
Artist and technologist Salome Asega joins Ash Arder and her Whoop House collaborators Kapish Kishu Singh and Alex Nathanson for a conversation on the role of infrastructure as a site for culture. Bridging histories of blues and techno music with discussions surrounding the future of environmental activism, the conversation will be anchored in their shared interest in the potential of community-powered infrastructural and technological networks.
Their conversation will be followed by a series of activations of Whoop House by Ash Arder, Justin Allen, and Johann Diedrick.
Their conversation will be followed by a series of activations of Whoop House by Ash Arder, Justin Allen, and Johann Diedrick.
This event is part of Heat Waves, our annual summer series dedicated to acoustic practices. Heat Waves 2023 brings together artists and audiences to activate and perform on and with Whoop House, a solar-powered sculpture and sound amplification hub developed by Detroit-based artist, DJ, and organizer Ash Arder.
Entry is free, and we welcome all ages and music preferences. Prior registration is recommended.
Entry is free, and we welcome all ages and music preferences. Prior registration is recommended.
Ash Arder is a transdisciplinary artist, organizer, and educator from Flint, MI, who has spent the last decade transforming DIY, hacker, and experimental approaches to problem solving into formalized programs, projects, and collaborations. Her work and research use storytelling and speculative collaboration as frameworks to explore climate and social justice themes. Manipulating physical and virtual environments, her work uses mark-making, mechanical portraiture, performance, and sound design as tools for complicating dynamics of power between humans, machines, and the lands they occupy.
Since graduating from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2018, Ash has received various awards and artist residencies including the Knight Arts Challenge (2021), University Musical Society residency (2022), Bemis Center for Contemporary Art residency (2021), Recess residency (2019), and A Studio in the Woods residency (2018). Her upcoming solo exhibition at the Cranbrook Art Museum explores the relationship between human workers and large machinery through a lens of intimacy, tenderness, and connection.
Since graduating from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2018, Ash has received various awards and artist residencies including the Knight Arts Challenge (2021), University Musical Society residency (2022), Bemis Center for Contemporary Art residency (2021), Recess residency (2019), and A Studio in the Woods residency (2018). Her upcoming solo exhibition at the Cranbrook Art Museum explores the relationship between human workers and large machinery through a lens of intimacy, tenderness, and connection.
Salome Asega is an artist and researcher exploring models for technology that are cooperative, distributed, and people-centered. She is director of NEW INC, an art, design, and technology incubator program at the New Museum that offers artists professional development, mentorship, and shared workspace. She also sits on the boards of Eyebeam, the National Performance Network, and POWRPLNT.
She has participated in residencies and fellowships with Eyebeam, the New Museum, The Laundromat Project, and Recess and has exhibited at the 11th Shanghai Biennale, MoMA, the Carnegie Library, the August Wilson Center, the Knockdown Center, and more. She has given presentations and lectures at festivals and academic institutions, including Performa, Eyeo, the Brooklyn Museum, MIT Media Lab, Carnegie Mellon University, Gather Stockholm, and New York University.
Salome received her MFA from Parsons at The New School in Design and Technology, where she teaches classes on speculative design and participatory design methodologies.
Salome received her MFA from Parsons at The New School in Design and Technology, where she teaches classes on speculative design and participatory design methodologies.
Kapish Kishu Singh is an architectural designer and multi-disciplinary artist from Sri Ganganagar, Rajasthan, whose practice sculpts environments with layered atmospheres to create pockets of alternate realities that can be felt simultaneously with our own. The resulting spatial objects work to interrogate the multitude of relationships between ourselves and the sky, systems of hierarchies, or our position within the universe.
Kapish holds degrees in architecture from Mississippi State University and Cranbrook Academy of Art.
Kapish holds degrees in architecture from Mississippi State University and Cranbrook Academy of Art.
Alex Nathanson is a designer, technologist, artist, and educator. His work is primarily focused on exploring both the experimental and practical applications of sustainable energy technologies, particularly photovoltaic solar power. He is the founder and lead designer of the education and art platform Solar Power for Artists and its partner studio, Energy Transition Design LLC. The mission of both organizations is to make sustainable energy accessible, tactile, and understandable.
As a solar power designer, he has created interactive and educational projects for the Climate Museum, Peabody Essex Museum, Solar One, and the NYC Department of Education, among others. His book, A History of Solar Power Art and Design, was published by Routledge in 2021.
As a solar power designer, he has created interactive and educational projects for the Climate Museum, Peabody Essex Museum, Solar One, and the NYC Department of Education, among others. His book, A History of Solar Power Art and Design, was published by Routledge in 2021.
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