SOUNDINGS, Performance #3

Schedule

Fri Sep 30 2022 at 07:00 pm to 08:00 pm

Location

KCAI | Kansas City, MO

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"Listener," A performance by the artist, Kite.
About this Event
ListenerFriday, September 30, 7 p.m.At KCAI, Epperson Auditorium. Presented in partnership with, and with generous support from the Tulsa Artist Fellowship.

About the Artist

Kite, aka Suzanne Kite, is an award winning Oglála Lakȟóta performance artist, visual artist, composer and academic raised in Southern California, known for her sound and video performance with her Machine Learning hair-braid interface. Kite holds a BFA from CalArts in music composition, an MFA from Bard College’s Milton Avery Graduate School, and is a PhD candidate at Concordia University for the forthcoming dissertation, sound and video work, and interactive installation Hél čhaŋkú kiŋ ȟpáye (There lies the road). Kite’s groundbreaking scholarship and practice explore contemporary Lakota ontology through research-creation, computational media, and performance. Kite often works in collaboration, especially with family and community members. Her art practice includes developing Machine Learning and compositional systems for body interface movement performances, interactive and static sculpture, immersive video and sound installations, poetry and experimental lectures, experimental video, as well as co-running the experimental electronic imprint, Unheard Records. Working with machine learning techniques since 2017 and developing body interfaces for performance since 2013, Kite is a first American Indian artist to utilize Machine Learning in art practice. Kite has been included in numerous publications such as Atlas of Anomalous AI, Indigenous Futurisms, YWY: Searching for a Character Between Future Worlds, SOUTH as a State of Mind, Creative AI Database from Serpentine Gallery, the American Indian Culture and Research Journal, the Journal of Design and Science (MIT Press), with the award winning article, “Making Kin with Machines”, and the sculpture Ínyan Iyé (Telling Rock) (2019) was featured on the cover of Canadian Art. Kite was the Global Coordinator for the Indigenous Protocols and Artificial Intelligence Workshops supported by the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, resulting in the publication of the Indigenous Protocols and Artificial Intelligence Position Paper. Kite’s artwork and performance has been included in numerous exhibitions, recently Hammer Museum, Whitney Museum of American Art, Plug In Contemporary, PS122 and the Vera List Center, Anthology Film Archives, Walter Phillips Gallery, Chronus Art Center, Toronto Biennial, and Experimenta Triennial. Kite was a 2019 Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Scholar, a 2020 Tulsa Artist Fellow, a 2020 Sundance New Frontiers Story Lab Fellow, a 2020 “100 Women in AI Ethics”, a 2021 Common Fields Fellow, and the 2022 Creative Time Open Call artist for the Black and Indigenous Dreaming Workshops with Alisha B. Wormsley. She currently is showing work at 108 Contemporary in Tulsa, Oklahoma and at the Everson Museum in Syracuse, NY.

At KCAI, Kite will perform Listener, a wanderer Listening, an Oglala woman, equipped with Listening devices, which are passed down from woman to woman. Alone, her devices work in ways she cannot quite understand, they seem to listen farther than technologically possible, beyond time and place. She has a suspicion that she is receiving scrambled transmissions from a good place, but a Far Place. She feels they Listen back. This growing and changing shape is projected during performance, constructed from shapes traditionally only used and created by Lakota women. The movement and growth of this projection is decided by the computer.


About the Exhibition

How can a score be a call and a tool for decolonization?

Curated by Candice Hopkins and Dylan Robinson, Soundings: An Exhibition in Five Parts features newly commissioned scores, performances, videos, sculptures and sound by Indigenous and other artists who respond to this question. Unfolding in a sequence of five parts, the scores take the form of beadwork, videos, objects, graphic notation, historical belongings, and written instructions. During the exhibition, these scores are activated at specific moments by musicians, dancers, performers and members of the public gradually filling the gallery and surrounding public spaces with sound and action.

The exhibition is cumulative, limning an ever-changing community of artworks, shared experience and engagement as it travels. Soundings shifts and evolves, gaining new artists and players in each location. Some artworks have multiple parts, others change to their own rhythm as the exhibition grows.

At the core of the exhibition is a grounding in concepts of Indigenous land and territory. To move beyond the mere acknowledgement of land and territory here means offering instructions for sensing and listening to Indigenous histories that trouble the colonial imaginary. Soundings activates and asserts Indigenous resurgence through the actions these artworks call forth.

Public Events (all events are FREE and live recorded)

Friday, September 23, 5 p.m.

Woodpile Score, A score by Tania Willard performed by Sound Art Collaborative. At KCAI, in the greenspace near KCAI Gallery. 4415 Warwick Blvd., Kansas City, MO 64111. MORE INFO

Friday, September 30, 7 p.m.

Listener, A performance by the artist, Kite. At KCAI, Epperson Auditorium at KCAI. 4415 Warwick Blvd., Kansas City, MO 64111. MORE INFO

Saturday, October 8, 12 noon

NDN Love Songs, A score by Peter Morin performed by Amado Espinoza. At KCAI Gallery. 4415 Warwick Blvd., Kansas City, MO 64111. MORE INFO

Thursday, October 13, 7 p.m.

Woodpile Score, A score by Tania Willard performed by Bird Fleming and the Traditional Music Society. At KCAI, near the KCAI Gallery. 4415 Warwick Blvd., Kansas City, MO 64111. MORE INFO

Wednesday, October 26, 7 p.m.

American Ledger (no. 1), A score by Raven Chacon performed by a local ensemble with Paul Rudy conducting. At Agnes Arts,1328 Agnes Ave. Kansas City, MO 64127. MORE INFO

Thursday, October 27, 6:30 p.m.

A FREE public lecture by artist, Raven Chacon. At Johnson County Community College, Midwest Trust Center, Yardley Hall,12345 College Blvd, Overland Park, KS 66210. MORE INFO


Artists

Raven Chacon and Cristóbal Martínez, Sebastian De Line, Camille Georgeson-Usher, Kite, Germaine Koh, Aaron Leon, Tanya Lukin Linklater, Logan MacDonald, Chandra Melting Tallow, Ogimaa Mikana, Peter Morin, Diamond Point and Jordan Point, Taylor Jordan Riner, Heidi Senungetuk, Greg Staats, Olivia Whetung, and Tania Willard, with more performers, artists and composers invited to respond and create new works as the exhibition travels to each new venue.

Supporters

Soundings: An Exhibition in Five Parts is an exhibition curated by Candice Hopkins and Dylan Robinson, and organized by Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Queen’s University, Canada. The traveling exhibition is organized by Independent Curators International (ICI). The exhibition and tour are made possible, in part, with the generous support from ICI’s International Forum and the ICI Board of Trustees. Additional support has been provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Canada Council for the Arts’ New Chapter Program, the Isabel and Alfred Bader Fund of Bader Philanthropies, the Ontario Arts Council, the City of Kingston Arts Fund through the Kingston Arts Council, and the George Taylor Richardson Memorial Fund at Queen’s University.

Additional support at KCAI comes from The Gattermeir Family Foundation, Travois, Sharon and John Hoffman and Linda Lighton. Other supporters through performance and academic partnerships include the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art at Johnson County Community College, the Tulsa Artist Fellowship and The Patricia and Howard Barr Institute for American Composition Studies at UMKC. A special thanks to Gaylene Crouser and the Kansas City Indian Center, Bruce Hartman, Bill Sundahl, Davin Watne, Paul Rudy, Dr. Robert Warrior, Dr. Alex Red Corn, Braxton Redeagle and the Osage Nation Language Department, Jordan Sears and Sonié Joi Thompson-Ruffin.

About Travois

Travois is a Certified B Corporation headquartered in Kansas City. Since 1995, Travois has helped bring over $1.7 billion of investment to American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian communities. Find more information at travois.com.

About

With the belief that arts are critical to the advancement of cultural citizenship, Tulsa Artist Fellowship supports artists and arts workers in the heart of Oklahoma’s Green Country. Socially invested artistic practitioners live and work here, intentionally engaging with our city. Tulsa Artist Fellowship is a George Kaiser Family Foundation arts initiative.

About the Curators

Candice Hopkins is a citizen of Carcross/Tagish First Nation and lives in Red Hook, New York. Her writing and curatorial practice explore the intersections of history, contemporary art, and Indigeneity. She is Executive Director of Forge Project, Taghkanic, NY, and Senior Curator for the 2019 and 2022 editions of the Toronto Biennial of Art. She was part of the curatorial team for the Canadian Pavilion at the fifty-eighth Venice Biennale, featuring the work of the media art collective Isuma; and co-curator of notable exhibitions including the national traveling survey Art for New Understanding: Native Voices, 1950s to Now; SITElines. 2018: Casa Tomada, SITE Santa Fe; documenta 14, Athens and Kassel; and Sakahàn: International Indigenous Art, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. Notable essays include “The Gilded Gaze: Wealth and Economies on the Colonial Frontier,” in the documenta 14 Reader; “Outlawed Social Life,” in South as a State of Mind; and “The Appropriation Debates (or The Gallows of History),” in Saturation: Race, Art, and the Circulation of Value (New Museum/MIT Press, 2020).

Dylan Robinson is a xwélmexw (Stó:lō/Skwah) artist, curator and writer. From 2015-2022 he was the Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Arts at Queen’s University. His current research project xoxelhmetset te syewa:l, Caring for Our Ancestors, involves working with Indigenous artists to reconnect kinship with Indigenous life incarcerated in museums. His book, Hungry Listening (University Minnesota Press, 2020), examines Indigenous and settler colonial practices of listening, and was awarded best first book for the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association, Canadian Association for Theatre Research, and the Labriola Centre American Indian National Book Award. Other publications include the edited volume Music and Modernity Among Indigenous Peoples of North America (Wesleyan University Press, 2019); and Arts of Engagement: Taking Aesthetic Action in and Beyond the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2016). As co-chair of the Indigenous Advisory Council for the Canadian Music Centre, he is currently leading a process for the reparation and redress of music that appropriates Indigenous song, and misrepresents Indigenous culture.

About ICI

Independent Curators International (ICI) produces exhibitions, events, publications, research and training opportunities for curators and diverse audiences around the world. Established in 1975 and headquartered in New York, ICI is a hub that connects emerging and established curators, artists, and art spaces, forging international networks and generating new forms of collaborations. ICI provides access to the people and practices that are key to current developments in the field, inspiring fresh ways of seeing and contextualizing contemporary art. Website: http://curatorsintl.org/exhibitions/soundings

Public Hours

  • Thursday noon - 5pm
  • Friday noon - 5pm
  • Saturday noon - 5pm
  • Sunday noon - 5pm
  • Other days by appointment, email [email protected].

Parking - Visitor parking for the KCAI Gallery is available in the main KCAI entrance parking lot at 4415 Warwick Blvd., and in the south parking lot at Warwick and Oak.

Gallery Accessibility - KCAI Gallery has wheelchair accessible parking in the KCAI South Lot, main entrance to KCAI Gallery and gender neutral & wheelchair accessible restrooms are located in the building lobby. For inquiries regarding accessibility please reach out to KCAI's Disability Services office: +1-816-802-3440 or email [email protected].

Remote Viewing Access - Visitors can connect with the exhibition remotely, if needed. To schedule a remote viewing video please email [email protected].

Social Media - Follow us on Facebook & Instagram, and share your experience! @kcai_gallery

Covid 19 - Masks - Masks are optional in all campus buildings and spaces. Please visit the CDC website for information on the use of masks according to the community level of Covid-19 in our area.

Questions? - Please email us at [email protected] if you have questions or need to make special arrangements for your visit.

About the KCAI Gallery

Launched in 2016 in the Crossroads District and relocated into the Tony Jones Studios on main campus in 2020, the KCAI Gallery: Center for Contemporary Practice serves the mission of KCAI through collaborative, curriculum based engagements with students, faculty, community and artists in residence. Our new campus gallery presents curatorial outcomes of these engagements that include exhibitions, screenings, lectures, readings, and conversations. This site and related programs hold space for critical thought, reflection, and dialog about current issues and social challenges in our world.

About the Kansas City Art Institute

Founded in 1885, the Kansas City Art Institute is one of the oldest and most respected art and design colleges in the United States. Located at 4415 Warwick in Kansas City, Mo., KCAI is a premier private, fully accredited four-year college of art and design awarding the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 13 majors. KCAI’s mission is to prepare students to transform the world creatively through art and design. Learn more at www.kcai.edu.

Image

Kite, Listener, 2018, Performance documentation. Photo by vog.photo. Collection of the artist.

Image Description

A woman is standing (a still of her in movement) holding a microphone and long braided hairlike object. On the floor beneath her and wall behind her a circular video is projected.


KCAI Gallery

4415 Warwick Blvd.

Kansas City, Missouri 64111

Hours: Thursday-Sunday, 12:00-5:00 p.m.

www.kcai.edu/kcai-gallery

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Where is it happening?

KCAI, 4415 Warwick Boulevard, Kansas City, United States

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Kansas City Art Institute

Host or Publisher Kansas City Art Institute

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