Composer Alexis Weaver and poet Geosmin Turpin will present an evening of electronic music and science-inspired poetry, showing how these art forms can intertwine and complement each other to express the emotionality and humanity that can be found in science. The two artists will each present a selection of their own work, before joining together to present the Australian premiere of their collaborative work, Soft Matter, Hypersensitive Instruments, first premiered at the Biennale di Venezia in 2023. Throughout the concert, Alexis and Geosmin will converse with the audience about the works being heard, with the intention of welcoming the audience into their diverse and unique practices.
After the performance has ended, the audience will be invited to stay back for conversation and to explore the sounds of the digital instruments.
Program:
Alexis will present a new, live-diffused electroacoustic work.
Geosmin will present a selection of her original poetry.
To finish the concert, Geosmin and Alexis will collaborate to present their Venice Biennale work, Soft Matter, Hypersensitive Instruments – a work that puts voice and poetry under the microscope.
Performer bios:
Alexis Weaver (she/her) is an electronic composer, sound artist and educator based in Sydney, Australia. Her experimental electronic works have been broadcast in Australia, the US, the UK, and Europe, and featured on New Weird Australia’s Collapse Theories (2022), and Solitary Wave (2019) albums. In 2023, Alexis commenced her PhD examining the role of music and sound design in science communication. In the same year, she was a resident of the College Musica at the Biennale di Venezia, where she collaborated with poet Dr Geosmin Turpin to compose a new immersive electroacoustic work. Alexis is a member of the Sonic Mutations AI project, which premiered at the Sydney Opera House in 2023 and the 2023 Sydney SXSW Festival. She is an Associate Lecturer in Music Technology at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.
Dr Geosmin Turpin (she/her) is an Australian poet-chemist named after the molecule that causes the smell of rain. She completed her PhD in Physical Chemistry in 2022, and her science-inspired poetry has been published in vox populi (Bowen Street Press) and In Flux (Thousand Threads Press). More recently, her poem based on Atomic Force Microscopy was integrated into an electroacoustic work titled Soft Matter, Hypersensitive Instruments (2023), a collaboration with electroacoustic artist Alexis Weaver presented at La Biennale di Venezia. Geosmin is joyfully transgender and proudly neurodivergent, with those experiences shaping both her research and the experimental way she approaches her life. More of her work is available at https://uncleftwords.com/
