We sound better together
The Sound Sculptors Union was established in the Spring of 2020 as an online salon and vehicle for collaboration for experimental sound artists and musicians. Originally formed in response to the pandemic, when artists were especially isolated, both from their artistic practices – largely reliant on access to physical spaces and in-person audiences – and from each other.
The collective remains a means of connection between artists working in various media across the US who seek community through their artistic practices. The group’s structure has shape shifted over time, through multiple iterations since its inception. The goal is to provide feedback to members of the group on their individual works and as well as a platform for collaboration between artists in the group.
SSU Artists
Alison Wilder is a songwriter and composer whose work explores the coalescence of sound and narrative. Her broad range of experience includes PhD studies in music cognition at McGill University, making experimental art pop as Blix Byrd, and ongoing sonic intelligence consulting work. She incorporates research in music theory & cognition, artificial intelligence, and cultural studies to create works infused with a deeply personal connection to the human endeavor on a grand scale.
Em Ritchie is an interdisciplinary artist who works in the realms of music, visual art, performance art, ecological design, and writing. They have worked as a freelance artist and teacher for the last 15 years within these disciplines for a range of public and private clients. She currently lives between Berlin and the West Coast of the USA.
Henna Chou is a sound explorer with experiences living in Tucson, AZ; Overland Park, KS; Berkeley, CA; Ames, IA; Beijing, China; and Montpelier, VT. Chou enjoys participating in Austin’s creative community as a cellist, guitarist, keyboardist, and sound artist. Previous participations include work with COTFG, Salvage Vanguard Theater, Paper Chairs Theater, BLiPSWiTCH, Collide Arts, The Blanton Museum of Art, The Contemporary Austin, New Music Co-Op, Stop Motion Orchestra, Go: Organic Orchestra, Phonography Austin, Golden Hornet, Heloise Gold and The Resonant Lung.
J$Fur is an interdisciplinary artist, electronic musician, and composer. They explore the lived experience and our connection to the physical world through performance, sound, and interaction. In participatory performance works, audience members are key players and co-creators with the artist, weaving together intimate sonic landscapes. J$Fur’s soundscapes drift between waking life and dream-state, noisy cityscape and quiet meditations.
J$Fur’s practice extends into teaching, curating, and organizing. They co-founded and directed a multi-functional art space called the Museum of Human Achievement (MoHA) in Austin, TX from 2012-2014. As Director, they managed artist studios for 20 artists and ran programming in the art gallery. They have worked with a number of other non-profit arts spaces including the EMP Collective in Baltimore, MD, and S1 (the synth library) in Portland, OR. The artist completed an MFA in Sculpture at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in 2017, where they also taught in the Interactive Arts and Sound Art departments from 2015-2018.
In 2019 they began organizing a monthly salon centering queer / femme / POC artists working in time-based media in Portland, OR called Variety Hour. In 2020, in response to the halt of in-person gatherings due to the pandemic, they founded the Sound Sculptors Union, an online salon for experimental musicians, sound, and interactive artists, which still runs today. J$Fur is currently based in Portland, OR.
Kittie Cooper is a sound and intermedia artist, performer, and educator based in Charlottesville, Virginia. She makes work that explores the spectrum between silliness and seriousness, and in particular where those two qualities overlap with spookiness. Much of Kittie’s work deals with the messy insides of humans, electronics, and other everyday things. Kittie holds a BM from Northwestern University in music education and guitar performance, and an MEd in teaching students with visual impairments from George Mason University. They are currently working toward an MFA in interdisciplinary arts at Simon Fraser University. They also like ghost stories, chili, and cats.
Paige Naylor is a Chicago-based artist and educator working within the realms of sound, light, performance, installation, technology, acoustic ecology, listening practices and writing. Her work aims to bend time, transform space, and create new social and emotional realities for/with others. She constructs environments that are vulnerable, direct and interpersonal to make space for others in which to feel and heal. Paige holds an MFA in Sound from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a Certificate in Deep Listening from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She is an assistant professor at Northern Illinois University, a curator for Elastic Art’s Elastro Series, and the program director for the Midwest Society for Acoustic Ecology’s Summer Soundwalks in the Park Series.
Paige has exhibited work through the Wire Magazine, Chicago Cultural Center, Terrain Biennial, Experimental Sound Studio, Elastic Arts, Hyde Park Art Center, Mana Contemporary, ADDS Donna, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Zhou B Art Center, Links Hall, the Empty Bottle, Vox Populi, Black Iris, Baltimore Theatre Project, D.C. Arts Center, as well as through programs such as The Quarantine Concerts, Chicago Park District’s Night Out in the Parks, and Lumpen Radio.
urks io (they/them) is an omninonbinary, interdisciplinary artist based in Portland, OR. Their work focuses on collective creation, weaving the dream of a radical queer utopia into reality, and encouraging exploration and play through the creation of immersive worlds. urks’ work visualizes a future that leans heavily toward radical, queer, chaotic joy. Filled with irreverent humor, word play, and ecstatic nonsense, urks envisions characters, situations, and universes that embody an optimistic and effervescent vision of our future– exploring how future generations will integrate joy, pleasure, and play into their lives.
urks io has been based in Portland, OR since 2009. At the moment, urks is working as a teacher, events producer, and artist. urks is a collaborator and co-producer of two TV series–”Magic Night at the Trans Bar with Max and Mars and Given and Urks and Friends,” currently wrapping up its second season, and “Friends in Space-Time Story Hour” and in-production web series set to air early late 2024.