working title No. 4

A pilgrimage through sacred spaces, profane realities, and everything in between!

exhibition of experimental art+music

MAINSTAGE SERIES: FEB 06 – 08, 2025, 6:00 – 9:00 PM → ST. PAUL’S EPISCOPAL CATHEDRAL

WORKING TITLE is Project [BLANK]’s fourth-annual exhibition of experimental art and music, featuring dozens of visual artists, filmmakers, sound and performance artists, composers, and musicians. This three-day, community-based event will include new works, world premieres, and thought-provoking performances featuring some of the most exciting creative voices in Southern California, Tijuana, and Baja California curated by Diana Benavidez and Leslie Ann Leytham. Join us on a pilgrimage of ideas, with bold new works that offer invocations and intercessions of sacred and profane inspiration.

PERFORMANCE NOTES

INSTALLATION DESCRIPTIONS

ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES

PERFORMANCE NOTES

Esther Gamez Rubio (Ensenada, BC. MX)
RITUALS FOR RELINQUISHING A BODY, 2024
Mixed media installation
photo by Robby Bui

THURSDAY, FEB 6: Meditate

SAN DIEGO NEW VERBAL WORKSHOP

San Diego, California
Teonanacatl by Dom Cooper &
Installation by Eric Moderbacher (2025)
choir & installation

Teonanacatl was an Aztec mushroom ritual in which the mushroom was considered the flesh of the gods. A communal experience centered on visions, it revealed organic growth in colors and shapes. Our piece explores that growth through an installation of computer-controlled lasers, with code based on Conway’s Game of Life. The drawn paths remain as afterimages, while voices accompany and interact with the visuals, influencing and evolving them.

BAD CHECKS AKA ERIC DERR

Cycles unfolds on multiple timescales... cycles of waveforms - rhythmic cycles - cyclical form. It's a ritual of purification and transformation of sound. It's hidden rhythms and patterns and resonances. It's a sonic outpouring of ecstatic joy. It's a phantom choir singing to the rafters. Cycles unfolds on multiple timescales...

San Diego, California
cycles (2025)
percussion & electronics

JONATHAN PIPER

though ye neither spin nor sew, he has given you a twofold and a threefold clothing for yourselves and for your offspring
he feeds you, though ye neither sow nor reap
your Creator loves you much, having thus favored you with such bounties

St. Francis preaches to the great multitude of birds, though his words resonate through my flesh. If I do not produce, am I an artist? am I worthy of love? do I even exist? neither spin nor sew presents a collision of the incessant drive to produce with the profound need to sit, if only for a moment, in unproductivity.

San Diego, California
neither spin nor sew (2025)
tuba & electronics

Ilana Waniuk & Teresa Diaz de Cossio (San Diego & Ensenada)
ARCHIVE for flute, electronics, and live visuals
photo by Robby Bui at WORKING TITLE No.3, Jan. 2024

FRIDAY, FEB 7: working it out

The boy king theatre collective

Whether it's our cars, our kitchens, or ourselves, cleaning is something that all people have to deal with; this piece explores the ritual of cleaning and how cleanliness transforms both our self perception and interactions with others. Rituals of cleanliness are divisive, as prescribed acts of cleaning can unite us, but they also be weaponized to manifest shame, isolation, or self consciousness. MUD aims to burst open nuances of cleanliness rituals and examine their roles in all aspects of our lives.

The Boy King Theatre Collective is Tommy Huebner, Emma Lias, Abi Hood, and Sashank Kanchustambam.

San Diego, California
MUD (2023)
performance art

Ana Luisa Diaz de Cossio, Adam Zuckerman, Daniel Cui, Emily Barger, James Koo, Josh Mitchell,
Julia Anne Cordani, Natalia Merlano Gomez, Rose Qianyi Sun, & William Kuo,

celebramos is a ceremonial performance commemorating the gathering of people in a shared space. The piece celebrates the joy of an important occasion through collective engagement and social experiences. The performance consists of several artistic components, including sound, performance, and offerings to the audience. It draws inspiration from the essence of celebration—when people come together to honor and participate in meaningful, joyful moments.

The piece unfolds in five movements: Entrance, Sharing the Space, Contemplative Rest, Communal Participation, Requiem, and Exit. Each movement represents a distinct phase of the ceremony, reflecting on how beauty, ambiguity, and cultural power can be invoked to uplift the spirit of everyone present.

San Diego, California
celebramos (2025)
chamber ensemble

JOSEPH BOURDEAU & ANQI LIU

In one’s experience of life, there may be beauty both within and between spaces of activity. As we forge new memories on aging hardware, it is sometimes surprising what fragments of experience are deemed relevant, and preserved. It is also surprising how the process of storage and recall often distorts memory, creating images which can be hazy, idealized, or otherwise unrealistic. This work uses video footage of both rare and recurring experiences to explore the artists’ experience of memory, as well as the ways in which the mundane or private rituals of daily life can provide seeds for larger, more abstract experiences.

Los Angeles, California
A few things I saw a couple of times (2025)
audiovisual installation & performance

David Aguila (San Diego, California)
GHOST TONES by Nasim Khorassani
photo by Robbie Bui at WORKING TITLE No. 3, Jan. 2024

SATURDAY, FEB 8: vibrating bodies

Han Zhang & Camilo Zamudio

La Jolla, California
in the swings that we share (2024)
instruments & electronics

In the swings that we share is a music project exploring the sound of instruments with ‘no input’ – eschewing physical contact with the percussion instruments and objects, and avoiding the use of actively played samples from the speaker. It’s a journey of digging out the buried inner voices and energy of sonic objects which are typically brought to life by external forces. Bathing in the swings in the air, we share a touchdown to the inner voices for all.

MARTIN GREEN

“Outer Hebrides” by Paul Halley (b. 1952)
Excerpts from “Capriol Suite” by Peter Warlock (1894-1930)
“Fantasia in G-minor”, BWV 542, Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
“Test Drive” (from How to Train your Dragon) by John Powell (Arranged Anna Lapwood)

San Diego, California
solo organ performance

Convocation of the Fellowship of Universal Consciousness

Joe Cantrell, artist
San Diego, California
by Joe Cantrell (2025)
performance art

Welcome to the first convocation of the Fellowship of the Universal Consciousness. The fellowship is an interfaith organization based in sound and sound science. Through technologically-enabled ritual, we investigate the spiritual possibilities of Panpsychism. That is, the conception of consciousness to be a force in the universe - like gravity. With this view everything that exists can have varying levels of consciousness. A rock, for example, has an infinitesimal level of consciousness, and a cat has many orders of magnitude more. Tonight we will present a tributary in touch, sound and song to this great cosmic awareness and, through our unique technology, actually hear the voice of the universe as it speaks its message to YOU!

INSTALLATION DESCRIPTIONS

beck haberstroh & Kirstyn Hom (San Diego, CA. USA)
The fruit of the tree looks like a human head, 2024
multimedia sculpture
photo by Robby Bui, WORKING TITLE No.3, Jan. 2024

AARON DEMUTH

Aaron DeMuth is known for his dizzying geometric graphic design and illuminated moving moire pattern sculptures, and we are so thrilled to showcase a new work at this year's WORKING TITLE, “Two Columns.”

San Diego
Two Columns (2025)
electronics

ALVARO DIAZ RODRIGUEZ

In a small cemetery in the Axtla de Terrazas community, San Luis Potosí (Mexico), on the night of October 31st, a beautiful ritual takes place—the meeting between the living and the dead. In the middle of the Sierra, the celebration begins with the Dance of the Monarchs. The dancers, carrying rattles, move from one archway to another, accompanied by the constant sounds of crickets and fireworks. Their music blends with that of a huapango trio, requested by families accompanying their deceased loved ones. Suddenly, on the other side of the cemetery, the Dance of the Rabeles joins in, with small rattles and rabeles producing wind-like sounds. The celebration continues amid the orange glow of candlelight and the relentless chirping of crickets.

Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico
Xantolo, Day of the Dead (2023)
Sound art installation

APRIL ROSE

April Rose creates a visual language with reoccurring motifs. The spectral pillared eyes paired with silhouettes facing one another each crying tears symbolize self reflection and the release of pain. This iconography is intended for positive visualization during rituals of meditation and prayer, working as tools for connecting spiritually to ourselves, to one another and to the universe.

Escondido, California
Gate of Transformation (2022)
wood, paint

San Diego, California
Olongapo Disco: Archiving Grandmother Medicine Across the Diaspora - Batya't Palu-Palo
sound ritual & artifact installation

Babay L. Angles, Aurerose Piaña, Eliana Allize, & Jules De Guzman

"Batya't Palu-Palo," is an ongoing an autoethnographic performance ritual, altar and sound archive of Grandmother Medicine within diasporic BIPOC communities of Kumeyaay Territory. Through a series of workshops: Babay L. Angles (Angelica Tolentino) asked artists to create work answering the following question: What are the ancestral joy and resilience technologies that we need to remember and create to survive and thrive? Aurerose Piaña, Eliana Allize, and Jules De Guzman have offered their sacred gifts of prayer, sound, ritual, movement and altar creation throughout many of this work's iterations. This work honors and remembers our grandmothers, chosen, biological, and the land. We utilized somatic exercises and ritual to listen to herbs, flowers, and water to recreate the act of public washing of garments to conjure our grandmother’s movements, songs, tears, laughter, gossip, and wisdom. This work in progress has been supported by the Arts and Culture Commission of San Diego. This work honors: Eduvigis Pangan Janabajal and Consuelo Duero Tolentino, Rebecca De Guzman & Estelita Sy, and Aurelia Curameng Estavillo & Rosa Balanza Piaña.

BRIAN BLACK & ZANE ALEXANDER

You are invited to engage with the simple yet profound act of flight through the humble paper airplane. Dressed in white, we stand on elevated platforms, tossing planes toward each other and the soaring Cathedral ceiling, transforming a childhood object into a symbol of the Holy Spirit. As you look upward, imagine what could fill that sacred space—spiritually or physically. Tall columns of paper beside each ladder invite you to join in, constructing and launching your own fleeting prayers or playful gestures.

San Diego, California
Fuga Sancti Auis (2024)
performance art

CORAL PEREDA SERRAS

This work explores the relationship between algorithms and magical spells through their shared use of repetitive steps and rituals. How do these processes function as inscrutable spaces and who has access to them? What types of knowledge emerge from the blackbox and what types are occluded? The piece investigates these questions using computational cyanotypes on fabric stemming from close-up photographs and burnt code snippets, among others.

San Diego, California
Procedural Steps Not to Open The Black Box (2025)
video & sound sculpture

Michelle Montjoy, Anna O’Cain, Bhavna Mehta, Sarah Bricke, Kline Swonger, Leah Ollman, Gail Goldman, Valerie O’Keefe, Helena Westra, Melissa Walter, Sasha Koozel Reibstein, Lauren Lockhart, Kara West, Katie Ruiz, Jenny Armer, Jennifer DePoyen, Carrie Minikel, Akiko Suria, McKenna Clifford Yahyai, Gillian Moss, Holland Kessinger and others.

A circle of women
In a ritual
Leaving evidence
In a ritual
Marking time, accrual and loss
In a ritual
Of camaraderie and resistance.

San Diego, California
Evidence (2025)
Textile performance

EVIDENCE

GABY ESPINA

I made this piece to honor every past version of "me". In every memory being made, in each experience being encountered, and in every emotion being felt I'm reminded of the times such things seemed like a dream. I owe it all to the "me" that decided to live another day.

Escondido, California
i wish you well (2024)
woodblock print, chiffon

Yasmine K Kasem (San Diego, CA. USA)
The Philosophers are Incoherent. 2023
Textile and fiber at WORKING TITLE No. 3, Jan. 2024
photo by Robby Bui

india thompson

Slog 2 is inspired by the time I spend in San Diego’s granite-filled mountains, with textured tiles that reflect their layered landscapes. Each step through the piece offers a meditative journey, inviting visitors to connect with their sense of place while honoring the natural world around them.

San Diego, California
Slog 2 (2025)
Ceramic/Mixed media

JOSEPH BOURDEAU & ANQI LIU

Los Angeles, California
A few things I saw a couple of times (2025)
audiovisual installation & performance

Leila Khalilzadeh Aghdami

Leila Khalilzadeh’s work explores identity, culture, and rituals through the lens of poetry. Her installation, inspired by Yalda Night, reinterprets traditional Persian practices, transforming them into contemporary expressions that reflect themes of renewal, light, and connection.

Khalilzadeh creates a space that invites viewers to engage with universal emotions and cultural heritage.

San Diego, California
Echoes of Yalda: A Night of Poetry and Light (2025)
Installation, Mixed Media

matthew hebert

Homage to the Loop II is a generative and participatory composition. You are invited to give to the piece a color, each sampler will take a color from you and put it into a band of the Josef Albers’ composition you see before you.

Please feel free to pick up the wooden funnel shapes and put them against some part of your outfit or skin to take a color sample.

San Diego, California
Homage to the Loop II (2025)
video, sound, & sculpture

Our Dreams thread into one through the ritual of recording. The night open into a space, hopefully of rest, perhaps for glitches. The rest is an absence.

San Diego, California
The rest is absence. (2025)
Multimedia media sculpture

Matty Terrones, Lora Mathis, and Maria Antonia Eguiarte

Teresita carson

This cinematic experimentation is an attempt to challenge the meaning that is ascribed to the photographic representation of ruins. Beyond the picturesque, central to our consumption of ruin photography, is the aesthetic and moral ambiguity of the ritualized spectacle of destruction, urging us to accept the contradiction in our response between the aesthetic and the moral.

Chicago, IL. USA
Tonalpohualli (2024)
Video

yvette roman

The installation Prende la Veladora, Light the Candle explores why people light candles: some do it to remember loved ones, express gratitude for a miracle, or support prayers. Whatever the reason, a candle pauses time, inviting us to reflect on our deepest needs and hopes.

San Diego, California
Prende la veladora, Light the Candle (2025)
Textile, print (linocuts) and audio installation

Marlon PV (Tijuana, BC. MX)
AI, in you I trust / IA, en ti confío, 2024
Projection on paper
photo by Robby Bui

ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES

Aaron DeMuth, sculptor

Aaron DeMuth is a former Providence based artist that has had a California license for about five years. His practice is informed by headshops, hardware stores, and a mediocre stamp collection. When not screenprinting, he can be found at the post office on Santa Monica Ave with his dog Moe.

ABI HOOD, performance artist

Abi Hood is an Artist, Educator, and Director based in San Diego. Her passion lies in creating communal artistic spaces full of joy, exploration, and authenticity. Currently, Abi works as a teacher and Resident Artist with Blindspot Collective [Another Day in Paradise, Dancing at the End of the World, IYKYK]. She is a founding member of Boy King Theatre Collective with hopes of bringing unpolished and unapologetic theatre to the San Diego masses. To learn more about Abi and her work...wait for her to make a website!

ADAM ZUCKERMAN, guitarist

Adam Zuckerman (b. 1992) is a composer and multi-instrumentalist working with acoustic, electronic, and environmental materials in the creation of scores, recordings, performances, and installations. His work is inspired and motivated by a wide range of interests, including questions about perception and its ambiguities; the experience of time and memory, presence and absence; the conditions and perceptual limits of change, difference, and gradual transformation; the intangible yet very real perceptual shifts in the atmosphere of a space; noise, both as a reflection of the incidental sounds and experiences of everyday life and also as the totality of sounds and experiences. Above all, Adam considers music to be a reiteration and coalescence of the creative impulses and processes of the world. His music attempts to hear some aspect of this world as it also seeks to open an immersive space for listening, reflection, and imagination.

Álvaro Díaz is a musicologist, conductor, field recorder, and sound artist based in Ensenada, Baja California. He holds a Ph.D. in Musicology from the Argentine Catholic University and serves as a professor and researcher at the Faculty of Arts at the Autonomous University of Baja California.

Álvaro’s work explores the intersection of sound studies, migration, and technology-supported soundscapes. His projects have received numerous accolades, including the Sound of the Year Award (2021), the Ecos Sonoros Award from Mexico’s Ministry of Culture (2021), and recognition at international events such as the Latin American Art Triennial in New York (2022).

As a sound artist, Álvaro emphasizes the social dimensions of soundscapes, crafting auditory portraits that reflect the communities he engages with. His field recordings, such as the sounds of the Gray Whale, have been featured in exhibitions like Marine Migrants and even accompany the augmented reality on Mexico’s 500-pesos bill.

Álvaro’s work has been presented in over 15 countries, spanning North and South America, Europe, and Asia. He continues to blend his passions for art, education, and technology, inspiring a deeper understanding of sound and its cultural significance.

Alvaro Diaz Rodriguez, sound artist

Ana Luisa Díaz de Cossio is a performer-composer whose work traverses the space between social structures, individuality, spontaneity, and explores resonance in physical as well as cultural space. Through extreme extended techniques, she challenges conventional instrument playing, exploring the possibilities and limits of sounds within an instrument. Her music is informed by political, social, and cultural awareness of the systems constituting our societies.

Ana Luisa has participated in Manifesté-IRCAM (FR), Darmstadt Summer Course (DE), OneBeat Taiwan (TW), Experimental Institute at Antenna Cloud Farm (USA), Ensemble Evolution (USA), Karp Kamina Residency (Togo), ANMA+NordPlus Music Forum (EE), Dark Music Days (IS), Time for Music (FI), ActinArt (DK) among others. She holds degrees from Universidad Autónoma de Baja California, Boston Conservatory at Berklee, Listaháskoli Íslands, and is currently enrolled at the University of California-San Diego.

Ana Luisa Diaz de Cossio, violinist

Anqi Liu (synths) and Joseph Bourdeau (percussion + electronics), are audiovisual artists currently based in the Los Angeles area. Their work combines surreal and mundane elements to create works which explore the beautiful, boring and terrifying aspects of the everyday.

anqi liu & Joseph Bourdeau, interdisciplinary artists

April Rose (she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist who has created her own visual language. Using symbols and iconography that evoke universal themes, she explores relations with the elemental and unseen guiding forces that surround us.

Raised in rural Missouri by homesteading parents, she developed an appreciation for the handmade early in life. With an abundance of nature to explore she gained an intuitive relationship with the natural world that has carried on.

Now a mother herself, her making happens in a domestic setting. Melding craft and pop art she draws from myths, folklore and fairytales.

Keeping in rhythm with her childhood self she is explorative with materials. She works in themes of mysticism and escapism, for her art is alchemy and serves as a vehicle to heal from past trauma. She performs, documents and makes marks within her own allegorical rituals.

April works with clay, fiber, wood, collage, soft sculpture, performance, and mixed media. She utilizes accessible materials, salvaged and repurposed supplies along with found objects and foraged natural materials.

April Rose has shown her work throughout the US at MF Gallery in NYC, California Center of the Arts Escondido, MCASD (auction), Ship in the Woods, Teros Gallery and TenAm. She has created props and stage wear for major recording artists. Her work is included in Plant Magic: Library of Esoterica published by Taschen. She lives and works in the northern San Diego county town of Escondido.

APRIL ROSE, interdisciplinary artist

Aurerose Piaña, dance artist

Aurerose Piaña, named after the legacy of her grandlolas, is an archiver of memories, an activator of slowing down, with a rhythmic pulse of gentleness and remedies of the heart. Born and bred on Lenape Territory (Queens, New York) and currently residing on Tongva Territory (Los Angeles, CA) by way of the Luzon regions of what is now named the Philippines, Aurerose practices sound based ceremonies that integrate the guidance of ancestors, floras, and womb tending to uphold storytellings of ancestral celebration, sacred listening and community care.

BABAY L. ANGLES, dance artist

Babay L. Angles aka Bomba Brown / Angelica Janabajal Tolentino / Ifadoja Oyajokun (she/her/they/them) is a Pilipinx interdisciplinary performance artist, DJ, joy and rest practitioner, educator, cultural strategist, and community organizer from San Diego, CA (Kumeyaay Territory), Okinawa, Japan, and Olongapo, Philippines. Babay L. Angles practices deep listening and channels movements to express the inherited resilience of the diasporic psyche. She is moved by funk, bass, percussion, environmental sound, breath, and land memory. Babay blends decolonial hxstorical research, ethnography, trauma informed facilitation, pedagogy, movement, installation, adornment, sound, and ritual to heal and get FREE. She is the creative director of Olongapo Disco, cofounder of The Shake It Show and dances with Time 2 Rock and Whacking San Diego.

Brian Black is an interdisciplinary artist and teacher focusing on interactive sound works, installation environments, and durational performance. He is currently a National Geographic Teaching Fellow focusing on biomimicry design in the classroom.

Zane Alexander S.B. is a composer, performer, and community music organizer that creates experimental music. He is the co-founder of the San Diego New Verbal Workshop and is currently in San Diego State University’s Master of Music program with an emphasis in Composition.

Both artists have collaborated on several sound-based performances since 2023 and recently co-founded a performance collaborative called Division of Labor.

BRIAN BLACK & ZANE ALEXANDER,
performance artists

CAMILO ZAMUDIO, percussionist

Camilo Zamudio-Romero is a percussionist, educator, improviser, and advocate of Latin American popular and contemporary music. For him, percussion is an intimate expression of nature that draws listeners to push their understanding of the world and expand their musical imagination. Camilo converges in his Colombian roots, the chants of freedom of Afro-diasporic voices, and the endless complexity of Contemporary sounds.

He has joined the National Symphony Orchestra of Colombia, La Jolla Symphony & Chorus, and performed at major music festivals such as The XIII Cartagena International Music Festival (COL) and the 77th Ojai Music Festival (U.S). Also, he obtained 1st place at the I Latin American Percussion Competition RAZAM in Bogotá (COL), performed in the BLAA Young Performers Series of The Central Bank of Colombia, and the project [BLANK] Salty Series in 2024.

Camilo studied at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, received a BA degree from the National University of Colombia in 2020, and is currently pursuing Doctoral studies in Contemporary Music Performance at the University of California San Diego as a member of red fish blue fish percussion ensemble.

Coral (she/her) is a research-based new media artist and designer from Madrid and Barcelona, Spain. She holds an MFA in Photography from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, an MA in Photography and Design from Elisava Barcelona and a BA in Communication from IE University, Spain. Her work has been exhibited at Fundació Vila Casas in Barcelona, at Twisted Oyster Film Festival and Woman Made Gallery in Chicago, Illinois, among others. She has been featured in publications such as Vassar Review, the Present Tense Pamphlets edited by the Block Museum at Northwestern University and LoosenArt. She has participated in residencies at the Arquetopia Foundation, Vermont Studio Center, Saas-Fee Summer Institute of Art, SÍM Residency in Reykjavik, Iceland and Leonardo@Djerassi Resident Artist Program. She is currently a PhD candidate in Art Practice with a specialization in Anthropogeny at UC San Diego.

CORAL PEREDA SERRAS, multimedia artist

DANIEL CUI, composer

Daniel (Jingyang) Cui, a Chinese-born composer, draws inspiration from his rich Chinese heritage, encompassing culture, history, and contemporary social issues. Having spent considerable time abroad, he passionately shares his unique perspectives on China through his musical compositions. His creativity is not confined to grand themes alone, as he finds inspiration in the subtleties of daily life, be it the charm of animals or a whimsical anecdote. Cui's diverse body of work spans from chamber pieces to orchestral compositions, reflecting the breadth of his artistic expression. Cui is pursuing his PhD in composition at the University of California San Diego.

Dom Cooper is a California-based musician, artist, composer, and performer, whose practice is based around the voice. He performs solo as Circle/Temple and has been a student of the cult Irish band United Bible Studies for the past six years. Dom is also a co-founder of SdNVW (San Diego New Verbal Workshop). Originally from the UK, he was a member of the Musarc choir. Notable performances include The BBC Proms with Neil Luck, The London Contemporary Festival, and the Artefact Festival in Leuven. He was also a member of both Cafe Oto’s Experimental and Folk Choirs, which performed works with Annea Lockwood, Sarah Davachi, WIDT, and Áine O’Dwyer.

DOM COOPER, composer & vocalist

Eliana Allize, multimedia artist

Eliana Allize (they/them) is a first generation Nicaraguan-American, multi-media artist, and land worker based in San Diego, California. At a young age Allize learned to value community wellness and ancestral connection in their multi-generational household of urban South-East Los Angeles. They grew up isolated navigating marianismo tradition as a trans youth, but found a political home through challenging the living conditions of the working class as a community organizer. They felt autonomy being able to connect how their difficult experiences were a product of global capitalism and imperialism.

Art is a storytelling tool that has historically been used to tell us about the lived conditions of people before us. Allize's artistry is an archive of central american identity and trans diasporic experience. They want to remind people to document their experience and be the story keepers of the reality less often advocated for. They hope to inspire people to collectivize their grief/hardships and commit to creating a self sustaining future together. Through healing our severed connection to land, diaspora, and self we have the power to change our lived reality.

EMMALIAS, performance artist

Emmalias is a playwright, performer, author, and theater maker currently based in San Diego, California. They are a founding member of Boy King Theatre Collective, and an educator at The San Diego Circus Center. Their work typically explores the nature of flesh, queer bodily forms, and constructions of violence. That is a very buttoned up, ‘they asked for a bio’ way of saying they read a lot of queer theory and love the ewey-gooey-gushy stuff, especially on stage. Emmalias’ written work has recently been heard at New Village Arts, The National Women’s Theater Festival, The Larking House Theater, and The University of California, San Diego.

Emily Barger, soprano & poet

Soprano, poet, and composer Emily Barger is recognized for her dynamic, captivating sound and dedication to emotional expression through voice. She has performed nationally and in Italy as a vibrantly enthusiastic force behind the performance and creation of New Music. Her compositions have been premiered by eminent groups such as the Fonema Consort, (excerpt from chamber opera) Duo Gelland, (accidents happen, for violin and viola) Aurora Borealis, (sonic poem etudes, for soprano and vibraphone) and University at Buffalo Singers (hear me, for SSAA choir). Emily is currently writing the libretto and music for her new chamber rock opera, new choral pieces, song cycles for voice, and instrumental music based on her poetry. Her poems are published under pseudonym eda bee in several art magazines and in a collective titled Because You Are Not Alone.

bad checks is the sonic playground of Eric Derr, a boundary-smashing musician who redefines genre and form through an unpredictable fusion of live percussion and electronic landscapes. Operating on the fringes of experimental classical, hyperpop, and avant-garde electronic music, bad checks' sound is hypercharged and immersive—an undulating blend of rhythm and chaos that fluctuates between orchestral space, art-gallery abstraction, and the release of the dance floor.

As a classical percussionist, Eric has performed with groups like Dal Niente, the International Contemporary Ensemble, and the San Diego Symphony, and has appeared at venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and Disney Hall. His electronic works have been showcased at institutions like the Walters Museum of Art and Mengi in Reykjavik.

bad checks is all about energy, abstraction, and ecstasy. Every performance is a high-voltage invitation to explore a space where the human body meets digital logic, where rhythms are warped and sounds morph into new forms in real-time. Right now, they're working on a new album of maximalist bangers, and plotting an hour-long audiovisual trip for drums, modular synths, and live-processed sound—a journey as cerebral as it is visceral.

ERIC DERR AKA BAD CHECKS,
percussion & electronics

Eric Moderbacher is an artist exploring human interactions with instruments, signal processing and artificial intelligence using his background in computer programming. He organizes the San Diego Creative Coders and is a member of the San Diego modular synthesizer community. Eric is also the founder of The Open Source Appliance Foundation, a non-profit aiming to reduce private ownership of the fruits of human progress.

ERIC MODERBACHER, interdisciplinary artist

GABY ESPINA, mixed media artist

Gaby Espina is a mixed media artist that focuses primarily on sculpture, printmaking, and installation. The bulk of her artistic research goes into exploring the aspects of what it means to exist as a human through the use of body imagery, acknowledgement of mortality, and examining the shift between interlinking emotions.

Gaby grew up in San Diego, California and received her BA in Visual and Performing Arts from California State University, San Marcos. Her work has been shown in various galleries and institutions throughout San Diego.

HAN ZHANG, electronic musician

Han Zhang is a sound artist, computer musician, performer and engineer based in San Diego, California. She actively works on creative projects that explore the new form of multimedia participatory installation performances that deliver immersive interactive experience using sensors and advanced technology that serves her theatrical ideas. She is interested in discussing the collective comprehension of technology, art, and substantive human lives. In the realm of music technology and engineering, she is interested in exploring the interpretability and controllability of timbre in sound and designing musical instruments that incorporate innovative research results. Han is also an amateur radio technician and a nature enthusiast.

INDIA THOMPSON, sculptor

India Thompson is an interdisciplinary artist from San Diego, California, with a background in Applied Design. Her work explores themes of imagination, overlooked spaces, and discovery. Using a variety of techniques and materials, she creates immersive and contemplative pieces that invite viewers to reimagine the everyday and find wonder in the mundane.

JAMES KOO, percussionist

James Koo is a dedicated percussionist specializing in contemporary music, drawing from his background in Traditional Chinese percussion. Recent engagements include performances at the 2024 TROMP Concours, a session at the 2023 Percussive Arts Society International Convention, and a concerto performance with the University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra, performing Chen Yi's Percussion Concerto. He has appeared with ensembles such as Ensemble Intercontemporain, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, and The Orchestra of the Americas. Collaborative works include artists such as Kaoru Watanabe (Silk Road Ensemble), folk contemporary dancer Jay Peng Zhang, and percussionist Dr. Michael Gould. He is working on an ongoing project with Chinese dance theorist and choreographer Dr. Fang Fei Miao. James holds a B.M. from The Boston Conservatory and an M.M. from the University of Michigan. He is pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts at the University of California, San Diego. He is a member of the ensemble red fish blue fish, directed by Steven Schick.

Joe Cantrell is a digital artist specializing in sound art, installations, and performances inspired by the implications of technological objects and practices. By using the physical remnants of these processes as raw materials, his work investigates the incessant acceleration of technological production, ownership, and obsolescence. He has performed and installed at numerous venues in the US and abroad, and has been honored with grants by New Music USA and the Creative Capital foundation, and the Qualcomm Institute Initiative for Digital Exploration of Arts and Sciences among others. Joe holds a BFA in music technology from Cal Arts, an MFA in digital arts and new media from UC Santa Cruz and a PhD in music from UC San Diego.

JOE CANTRELL, sound & performance artist

Jonathan Piper is a San Diego-based tubist and technologist. His work as a tubist centers on the exploration of sonic and gestural possibilities found at the limits of both the instrument and the performing body. Supported by extended techniques and live electronic processing, he combines elements of drone, doom, noise, free jazz, and contemporary idioms. He performs as a soloist and in a variety of duo projects, including with Ryan Ebaugh (1515), Michelle Lou (go by land), vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Meghann Welsh (Codex Confiteor), percussionist Eric Derr (Company Culture), drummer Nick Lesley, and more. Jonathan has also worked as a museum curator, recently guiding a multi-year renovation of and developing interactive exhibitions for the NAMM Museum of Making Music. As a scholar, he has researched and presented work on ontologies in digital media, online fandom practices, and embodiment in heavy metal music. Jonathan received degrees in musical performance at UC Los Angeles and music at UC San Diego, where he completed his dissertation Locating Experiential Richness in Doom Metal.

JONATHAN PIPER, sound artist & tuba player

Josh Mitchell is a researcher, musician, and composer, with a particular focus in all three of these areas on nonlinear feedback and chaotic dynamics. Josh is fascinated by the gritty sonic textures that arise from nonlinear and chaotic systems in “real-world” musical instruments, and strives to make these beautiful textures more accessible by applying similar systems from other areas of physics towards new computer-instruments.

JOSH MITCHELL, computer musician

Jules De Guzman (they/them) is a gender queer Filipino-Chinese multi media artist from San Diego. Their work in photography and interactive art embraces maximalism, reflecting on their experiences with hoarding, collection, and the exercise of eidetic memory. In recent years, Jules has been part of the ever expanding project of Olongapo Disco, focusing on joy and rest while honoring ancestry through the creation of altars. Their hope is to create more portals in their art where people can enter and question what engagements they are comforted by—beyond the ideas of morality and time.

Jules De Guzman, multimedia artist

JULIA CORDANI, soprano

Contemporary vocal trailblazer Julia Anne Cordani “creates an intense crossfire” in the artistic world (Frank Housh, The Arts in Real Life). Julia is described as “a clear, sparkling force” by Buffalo Rising and “a dazzling and sweeping delight” by Cleveland Classical, an adventurous vocal artist and director from Lewiston, New York. Passionate about the performance of contemporary repertoire alongside standard works, Julia has appeared in Buffalo as Alice in Alice in Wonderland and the Mad Hatter (2016), Belinda in Dido and Aeneas (2017), Papagena in Die Zauberflöte (2018), Anne Truelove in The Rake’s Progress (2020), and Spirit in The Golden Ass (2024). With Sotto Voce, she premiered the role of Bird Spirit in Jessie Downs’ The Second Sight (2021) and sang The Queen of The Night in Die Zauberflöte (2024) and Suor Genovieffa in Suor Angelica (2024). With Buffalo Opera Unlimited, Julia has sung Oscar in Un ballo in maschera (2022) and Lucy in The Telephone (2023). An accomplished soloist, she has performed locally and nationally with the Women of Vivaldi, Ensemble Signal, Slee Sinfonietta, the Cleveland Syndicate for the New Arts, HEX Vocal Ensemble, and The Resonance Collective LA. In addition to her performance pursuits, Julia founded and serves as Executive Director for Buffalo-based choral collective INCIPIO. She holds two bachelor’s degrees and a master’s degree from the University at Buffalo in voice performance and is currently pursuing a doctorate in contemporary voice performance at the University of California, San Diego, under the tutelage of Grammy Award-winning soprano Susan Narucki.

Leila Khalilzadeh Aghdami is a San Diego-based artist whose work delves into the exploration of identity perception, focusing on the complexities of cultural and traditional norms. Her artistic practice engages with themes of gender, cultural identity, and memory, using these elements to create layered and thought-provoking works.

Aghdami’s cultural background and upbringing have significantly influenced her passion for art and critical thinking. Her work often challenges established norms, serving as a metaphor for the intricate tensions surrounding identity. She experiments with materials such as oil on canvas, vinyl, silk, and layered textiles. Her most recent works are two-dimensional oil paintings layered with vinyl, reflecting a nuanced interplay between materiality and concept.

She holds a Master of Fine Arts from San Diego State University and earned her Bachelor’s degree in Visual Arts (Studio) with honors from UC San Diego. She also received an associate degree in Liberal Arts and Science from San Diego Mesa College.

Her work has been exhibited in the San Diego-Tijuana region, Los Angeles, Europe, and other international venues.

LEILA KHALILZADEH ADHDAMI, interdisciplinary artist

LORA MATHIS, poet

Poet and artist Lora Mathis uses personal symbology to examine cycles of decay and renewal. Drawing from landscapes of domesticity and labor, their layered, intermedia work explores the potential for transformation within the everyday.

Mathis works across a variety of mediums, including poetry, sculpture, painting, and time-based art. Mathis is the author of The Snakes Came Back (Metatron, 2023), Here I Am In It (Burn All Books, 2023), and The Women Widowed to Themselves (Party Trick Press, 2020). Since 2014, they have performed poetry solo and in collaboration with artists such as musicians Matty Terrones, the HIRS Collective, and choreographer Angel Acuña. Their collaboration with Terrones culminated in the live album Sediment (Hello America, 2023).

Their visual work has been exhibited at MRKT Gallery (San Francisco), Junior High (Los Angeles), Bunker Projects (Pittsburgh), Ship in the Woods (Escondido), and Swish Projects (San Diego), among other spaces. Mathis lives in Oakland, California, and frequently works between there and San Diego.

Maria Antonia Eguiarte is an interdisciplinary artist, born in Lansing, Michigan and raised between Mexico City and California. She is currently based in San Diego, California. Antonia is engaged in gesture-based performance and object making. Since the start of her artistic exploration, Antonia has been drawn to vulnerability and care as radical political weapons for quiet gestural revolution. This has been the main focus of her practice as an artist, caregiver, hybrid storyteller, student, and teacher. Her gesture-based performance and object-making center on the possibilities of a transnational body that carries multigenerational knowledge of care. Using textiles, fibers and threads she draws from personal narrative, family and nation myths, non-linear and anti-hierarchical ways of knowledge, to disrupt her relationship with care, community and self.

MARIA ANTONIA EGUIARTE,
interdisciplinary artist

MARTIN GREEN, organist

San Diego native Martin Green enjoys a multi-faceted career as organist, singer, and conductor. He has performed both as solo recitalist and accompanist throughout the US, Mexico, Canada, and abroad. Martin has made guest appearances with the San Diego Symphony and has also appeared on NPR’s “Pipedreams Live.”

He has prepared choirs and accompanied for such notable conductors as Sir David Willcocks, John Rutter, Marvin Hamlisch, Jahja Ling, Martin Neary, and Duaine Wolfe. Martin is the Organist and Choirmaster of St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral near Balboa Park, San Diego.

As a singer, he has enjoyed being a member of many of the San Diego region’s professional chorale ensembles. He has appeared as a baritone, tenor, and counter-tenor soloist in a wide range of venues in Southern California and Mexico from small churches to symphony orchestras.

Matthew Hebert has been working under the studio name eleet warez since completing his undergraduate studies in the mid-90s. The name is borrowed from hacker culture and suggests the technical sophistication, improvisational spirit, and freewheeling appropriation that is essential to his work. Matthew creates work that deals with technology and its effects on the domestic environment and our sense of space and place. He takes recognizable forms and layers new use and meaning onto them. Ultimately, generating content through interaction between the object, the environment, and the user.

Matthew Hebert’s work has been exhibited at venues including The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, The Berkeley Art Museum, The Milwaukee Art Museum, The Museum of Craft and Folk Art, San Francisco; The California Center for the Art, Escondido; The Chicago Cultural Center, and Core77 in New York. Matthew received his Bachelor of Arts in Architecture from the University of California, Berkeley; and his Master of Fine Arts from California College of the Arts. He has taught at several schools including the University of Wisconsin – Madison, CalArts, and The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He is currently Associate Professor of Art at San Diego State University.

MATTHEW HEBERT, multimedia artist

MATTY TERRONES, sound artist

San Diego-based sound artist Matty Terrones is concerned with the nuances of everyday life — natural and manufactured; the urban sphere encroaching on the rural sphere; silence and noise; the continual and ephemeral process of life. As a self-taught musician, Terrones uses rudimentary techniques and lo-fi objects in their improvised sound practice. Terrones has been a longtime fixture in San Diego's DIY music community, organizing shows for over 10 years. They also front the rock band Neutral Shirt, and have sound/poetry collaborations with Lora Mathis, Nick Bernal, and Adam Gnade. Photo by Evan Demiancyzk.

MICHELLE MONTJOY, textile artist

Collective performative textile work of Michelle Montjoy, Anna O’Cain, Bhavna Mehta, Sarah Bricke, Kline Swonger, Leah Ollman, Gail Goldman, Valerie O’Keefe, Helena Westra, Melissa Walter, Sasha Koozel Riebstein, Lauren Lockhart, Kara West, Katie Ruiz, Jenny Armer, Jennifer DePoyen and others.

A circle of women
In a ritual
Leaving evidence
In a ritual
Marking time, accrual and loss
In a ritual
Of camaraderie and resistance.

natalia merlano gomez, vocalist

Natalia Merlano Gomez is an experimental music performer and composer who explores extended vocal techniques, graphical notation, improvisation, text, visuals, and electronic sounds. Her research examines the performative aspects of voice and text beyond traditional singing. It also analyses the experimental music communities in Latin America, as well as interdisciplinary vocal performers from a decolonial perspective. She integrates voice with electronic devices like pedals and modular synthesizers into her practice. Her solo albums, "Resonances Entrelazadas" (2022) and "CINCO" (2023), along with the collaborative project "Unrestricted Lanes" (2024) with Duo Lingua (David Aguila) and Bogotana Records, are part of her recent works.

Rose Qianyi Sun works at the intersection of computational musicology, music cognition, and artificial intelligence, with a mission to make creative practices more inclusive. She received her B.S. and M.S. in Music Technology from Georgia Tech. Her current research centers on developing interpretable evaluation metrics for AI-generated music, drawing from principles in music theory and perception. As a traditional Chinese Guqin player, Rose loves to explore how technology can facilitate the composition and consumption of understudied music traditions. She is also a flautist with a repertoire in classical, rock and pop, and experimental music.

ROSE Qianyi sun, computer musician

San Diego New Verbal Workshop is a community choir formed in 2023. They perform vocal music from the mid-20th century to the present day, and maintain an open policy and welcome anyone who wants to sing, regardless of their experience level or music literacy. The choir’s mission is to provide a music-making environment that encourages people to engage with their voices and explore new performance concepts, embracing a wide range of expression.

SAN DIEGO NEW VERBAL WORKSHOP, choir

Sashank Kanchustambam is a San Diego-based theatre artist originally from India. An aspiring playwright, he also acts and stage manages, often saying, "I will do anything and everything the theatre asks of me." Last year, he was fortunate to have two of his short plays, That One Girl at the Airport (produced by Trinity Theatre) and Only I Can Say That (produced by Blindspot Collective), brought to life on stage. As a founding member of Boy King Theatre Collective, Sashank is thrilled to showcase the “muddy” brainchild of one of his favorite collaborators, Tommy Huebner.

Sashank Kanchustambam,
Performance artist

Teresita Carson (b. Mexico) is an artist working across disciplines, including moving image, fiber, and installation. Taking an irreverent feminist approach to world and counter-archive building, she explores the abstract intersection between the historical, the speculative, indigenous cosmogonies, and magical peripheries. Recent venues presenting Carson’s work include Mana Contemporary, Hyde Park Art Center, Gallery 400, the Cleve Carney Museum of Art, and the 2024 Ground Floor Biennial. She has screened experimental films internationally, notably at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, Slamdance Film Festival, the Chicago Underground Film Festival, Light Matter Film Festival, Festival Internacional de Cine con Medios Alternativos, Antimatter, and Experiments in Cinema. Carson has received grants from DCASE’s Individual Artists Program (IAP), the Artists Run Chicago Fund, and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. She resides in Chicago, Illinois in the land of the Three Fires Confederacy, Potawatomi, Odawa and Ojibwe Nations.

TERESITA CARSON, FILMMAKER

Tommy Huebner is a multidisciplinary performance artist, stunt performer, and actor currently living and working out of San Diego. After graduating from UC San Diego with degrees in Theatre and Philosophical Anthropology, Tommy has developed his skills in embodied practice and performance through tenures at both the Accademia Dell'Arte in Arezzo and the International Stunt School in Seattle. Recent credits include Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet (UC San Diego) and Ranger in Trash Panda-monium (Blindspot Collective). Tommy's current projects explore sensory connection, liminal spaces, states of transformation, and the beauty in everyday behaviors. Tommy is inspired by his family and ancestors, the natural world, and the ordinary things he finds around him.

TOMMY HUEBNER, performance artist

WILLIAM KUO, composer

William Kuo’s practice infuses sound-making with cross-disciplinary investigation, questioning how the “sounding” and “un-sounding” co-exist to imply alternative forms of listening and timekeeping. Drawing attention to the sensing-self hearing itself from within, he seeks to invoke asynchronous experiences of time arising from encounters with unfamiliar pasts and unformed futures.

Yvette Roman is a fronteriza artist, curator, and educator dedicated to making art accessible through community collaboration. Her practice and memory work explore collective memories, oral histories, and traditions, deeply influenced by the borderlands of San Diego and Tijuana. Yvette leads workshops and reflective circles to build community archives and uses a multimedia approach to preserve and share history. Yvette is the recipient of Far South/Border North; Cuentame, Park Social; Collective Memory, Art for Planetary Health; Letters to Mother Earth, and is the founder of Residencia Ranchito Aurora and Cr34tive Gathering.