07.19.24 - Buddyfest IX @ Gallagher’s, Cairo, NY
06.16.24 - New Ear Inc Launch Party @ Fridman Gallery 169 Bowery, NYC w/Claudia Robles-Angel
02.26.25 - Das Elektrische Hertz Porträt Premiere - Toneburst Laptop and Electronic Arts Ensemble performs new and arranged works by Anthony Sertel Dean, Yvette Janine Jackson, Jen Kutler, Shawn O’Sullivan, Sam Pluta and Pamela Z - Ring Family Performing Arts Hall 7:30 Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT
Bio
Jen Kutler is a multidisciplinary artist and performer. She modifies found objects that are cultural signifiers of power, gender, queerness and intimacy to create atypical instruments and sculptures. Her performances feature many of her instruments incorporated with immersive field recordings to explore common and discrepant experiences of familiar social tones in immersive sound and media environments.
Statement
I use sounds and objects that are considered sexual or feminine and build interactive electronic media systems for performance to modify, re-contextualize and transform these materials. I look to explore the degrees of separation between the feminine and neutral, hyper-sexualization and de-sexualization, and the intuitive vs. physical.
“Kutler’s music is subdued and perilous, bolstered by fragments of prepared piano and vocals. The project’s search for empathy is a captivating story and the music doesn’t feel heavy-handed. Each piece finds steady, subtle drones and icy melodic fragments, hanging in a constant stream of delicate tension.” - Vanessa Ague, The Wire (Issue 445) (Sonified Physiological Indicators of Empathy, 2021)
““borders” wears its heart on its sleeve; reading the title, it’s impossible not to think of Trump’s wall and the Muslim ban (now halted), or Brexit (still unfolding), but the images and sounds are fluid. The eyes see porous, morphing patterns of liquid; the ears hear waves, implying both border and endless sea.” - Richard Allen, A Closer Listen (Sonified Physiological Indicators of Empathy, 2021)
“The pieces using voices as the source can be twisted and haunting. But for the most part, Kutler’s processed audio does not directly represent the jarring feelings of anxiety and fear that the subjects no doubt experienced. Instead, she has transformed them into an otherworldly combination of beauty and dread.” - Mike Borella, Avant Music News (Sonified Physiological Indicators of Empathy, 2021)
“It is an exquisitely fraught listen. Allure and unease press into each other. Flocks of pizzicato burst from gentle feedback tones; the quivers of audio time-stretching protrude like goosebumps upon arcs of melody; a choir of children wobbles between harmonic parallel and pulsing misalignment.” - Jack Chuter, Attn Magazine (Sonified Physiological Indicators of Empathy, 2021)
2023 . The Point of Joy at The End of The World (DL, CD, Sample Library)
2021 . Crucial Listening Podcast - Episode 80
2021 . Sonified Physiological Indicators of Empathy - Cacophonous Revival Recordings 008 (Cassette, CD, DL)
2020 . Signifying Something Podcast Episode 009
2020 . Zoviet France - A Duck in a Tree (Resonance 104.4FM, CJMP 90.1FM)
2020 . Framework Radio edition #724
2020 . Southern Comfort w/Quintan Ana Wikswo (WaveFarm WGXC90.7FM, Resonance Extra)
2020 . Adventurous Music - Relatives Schoensein (Book)
2020 . WRFI Strange Oscillations Interview
2019 . radiokapital.pl Sounds Queer Podcast
2019 . disembodied - EyeVee004 (Vinyl LP)
2019 . the ways we wait - Flag Day Recordings (Cassette, DL)
2018 . worth - Never Anything Records (Cassette, DL)
2018 . thank you for listening (Cassette)
2018 . Urban Arts Berlin Compilation (DL)
2017 . Data Cult Audio Podcast
2017 . Everything is Real Radio w/Stick Sellers (WGXC 90.7FM)
2017 . Qualia: Various Collected Works (DL)
2016 . Errant Space Podcast
2013 . Grampa (MicroSD, DL)
2011 . Lay Back and Think of England (CD, DL)
Chatter Marks is a composition for chamber ensemble commissioned by Switch~ Ensemble is an investigation into the relationship between the breakdown of an individual and the crumbling of social, political and economic foundations of the United States. The score asks performers personal questions about their upbringing and lives while sewing machines turned monophonic mechanical synthesizers are employed to follow the pitch of one performer at a time, mimicking the musicians’ emotive playing and ultimately falling short. The musicians attempt to hide, change or break the sewing machines any way that they can, like prey evading a predator. The piece concludes with a section using curstom ferromagnetic vibraphone bars and an electromagnetic exciter unless all notes ring out unless they are held down. As the bars are gradually muted, the performers must steal tones from each other until there is nothing left.
Premiered November 2022 Performed by Switch~ Ensemble - Laura Cocks (Flute), Madison Greenstone (Clarinet), Megan Arns (Percussion), Lauren Cauley (Violin), T.J. Borden (Cello), Jason Thorpe Buchanan (Electronics) and Chris Chandler (Sound) - at PS21 Chatham, NY
Switch~ Ensemble performs Chatter Marks at PS21 Chatham. Photo by Steven J. Taylor.
Chatter Marks is made possible in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature and The Amphion Foundation.
Photo by David Fried
MEASURES is a flexible web based sound art ecosystem which focuses on AI as a tool to witness people in the most human way possible – through experiencing a person feeling empathy. MEASURES offers a new way to feel connected and to experience one another across borders, cultures, socioeconomic classes and other zones of isolation.
Users wear an electronic wristband which provides audio cues and measures the participant's electrodermal activity. The data is transferred over WIFI to a server which compares the data to a set of “points of excitation” and generates a unique sound work.
Each sound work is subsequently analyzed for its own “points of excitation.” The results are used as the basis of the next user's auditory stimuli and physiological data comparison to generate the next sound piece and so on. The sound works are added to a freely accessible public online archive.
The form of MEASURES is unique as the hand worn data collection device exists as an electronic art object and generates a potentially infinite archive of sound works, and is designed to be accessible as a tool for installation, real-time performance and solitary use. .
To our knowledge, MEASURES is the first system in the artistic and scientific communities designed with the specific purpose of measuring empathy. MEASURES content originates from an infinitely expansive pool of participant data that is comprised of empathetic responses. MEASURES takes the form of the data collection device as an electronic art object, generates an expansive biodata-driven archive of individual sound works and is a system designed for performance and solitary use.
In progress, 2022
Measures is made possible in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature and Wave Farm.
Cathode Ray Gun Point is an audio-visual performance piece in which Kutler relates stories by the light of a single match while wearing a lie detection circuit which controls the audio and visual environment. Video of Kutler reciting the text is manipulated by an RGB raster manipulation unit or "wobbulator" made from a vintage cathode ray tube projector and hand wound coils. The "wobbulator" is controlled by the lie detector's signals. The stories told are accompanied by audio generated from the lie detector's signals which return to the air via speakers to manipulate the match's flame.
Images are from Transient Vision Festival, Spool Mfg. 2021, by Deanna Kaparo.
Tech note:
The RGB raster manipulation unit, based on the original raster manipulation unit used by Nam Jun Paik is the first to be able to have full RGB color and is the first to be constructed from a cathode ray tube projector. More details about this tool can be found on the tools page.
Unheard Extended is a series of infrasonic compositions based on traditional harmony octaves lower to resonate the body instead of the usual hearing mechanisms in the ears. The body is extremely sensitive to intonation and dissonances as a result of tuning, therefore a natural Pythagorean temperament is used in these pieces. The works explore the spectrum of consonance and dissonance as a bodily feeling which evokes comfort, contentment, fear and uneasiness as experiences of melody and harmony take on new, and somehow familiar meanings.
A spectrogram of a segment of infrasonic compositions
A spectrogram of ambient low frequency sound before the pieces are performed
The pieces are composed in an ‘infrasynth’ written in Pure Data available for download here. In order to produce the frequencies generated by this synth, an infrasonic amplifier and speaker are utilized. In this case, a rotary sub-woofer is used with a modified amplifier to produce audio between DC and 20Hz. Because of the physical requirements and limitations of this frequency range, the pieces are presented as intimate live performances. Check the upcoming page for Unheard Extended performance dates and locations.
Spectrum analysis of a segment of infrasonic compositions
Spectrum analysis of ambient low frequency sound before the pieces are performed
A closeup image of the rotary subwoofer used
The Infrasynth Pd patch
Here you can see an infrasonic A minor chord in first inversion resolve to a C major chord with a variety of harmonics above them.
Wave Farmacy is a radio talk show and series of sound pieces presented by WGXC 90.7FM Acra, NY and hosted by Jen Kutler and Tim Light. The show invites guests engineers and mental health professionals at the tops of their respective fields to attempt to solve listeners’ issues with their skill sets. Engineers on the show use engineering, physical and mathematical principles to solve emotional, relationship and mental health issues while mental health professionals use counseling, behavioral and mental health tools to solve technical problems. The show is aired on the fourth Tuesday of every month at 2pm EST on 90.7FM Acra, NY and online at wgxc.org. Show archives can be heard at soundcloud.com/wavefarmacy.
From left to right: Jen Kutler, Temar France, Tim Light
From left to right: Episode 003 guest Dr. John P Wikswo, Vanderbilt University Department of Physics and Astronomy, Jen Kutler, Tim Light
Southern Comfort is a radio sound piece by Jen Kutler featuring text and performance by Quintan Ana Wikswo. The title Southern Comfort surrounds the queer US/Mexico border experience in its complexity of solidarity and joy in the face of bigotry, violence, hate crimes and the AIDS crisis. Kutler and Wikswo's works invoke a rich, evolving and intergenerational legacy of obscured drag, ballroom, trans, mixed-race and gender queer fissures of deep southern and southwest American Culture through which the whiskey culture forms a through line of recreation and transgression. These rituals transcend the simple imbibing of alcohol.
The sounds are synthetic voices generated from physiological sensor devices worn on Kutler's body to document her response to the emotive narrative. These voices draw from granular synthesis, sine waves, cassette tape loops and stringed instruments.
December, 2020
Photo by Alon Koppel
A live performance of Southern Comfort at WGXC’s 10 year anniversary Drive In event at Greenville Drive In, Greenville, NY featured video processed using a CRT projector with additional deflection coils in which the raster was manipulated based on Kutler’s physiological responses to Wikswo’s text.
An audio recording of this performance is available in the audio archive at wgxc.org.
Photo by Alon Koppel
Sonified Physiological Indicators of Empathy is a collection of sound works created from physiological data collected and analyzed for markers of empathetic response to sounds of violence. The subject is outfitted with sensors reading electrodermal activity, breath and heart rate. The subject is then exposed to clips of audio depicting violence in ten second intervals separated by ten seconds of silence. After the data is collected, it is converted into MIDI files which are given synthetic voices. The timbres and textures draw from heavily processed and prepared piano, time-stretched field recordings and sampled human voice. The album will be released on Cacophonous Revival Recordings on February 12, 2021.
Sonified Physiological Indicators of Empathy video pieces for Borders, Long and Short Term Memory Loss:
In Loving Memory of Being Touched is a series of touch simulation pieces written for direct electrical nerve stimulation - the closest thing to touch available in quarantine during The 2020 Novel Coronavirus Pandemic. Using components removed from a hospital communications system, the parts have been repurposed and assembled into handmade devices that simulate the sensation of touch using electrical pulses. The pieces are composed on an electronic keyboard to mimic the consonance and dissonance of musical passages to create a sort of song to be felt physically.
In collaboration with web developer Daniel van der Meer, a web platform based on WebMIDI is in development to allow users to create their own touch sequences, either with a MIDI enable electronic keyboard instrument or through the browser with a web based sequencer. Users can send their touch sequences to loved ones during quarantine or use the platform to create their own pieces to be shared publicly.
Touch simulation units are available to purchase at jenkutler.bigcartel.com.
If you already have access to a touch simulation unit, you can experience the series of pieces “In Loving Memory of Being Touched” here.
You can access the touch sequence messaging system to transmit your own original touch sequences here.
April, 2020.
Collaboration with Tim Light
Noise Date is a social media platform for members of the noise community, apocalyptic personalities and those with no social skills. Designed to be as impenetrable as its users. Meant to be taken extremely seriously. Sign up at noisedate.com. January, 2020.
Collaboration with Erin Gee
Presence is a telematic sound performance for two bodies, inspired by isolation and a need for human connection met with networked, electronically simulated touch. Through transcutaneous nerve stimulation and custom biosensors that track the autonomic nervous system, Gee and Kutler embrace the unconscious and autonomous nature of “feeling.” Data is collected from Gee and Kutler (cardiac, respiratory and skin conductance) to instrumentalize their inner worlds at a distance. This data is used to activate sine tones, granular synthesis and electronic touch in a real-time, networked, feedback loop. Custom hardware translates the biosignals into transcutaneous electronic pulses. These networked pulses further immerse the artists in each others’ biosignals through an uncanny “touch.” The performance is driven by samples of vocal suggestions performed in the style of ASMR that are triggered by moments of confluence in the biodata. The voice of this work encourages the listener to consider their own relationship to touch and sound during isolation.
During the performance, endoscopic video footage is taken of each performer in real time, shared through abstracted representations of the ongoing physiological data. Through these visualizations, the artists explore the limits of phenomenological intimacy over networked technologies, privileging the performers’ inner bodily worlds as primary visual content of the piece. All technology used (biosensors, transcutaneous touch simulator, tools for data transmission on puredata) is open source.
Hush is a series of sonic perception compositions via microwave auditory effect transmission. It utilizes radio frequencies to transmit sound directly to the human head without vibrating the air. It works by creating a thermoelastic wave of acoustic energy that travels by bone conduction within the head to the inner ear. (James C. Lin, et al. 2007) Microwave auditory effect was first encountered during WWII when radar engineers reported hearing clicking, hissing, popping and knocking sounds from within or behind their head. Since the human hearing spectrum is from 20Hz-20kHz, it is not possible for humans to hear microwave radiation. Using research by Dr. Allan H. Frey, Dr. Arthur W. Guy, Dr. James C. Lin and other scientists researching this phenomenon, a version of the testing setup used in their experiments was constructed. It consists of a Pure Data patch, two pulse generators, a hand made horn antenna and custom built pulse switching electronics. Hush makes use of this technology to explore the artistic possibilities of low power electromagnetic radiation to induce the sensation of sound, melody and timbre in a new way.
For a list of references and more reading on microwave auditory effect, click here.
In progress - 2020
Updated diagram 6/21
Video is a clip from disembodied featuring Jen Kutler’s data set. Photo is the ring used to capture data from each participant.
Disembodied is a series of audio and video pieces generated by the vibrations and movements captured by an electronic bluetooth enabled ring worn by a woman or non gender binary artist while bringing themselves to orgasm. The ring transmits raw data in the form of .csv files (spreadsheet) to a bluetooth enabled mobile device. This is the first step in a series of de-sexualization experiments seeking to discover the amount of separation required to de-objectify women and feminine sexuality. The data is parsed in Pure Data to generate a variety of MIDI files. Participating artists (data providers) include Rena Anakwe, Stephanie Germaine, Sofy Yuditskaya, Quintan Ana Wikswo, Meagan Johnson, Amelia Moon, Caroline Partamian, L.Barnes, Meg Noe, Jenn Grossman, Merche Blasco and myself.
In the first phase of the project, voices were given to those MIDI files to generate twelve sound pieces (one for each participant's set of data). The timbres and textures draw from pure tones, field recordings and granular synthesis to create long microtonal drones, complex harmonies and dynamic timbral shifts.
The second phase of the project is the video component completed during the Signal Culture residency in Owego, NY. Using the collected data to control CV, generative video and video manipulation parameters were assigned to each data set to further explore the potential of separating female sexuality and the objectification of women. More specifically, various analog and digital video manipulation devices were used to try to determine a point at which pornographic video content can be manipulated to diminish its sexual meaning, either by aesthetic destruction or transmutation.
2019
This is the video for Nate Scheible’s A01 from his album on Never Anything Records entitled Indicies. 2019
Collaboration with researcher/artist Stefana Fratila
Sononaut is a set of eight open source VST/AU/LV2 audio processing plugins that mimics and re-imagines the way that sounds could be heard on other planets in the solar system. Calculations provided by Dr. Conor Nixon (NASA). This project was funded by Canada Council of the Arts.
2019
The Other is a polyphonic textural synthesizer driven by skin contact between two people. The system is able to recognize very subtle changes in pressure and movement allowing for a detailed sonic response. The audio created by touch helps cultivate both increased focus on physical sensations and intensified auditory distractions from interactions with the other. This causes the way the other person is perceived to shift continuously between being a fellow human and being an object. The Other explores physical interactions with other people as they relate to presence, fear, vulnerability, empathy, intimacy and the connections between them.
Image above is from Her Environment’s Entanglements Exhibition at the Yards Gallery, Chicago, IL. Video to the left is a short demonstration of a sculptural version of The Other using a modified shovel and hand sewn copper thread pillow case. The tighter the grip, the more audio response is produced by skin to skin contact. Video demonstration by Tim Light. 2018
Link And Line is a sound sculpture that consists of a sewing machine and a vibrator that have been modified to produce sound. The motors are triggered by key presses on a traditional keyboard and the notes produced correspond to the key pressed. The audience is encouraged to experiment with the sounds by playing the keyboards. In addition to these notes, they produce unpredictable sounds, motor tones and other audio artifacts by interfering in electromagnetic instrument pickups. The pickups are amplified by small speakers at the base of each object respectively. Melodic and timbral exchanges between the sewing machine and vibrator can result in either object interfering with the other's electromagnetic pickup and playing through the other's speaker.
2017
Line was played inside her body and amplified through an electromagnetic pickup resting on on the surface of her skin during a collaborate performance Ob(ject)struct with Rebecca Ruth Borrer at Confetti Machine 2018 real time media festival at Outpost Artist Resources in Queens, NY.
Using hand made electronic interfaces such as copper wires to be touched and hacked vibrator synthesizers, audio and video are generated and manipulated by sharing water, electromechanical interference and electro-human sex and uses digital media to map the liminal spaces surrounding the deep and frequent emotional exchanges between intimacy and tech.
Photo by Eric Souther
Generating Values is a piece about discrepant experiences of the same surroundings and its relationship to social conduct. Two participants are presented with the same video content simultaneously which includes simple lines, technical specifications, images related to race and gender, geometric patterns, and other visual stimulation. Using hacked EEG sensors, the electrical patterns in the participants brains are measured and translated to MIDI signals. Different types of activity and mental states dictate the values that are produced. The values are then interpreted to generate two channels of audio and manipulate the original video signal. Over the course of the piece, the data stream is smoothed and becomes a standard, alluding to the ethical standards we develop as the interpretation of our surroundings molds our principles.
2017
A live audio-only version of Generating Values recorded at the Wave Farm 20th Anniversary Performance at Fridman Gallery from October, 2017.
Women’s Work is a floor cleaning robot sculpture fitted with a turntable tonearm, effects processing and speaker system onboard. It translates the surface on which its placed into sound and low frequency feedback. A series of modified play surfaces include wood, linoleum, scrap metal and collages made of widely celebrated vinyl records containing blatantly misogynist, homophobic and transphobic content spanning many genres.
2018
The Whether is a sound sculpture with a pair of panties frozen into a block of ice on a rotating plate. An arm is angled above the ice and processes the size and shape of the ice to generate audio. Based on harmonics of harmonics of the oscillations of black holes, The Whether creates an sonic representation of matter under the idea that all things, tangible and intangible are harmonics of this fundamental sound in the universe. As the ice melts, the shape of the ice and panties change causing the harmonics to shift until the ice is completely thawed and only the panties remain.
2018
Photo by Craig Chin of Errant Space at Wave Farm Audio Buffet Acra, NY 2018
Casting is an interactive sound sculpture that reacts to shadows. The audience is invited to look into their shadow as it is cast on the piece. When engaged, the piece generates an ambient soundscape of manipulated field recordingS and explores discrepancies between auditory documents of memory and memory as it is re-constructed in the mind. Casting utilizes audio of common childhood sound environments and replays it as manipulated samples and granular audio based on the motion, shape and intensity of the shadows cast on it. As the piece is engaged, the user adjusts their body shape and shadow to create sounds that seem pleasing or interesting, rather than listening to the results of their shadow as it originally fell. This mimics the way that we often choose to remember the past differently and experiment with our own sense of the memory.
The image to the right is Casting installed in the Her Environment exhibition at September Gallery, Hudson, NY in March 2019
2018
ADSRain is a mobile sound sculpture composed of an umbrella with added electronics to transduce rain drops into synthetic tones. Participants are invited to wear headphones while walking in the shelter of ADSRain and listen to the various pit pats, drones, buzzes, hums and rhythms produced by the wind and rain striking the umbrella.
Check upcoming for ADSRain group walks around NYC and the Hudson Valley.
2016
Penetrating Silence is a sound piece in which audio is transduced through a dental bite plate to be heard through the teeth and jaw. The use of facial muscles to express emotion affects the tonal quality and overall volume of the audio as it is travels.
This relationship constructs a feedback loop between the expression of emotion, the transduction of the sound and the quality of the audio content that is designed to bring these emotional responses about.
2015
Experiencing touch compositions and remote transmissions requires a custom MIDI controlled touch simulation device. Have a look at the hardware schematic & code. Have a look at the software webMIDI interfaces by Daniel van der Meer. You can purchase an assembled touch simulation unit here.
