#steve bates

Steve Bates Black Seas (Radius) 01:15:15

Statement:

Black Seas is an ongoing body of work under the influence of historical and contemporary experiences of auditory hallucination. After scouring texts from modernist feminist writing to horror and weird literature, cognitive science studies, oral histories, 18th century psychic journals, colonial postcards and “post”-colonial critique, film and music influenced, or traumatized, by hallucination, sound and communications studies, religious tracts, philosophical threads, Situationist diatribes, studies on the psychology of solitary confinement, stories of lost and dying explorers, numerous sound, installation, video and transmission works have emerged. In the month of March, 2018, Bates was working in Krems an-der-Donau, Austria preparing for a Black Seas Ensemble performance at the Minoriten Church. Over five evenings Bates also did a daily radio broadcast from his studio. Black Seas (Radius) is a reworking of the material broadcast over these sessions and includes feedback, wind noise from a fan, piano resonance, radio static, and production recordings from the church.

Radius Episode 87 hosts Steve Bates. Steve Bates is an artist and musician living in Montréal. Early experiences of playing and touring in punk rock bands, being a gardener for twelve years, managing a community radio station and studying philosophy and theatre design as an undergraduate student throughout the 1980-90’s all made significant impacts on his ideas of living and art-making.

Recent areas of investigation have included the history of barbed wire, feedback, boredom, the night as a sensual, political and free space, and most recently, auditory hallucination. He imagines this current project as a way of listening to noise through desire, agency and otherness. His work has been exhibited and performed in Canada, the United States, Europe, Chile and Senegal. He works in the field, on the air, in museological/gallery and performance contexts. These shifting territories reflect the content of his practice.

KGB x Steve Bates x Mr. Gray Illuminati diffusion pump from Donut Fest 2

Photo by Nick Cosentino Photography

Steve Bates

Showerhead