Yolande Harris
Yolande Harris is an artist and researcher exploring ideas of sonic consciousness. Her projects consider techniques of navigation, expanding perception beyond the range of human senses, the technological mediation of underwater environments and our relationship to other species. Walking is central to her practice, creating sound walks that awaken our perceptions within both natural and urban environments. Her projects on underwater sound aim to bring us closer to this inaccessible environment, encouraging connection, understanding and empathy with the ocean. Her series Taking Soundings (2006-8) explores historic, contemporary and animal navigations using sound; Sun Run Sun: On Sonic Navigations (2008-2010) expands this into instruments and installations of sonified and visualized GPS data; and Scorescapes (2009-2012) examines relationships between sound, image and place, especially in underwater environments. Listening to the Distance (2015) explores expanded sensorial perceptions, the technological mediation of distant environments and the animals that inhabit them. Melt Me Into The Ocean (2018) is an ongoing investigation exploring our relationship to the world oceans through underwater sound. Her current project From a Whale’s Back (2020) uses video, sound and data from tags used by scientists to monitor whales.
Yolande studied at Edinburgh University and music at Dartington College of Arts, she holds an MPhil from Cambridge University in Architecture and Moving Image and a PhD from Leiden University in ‘Sound, Environment and Sonic Consciousness’. She presents her work internationally, past exhibitions include Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, the House of World Cultures Berlin and the Exploratorium in San Francisco. Awards include stipends from the Dutch Funds for Visual Arts Architecture and Design and research fellowships at the Orpheus Research Center in Music in Ghent, the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne, the Jan van Eyck Academy of Visual Arts in Maastricht. Yolande was assistant professor in video and open media at Rhode Island School of Design, and is currently lecturer in digital media art at San Jose State University and lecturer and research associate in electronic music and media art at the University of California Santa Cruz.