sam anthem
selected work
home // about
sam anthem
selected work
home // about
Creaturea project about banned/challenged books; performance and research; wearable with microcontroller movement-to-sound technology
“What’s Inside”audiovisual performance projecting real MRI images of my body onto and beside it, enacting and inviting fabulation of medical images
“Together We Share”
a performance for a crowd
“Lessons from an Elm”
interactive site-specific installation w/ a history-rich American Elm Tree
“Botanical Telephone Line”
interactive installation playing with biosonificatory expectations
“This is a Guitar”
interactive found wood sound sculpture
Steel Pipe Woodwinds
instrument construction, performances with electronics
“Improvisations with Philodendron”
iterative art/research project about human-houseplant relations, philodendron, and biosonification technology
Creature
“Creature” is a wearable and performance that has risen from the recent wave of literary censorship in the United States which has targeted books engaging with gender, sexuality, race, and critical history. The Creature’s skin is made from pages of these neglected books. Underneath the wearable are microcontroller-connected accelerometers sending live movement data to a computer amplifying and distorting recorded and appropriated sounds related to the books and the social and political processes banning them. This multimedia performance, through its confluence of movement, sound and materiality, presents a visceral reflection of how these books are marked other and monstrous, simultaneously affirming their productive powers and the urgency to protect them.
Read more about book bans here:
• PEN America’s research and reports
• ALA Banned Book lists and data
The following video is a documented performance from Waveforms F23 at High Concept Labs in Chicago.
(If you do not see a video, please refreash the page)