DEVON
BATE
I am a music producer and sound designer currently writing a Master’s thesis in Media Studies (Concordia University). I have produced Juno and Polaris Prize winning albums across genres, including Jeremy Dutcher’s Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa (2018), and am a four-time Montreal English Theatre Awards nominee for Outstanding Composition and Sound Design. Beginning in a 2015 artist residency with the MUU Artists’ Association in Helsinki, I have been creating work that interrogates how culturally and technologically informed listening practices shape physical space, community, and identity. I am currently researching background noise and ambient audiovisual media on popular streaming platforms.
In a few words, explain what drew you to this project.
Last year I conducted a short research project analyzing sleep-related audio media on Spotify. I became fascinated in the phenomena of the ‘sleep podcast’ and what the popularity of this type of media might tell us about the usage of background noise in our daily lives–and what gets us to sleep at night.
Website:
Q & A
How would you describe your relationship to sleep?
Fraught?
Why do you find sleep a compelling site for research?
It makes up a third of one’s life and a disproportionately small area of research. It’s simultaneously one of the most intimate and universal human activities.
Do you have a recurring dream, or have you ever had any particularly notable recurring dreams?
There were a couple years of my life where I would regularly dream of floods.
What is your favourite [song/podcast/video/audio book/tv show] to fall asleep to?
The Office.