NAVID
NAVAB
I am a multi-award-winning multidisciplinary composer, media alchemist, interaction designer, interdisciplinary artist-researcher, and table-top cosmologist. Interested in the poetics of schizo-phonia, gesture, materiality, and embodiment, my work investigates the transmutation of matter and the enrichment of its inherent computational properties. My works, which take on the form of gestural-sound compositions, responsive architecture, interactive scenographies, and kinetic sculptures, have been presented internationally at venues such as Ars Electronica Austria, device_art triennial Zagreb, NEMO Biennale Paris, Canadian Center for Architecture, Japan Society NY, Shanghai eArts, Haus der Kulturen der Welt Berlin, Musée d’art Contemporain de Montréal, and Contemporary Arts Museum Houston.
As a researcher, I have been leading interdisciplinary experiments for over a decade at world class organizations such as IRCAM Paris [Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics/Music, Centre Pompidou Paris], LASG Toronto [Living Architecture Systems Group], CIRMMT McGill Montreal [Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music, Media, and Technology], CNMAT Berkeley [Center for New Music and Audio Technologies], CAMP TUM Munich [Computer Aided Medical Procedures and Augmented Reality group], Hexagram Research-creation Network Montreal, and CIID [Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design].
I currently co-direct the Topological Media Lab (TML), where I leverage phenomenological studies, along with other disciplines and practices, to inform the creation of computationally-augmented sensory environments, and the synthesis of new kinds excitable materials at the edge-of-chaos. TML’s projects serve as investigations in the construction of fresh modes of cultural knowledge and the critical studies of media arts and techno-science, bringing together practices of speculative inquiry, scientific investigation, and artistic research-creation.
In a few words, explain what drew you to this project.
I work at the intersection of medical sciences and the arts. I am interested in the role artist-researchers within the changing relations between the arts, sciences, society, and the emergence of new technologies. Within this large-scale project I look forward to collaborative thinking-making, both as an artist to transfer know-how from my fields of expertise, as well as a researcher to shed ethnographic light on socio-technological tensions that condition cutting-edge hybrids between art and science within the emerging field of interactive biomedical data sonification.
Q & A
How would you describe your relationship to sleep?
Sleep is the cozy pool of breathable memory water that I draw in every night to forget the things I am yet to experience.
Why do you find sleep a compelling site for research?
Sleep is an eventful site with potential for collaborative uncontrol and exploration of marginalized forms of experience.
Are you an early bird or night owl?
Mostly a night owl but sometimes this shifts, often due to travelling and jet lag, which I leverage as long as possible to function as an early birder.
Do you use a sleep monitoring app. If so, which and why?
No!
Do you have a memory of a particularly good or bad night’s sleep?
Yes! I went to the shower, then I melted through the drain, floated through the pipes and city’s canals, ended up in rivers of forests, froze for several months, melted, made my way to the ocean, evaporated, became mist, went to the edge of outer space, froze, became rain, made my way via rivers and canals back to the city and came back out of the shower head. Then I (actually) woke up and on the way back to work, touching frozen dew drops on flowers, I realized that all of intense worries of the previous day were rendered irrelevant and I could not stop crying at the uncanny beauty of the cycles which I am part of.
Do you have any favourites/recommendations for cultural works that address sleep in some way?
The album “Disappearance” by Ryuichi Sakamoto, 2013.
What is your favourite [song/podcast/video/audio book/tv show] to fall asleep to?
No media… sometimes non-fictional books.