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Erin Gee is a multidisciplinary artist based in Tio’tia :ké/Montréal who specializes in creating complex technological systems that implicate the human body, whether hers and/or her audience’s. She has a busy schedule of artistic performances and academic research. Nonetheless, she took some time to answer our questions about her current work and upcoming performance at Mutek 2023, Thursday August 24th.
Photograph copyright : Mark Mushet
PAN M 360 : In your own words, how would you summarize your practice for the reader unaquainted with your art?
Erin Gee : I am currently very inspired by emotion, that is, the materiality of emotion : how emotions change our body physically. I’m not interested in a naturalist approach to emotion. So, it’s not like there’s a resource all over the world called emotion and I’m just going to take that with my technologies and take a nice picture with that. Rather, I manipulate emotions in real time together with my audience.
We experience music as something that manipulates our emotions and is completely subconscious. I ask the question : is it possible to consciously manipulate our emotions to have a different relationship with music?
PAN M 360 : You have a background as a vocalist, which influences all of your work. Can you elaborate on exactly what this background is?
Erin Gee : When I was younger, I was trained as a soprano in classical music. There’s a little bit of that in what I will present at Mutek, but I think my bodily and even social experiences as a singer influence me more than classical music itself. I am not doing opera at my shows.
We could talk about the dominance and outsized importance that we give to Western music, but at the same time, this is music that has lasted for centuries. Somebody bothered to preserve this music. There’s something very precious in it. And most of the music we listen to… who knows whether it will be lasting hundreds of years or not?
I really had this sense romance for classical music that went beyond my social context and I think it gave me a different relationship to music, one that was a bit more profound. I think that any music that is hundreds of years old could have this effect on someone. It’s just that this was the music that I encountered.
PAN M 360 : At Mutek 2023, you will present Affect flow (2022), a longform ASMR performance. What can you say about the work without spoiling too much?
Erin Gee : I think I’m working with really different codes of ambient and electronic music. My style is something that’s kind of a cross between your typical, electroacoustic music and something that’s a bit more like a theatrical experience. I use my body, such as doing very precise hand gestures, facial expressions and using my voice in very musical ways to induce trance-like experiences.
I think that this is very unique for electroacoustic music composers because a lot of electroacoustic music composers tend to be incognito, but I’m right there having an experience with you, inviting you into my voice, into my experience… and there’s a lot of humor in it as well. So don’t worry. We don’t need to take it too seriously.
PAN M 360 : In what ways do you invite listeners to rethink preconceived notions of sound and music?
Erin Gee : Normally, you hear music and it emotionally influences you, but I’m really interested in you having the power to emotionally influence your own emotions.
And I give you the tools to do that. I’m using ASMR, which is this internet phenomenon. I like calling it folk hypnotism because it’s hyptonic, but nothing too serious or official. It’s definitely like a folk practice. It was developed by the people for the people.
ASMR is actually like a bunch of emotional hacks that don’t work on everyone, but do on people susceptible to pleasure in touch or who enjoy social touch. I mine all of the codes of ASMR and I apply them towards my performances. I’m interested in people during these biofeedback segments, inviting them to participate in emotional hacking exercises, and then observing how the music changes. Sometimes it « works » and sometimes it doesn’t. I’m not trying to create some impressive algorithm or to trick anyone.
PAN M 360 : Will you keep creating in this general direction in the near furure?
Erin Gee : Oh, absolutely! I’m working on a new ASMR roleplay about decomposition. I’m speaking on behalf of a mushroom that is going to be decomposing your body after death, and this is a bit of a surprising work for me because I take a really open attitude to my work and I really privilege and trust in my creativity to take me to this next step where I need to be creatively, but sometimes I’m not sure what that means until after the work is out in the world.
Pan M 360 : It seems to me that your art often explores the intricate ways in which technology and human emotions affect eachother. Is there a social commentary or criticism that motivates your work?
Erin Gee : My biggest critique is the faith we have in technology. Don’t be wowed by the tech that I got, the tech that’s inside you is actually pretty rad. There is an idea that technology is culture and that emotions are nature. But no : everything is culture – emotions or technology – and it’s all man-made. Facebook recently proved that they could manipulate their user’s emotions : these are social hacks. If the companies are aware of social hacks, why can’t we be aware of it too and have fun with it? Why can’t this be the art of our time? I think we are surrounded by emotional manipulation. To villify the women that are actually making artistic commentary on this (ASMR) is a mistake.
PAN M 360 : Thank you very much!
