Individual Artist Project Grant

My project would benefit the wider Native American community because it creates an intersection between Native American music and algorithmic or live coded music. My project puts Native American communities in direct conversation with wider trends about the future of music on a global level. Algorithmic music is a large part of the future of electronic music and music in general and putting Indigenous voices into that space is important. Currently much of what goes on with electronic, electroacoustic, and algorithmic music happens in privileged circles and within academia and it's time for it to be brought into more communities. During my time at the University of Aberdeen I got the opportunity to be a part of a diverse musical community. One of these was a student led live coding group called Shift Enter. Together we put together workshops on live coding, visual programming with Processing and Pure Data, and we also collaborated on live coded network music projects. I want to be able to share that experience with my community here in Cloquet and Duluth. I would also like to bring the performance of my algorithmic pieces to my local community through the local Tribal college or AICHO, and I currently have a good relationship with the Tribal college. I think there's potential for me to provide free workshops on the topic of live coding music in the future, and I see this project as a stepping stone towards achieving that. I want to pioneer a new genre of music that fuses algorithmic dance music and traditional Native American music in a way that is accessible. So far there exists several performers that have successfully fused traditional Native American music with hip-hop, EDM, and electronica in an authentic way, however algorithmic music is something that still isn't very much on the radar of most rural and Indigenous communities. I'd like to bring algorithmic music to more rural and Indigenous communities. I think a completed album of algorithmic music between 45-60 minutes is one important and tangible milestone towards my goals. I would also like to perform my work and would like to put together a free workshop to introduce my local community to algorithmic music. The album would primarily be a tool for generating interest in algorithmic music and demonstrating my aptitude for sharing algorithmic music through brief instruction and performance. I've produced three albums of electronic and electroacoustic music previously and am very aware of the realities of producing an album such as this. I have a high quality mixing studio in my home and also have access to a professional mixing and recording studio on a limited basis in case the need arises for a more elaborate space to record in. I've also finished roughly one third of the album already. If the album is completed I would count that as a success. I don't want to be too ambitious with my project. If I were to achieve anything beyond that such as a performance or workshop I would rate that as a phenomenal success.