Navid Navab

Navid Navab is a media alchemist, interdisciplinary composer, and tabletop cosmologist. Interested in the poetics of schizophonia, his work investigates the transmutation of matter and the enrichment of its performative qualities. Navid uses gestures, rhythms and events from everyday life as a basis for real­time compositions, resulting in augmented acoustical­ poetry and painterly light that enchant improvisational and pedestrian movements. Navid currently directs the Topological Media Lab.

Navab’s works of art, which take on the form of gestural sound compositions, responsive architecture, site specific interventions, theatrical interactive installations, kinetic sound sculptures, and multimodal comprovisational performances, have been presented internationally at diverse venues such as: Ars Electronica, Contemporary Arts Museum of Zagreb, Kapelica Gallery Slovenia, Nemo Biennale Paris, ISEA, Japan Society NY, Canadian Center for Architecture, HKW Berlin, McCord Museum, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, International Digital Arts Biennial Montreal, Musiikin Aika Finland, Festival International Montréal/Nouvelles Musiques, milanOltre Festival Italy, Eufonic Festival Spain, Western Front Vancouver, and Sonica Glassgow.

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STATEMENT

I maintain the view that computation is foremost a material process, non-linear, largely indeterminate, vibrant with life, and irreducible to deterministic models. Coming from this stance, my artistic process aims to preserve the richness of uncanny material- computational processes while leveraging them compositionally. The act of composing computational media could entail the orchestration of event dynamics to quasi-deterministically enact degrees of instability and to enchant the stuff-of-the-medium. This process starts with of an ethico-aesthetical search for the excitable mysteries of matter (material-energy-affective processes), and leads to a careful orchestration of sensuous moments of knowing with others, humans or none.