Bio

Agnes is a Polish-American sound artist, designer and performer. Agnes creates immersive audio environments and cinematic narratives. Her training as a cellist, singer, and electronic musician shape her compositions, and her love for deep listening and field recording help her create dynamic environments with intricate detail and depth. She is particularly interested in the space where sound design and music intersect and blend and she uses that technique in her work.

Her experience as a leader and producer make her a production powerhouse and her knowledge of design process is expansive as Agnes has led teams, artists, directors and technologists starting with concept through execution on numerous notable projects at Meta, Sphere Studios, Meow Wolf, UC Berkeley, The LAB SF and many others.

Agnes earned her B.S. from Northwestern University in Radio/TV/Film and her M.F.A in Electronic Music and Recording Media from Mills College. In 2011 Agnes received a Fulbright grant to research performance and technology in art and music in Krakow, Poland where she was born.

As an artist, Agnes works with sound, light/video, movement, and fabric. She oscillates between or combines her visual and sound tendencies and produces experimental work that challenges our perception of how our bodies relate to space, time, symbols and especially the natural world.  She is interested in the intersection of composition and improvisation, immersion and performance, and the material and immaterial.

She has performed and toured nationally and internationally and been a featured artist at the Electronic Music Midwest Festival, San Francisco Electronic Music Festival, Soundwave Festival, Audio Art Festival, Cologne Online Festival and Streaming Festival. She has performed or installed work at de Young Museum, Theater Artaud, Artists Television Access, CCA, The Stone NY, the Lab SF and many more. Agnes has received support from the Fulbright Research Grant, the Black Rock Arts Foundation, and the Subito Composers Grant.

Agnes’ music has been hailed as “a distinctive voice in the electro-acoustic field” by Textura, and “gorgeous” by XLR8R.  Her duo with The Norman Conquest, Dokuro, is described by THE WIRE as “discreetly sculptured.”   Myrmyr her collaboration with Marielle Jakobson has numerous reviews for both albums with descriptions such as “soaring chamber compositions in perfect ambient space” by Boomkat.

More details about her music on the Music page.

Artist Statement

I experiment and design in the convergent space between composition and improvisation, immersion and performance, and the material and immaterial.  I explore the relationship between light and sound with the intention of challenging our perception or blending our senses. At the core of my process is experimentation:  with electronics, instruments, light, movement, fabric, and new technology to create a performance or to transform spaces and objects. The content of my works oscillates between the visible and invisible, and the tension between noise and melody.

Thematically much of my work is focused on our complex relationship with the natural world. My deep study of environmental philosophy, eco-culture, feminism and technology is balanced with my time in nature - observing, listening, recording sounds, video and traveling to different parts of the world to learn and absorb.

I use a design process that starts with concept and writing,  involves research and a deep dive into a theme or concept, and is often collaborative in some way. The concept is the driving force for the process of creation, and the themes are woven into the final works in subtle ways.  Ideally I’d like participants feeling like they had a new experience or sensation. While my themes shift with my expanding curiosity about our universe, my aesthetic is pretty consistent throughout all of my pieces.  The texture and tones of my sound, the way that I treat light, the beguiling use of the body – these are the choices that connect all that I do.

When working with light I primarily use video projection and custom made LED lights.  My sound world is expansive as I am a multi instrumentalist and electronic musician. Voice and cello are my root instruments and often make it into the layers of sounds. Movement has been an essential part of my work in recent years, expressed either in modern dance, or how I move with and create rhythm with instruments including the voice. The final work manifests in many different ways – as multimedia performances, electro-acoustic works, installations, and experimental video pieces. I like to work with and transform forgotten spaces and discarded objects.