About Soundwave ((6)) Water
Soundwave ((6)) explores our sonic connections to WATER, our most important natural resource. This season of Soundwave commissions over 40 experiential performances and works from over 100 daring artists, composers and musicians to investigate water’s ecologies, stories, and properties through sound. Happening in museums, galleries, and incredible outdoor locales all over San Francisco, Soundwave hopes to engage artists and audiences with a new awareness of water and its importance it plays in our lives. It hopes to inspire thought and action while showcasing sound’s inherent connection to this important resource and the innovative artistic voices investigating the future of this life force of our living planet.

Soundwave is San Francisco’s acclaimed biennial of innovative sound, art and music. Every two years, MEDIATE Art Group launches a summer-long, multi-venue and multi-date experiential event series all over San Francisco. Each season investigates a new idea through sound and invites diverse multidisciplinary artists and musicians to explore the season’s theme in new and innovative directions. Soundwave has taken audiences on adventurous experiences with performances in WWII bunkers, moving buses, famed sculptures, historic churches, city streets & parks, and museums & galleries throughout the city.

Past Seasons

Move Sound 2008

Free Sound 2004

Soundwave ((6)) Curatorial Committee 

ULRIKA ANDERSSON is a designer and artist based in Oakland. Her diverse body of work portrays a concern with systems thinking, production and infrastructure; most recently set in rural sections of her native Sweden.

JORGE BACHMANN is a Sculpture, Photo-Based and Sound Artist. He constantly evaluates new technologies that can support the creation of sound atmospheres of the innovative Soundwave performances, sometimes in unusual environments. Jorge is a master of exploring, managing and executing technical aspects and anomalies for the festival. He began as a performing artist in Soundwave ((1)) in 2004 and became Technical Director and Resident Artist in 2005.

ASHLEY BELLOUIN holds an MFA in Electronic Music from Mills College. She has presented her work at the San Francisco Electronic Music Festival, Soundwave ((5)) Festival, the 26th Annual SEAMUS National Conference, San Francisco Tape Music Festival, UC Santa Cruz, and Stanford University, among others. Ashley  currently works for Dave Smith Instruments in San Francisco.

SUE.C was born Sue Costabile in Long Island, NY. For the past 15 years she has created handmade videos for both the stage and screen as a visual and performing artist. Her works challenge the norms of photography, video, and technology by blending them all into an organic and improvisational live performance setting.

MAXWELL AUGUST CROY is a musician, photographer, record label operator, and web developer. He is one half of the electro-acoustic duo EN (with James Devane) and also co-runs the Root Strata imprint (with Jefre Cantu-Ledesma) and the associated On Land Festival. Maxwell is concerned with flawed yet functional systems, obfuscation and degradation through idiosyncratic process as well as the abstract recontextualisation of the mundane / ordinary.

ADAM FONG is an active cultural entrepreneur, and a composer, performer and producer of new music. He has helped build two innovative arts organizations: Emerging Arts Professionals (Co-Founder & Director) and the Center for New Music (Co-Founder & Executive Director). He also holds a master’s degree from Stanford University, lectures on experimental music, and serves on numerous advisory boards, panels, and committees at the local and national level.​

ALEXANDRA FRASER is a wetlands ecologist and environmental project manager. She holds a PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of Kansas. Alexandra currently leads the Environmental Planning and Permitting Department for URS Corporation. At URS she directs environmental studies, wetland and stream restoration projects, and project approvals for large civil infrastructure projects.

JENNIFER PARKER is Associate Professor and Chair of the Art Department at the University of California Santa Cruz where she serves as Founding Director of UCSC OpenLab Research Center and is an Affiliate Faculty of Digital Arts & New Media leading the Mechatronics Collaborative Research Cohort since 2009. She works on Art + Science research projects that include sculpture, interactive art, new media, sound art, and kinetic art.

JEFF RAY, RESIDENT ARTIST/CURRATOR/BOARD MEMBER, is an artist, musician, filmmaker, short story writer, adjunct professor, curator, festival founder, and arts and food rights activist. Recently, he was a visiting professor at San Francisco State University, Fine Arts Department, Conceptual Information Arts. He is the Founder and Executive Director of Mission Creek Music and Arts Festival and introduced one of the first Bay Area multimedia performance series, Collision in 2004.

ALAN SO, FESTIVAL & ARTISTIC DIRECTOR, is an artist, designer, producer and curator creating and supporting innovative art for over 15 years. Alan is the Founder and Director of SF-based non-profit MEDIATE Art Group, where he has been organizing innovative art and music experiences with local and international artists and musicians since 1998. He created what is now known as theSoundwave Biennial in 2002, a summer-long innovative arts festival that has completed five acclaimed seasons.

ZACHARY JAMES WATKINS is a sound artist who has earned degrees in composition from The Cornish School and Mills College. His sound art work has been described as “a metaphor for the breakdown of the dream of technology and the myth of our society’s permanence,” (ARTLIES). He has been awarded the Paul Merritt Henry Prize for Composition and has presented across the US, Mexico and Europe including Klankunstfest, International Computer Music Conference, Thingamajigs and the 2nd SJ01 Global Festival of Arts on the Edge.

About Mediate Art Group
Soundwave is produced by MEDIATE Art Group, a San Francisco-based 501(c)(3) non-profit art organization creating meaningful, cutting edge art and music experiences through the activation of people, places and environments in the San Francisco Bay Area. Working at the center of art and innovation, MEDIATE’s mission is to develop exhibitions and live events that challenge perspectives and inspire artists and audiences to look deep into ideas and works critically, imaginatively and without limitation. Artist participation and collaborations have reached across the United States and Canada as well as Portugal, United Kingdom, Belgium, Norway, Singapore, France, Austria, Australia and Japan. Founded in 1998, MEDIATE has been showcasing provocative works to Bay Area audiences for over 10 years including five seasons of the acclaimed summer-long avant-arts biennial, Soundwave. For more information about us, please visit our website www.me-di-ate.net.

Production Team
Festival & Artistic Director: Alan So
Managing Director: Catherine Nueva España
Technical Director, Resident Artist & Curator: Jorge Bachmann
Resident Artist and Curator: Jeff Ray
Program Manager: Chelsea Akita
Communications Manager: Julie Studt
Event Manager: Laurenmarie Reyes
Media and Communications intern:  Shannon Cervasio
Media Intern and Trailer Designer: William Hollander
Graphic Design: PLC Design
Merchandise Design: Max Sarrazin
PR Consultant: Liam Passmore, A Shave and a Haircut
Conference Organizer: Christina La Sala

Board of Directors
Jeff Ray (President), Christina La Sala (Vice-President), John Moore (Treasurer), Kadet Kuhne (Secretary), Louis Armstrong, Elise Baldwin, Leigh Lehman, Kristin Miltner, Alan So

Advisory
Adam Fong, Agnes Szelag, Andrew Harvill, Barry Threw, Christina LaSala, David Graves, E.E. “Chip” Grant IV, Edward Schocker, George Ridgely, Jessica Resmond, Josh Wilson, Marielle Jakobsons, Odessa Chen, Patricia Watts, Raub Roy, Reenie Charrière, Tana Sprague, Tania Ketenjian, Ben Davis, Michael Smith