My current research interests are in the area of auditory perception and the role of sound in shaping our experience of the environment. My work explores how sensory input, both incidental and commonplace sounds, contribute to our experience of space. Several lines of research in the area of cognitive science have emphasized the integral role that the physical environment plays in our experience of the world around us. In an enactive approach to auditory perception, the relationship between the listener and the acoustic world would be inseparable, a “cognitive process involving multiple levels of interconnected, sensorimotor activity” (Varela et al. 1991, p. 206). Considering this idea as a point of departure, I have developed a strategy to subtly intervene in the ways our bodies interact in the sonic world, highlighting forms of listening and sensory engagement and slightly skewing and manipulating the sound space and the listener’s role, to better understand this relationship.

My past work explores themes of memory and perception through traditional print and drawing methods. The print process involves the manipulation of materials (in drawing, carving, and printing) in order to transcribe an image onto paper. In each layer, the print is a record of past processes and contains the physical history—the material residue—of those processes. My new research methods relate strongly to this prior manner of working. One key characteristic of my research process is that it is adaptive and experiential. Each of my projects explore the possibilities of interactivity in perception, inviting participation through various modes of communication and exchange. I am interested in how participants will engage as contributors to enrich the development of the work.


REFERENCES
Varela, F. J., Thompson, E. T., and Rosch, E. (1991). The Embodied Mind. MIT Press.