Michelle Lewis-King

Michelle Lewis-King is an American multimedia performance artist who explores the boundaries between sound art and music. Her work in experimental electroacoustic music is created from an attentive listening to the microworlds of quiescence and inaudible sound which she translates into rich soundscapes. Using intimacy and touch as her instruments for collecting and arranging sounds, her digital sonic landscapes communicates the intricacies of hidden human emotion and experience. Often working with lo-fi materials and open source technology, she creates complex audio and visual works from humble economy.

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Though Michelle studied music throughout her childhood, she began her career as a sculptor. Michelle holds an MA in Sculpture from Chelsea College of Art and Design, University of the Arts in London where she first began producing sound sculptures and installations – whether by using found objects such as water and metal to demonstrate the invisible patterns of sound waves or by assembling kinetic sculptures that utilised water itself to generate an evocative tonal music of chance. Michelle’s work became increasingly experimental and performative, with an increasing focus on the alchemical processes of the body and the relationship between self and other.

These interests led her eventually to study biomedicine and clinical Chinese Medicine between 2002-2009 at the University of Westminster in London where her training gave her a deep understanding of interior aspects and transformational processes of the body and the intimacies of the healing process. In 2011, Michelle was awarded a PhD scholarship in Digital Humanities in Digital Performance via Cultures of the Digital Economy Research Institute at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge, UK. Profoundly influenced by her clinical experiences, her current research converges her experience in fine art, performance, audio programming, Chinese Medicine, biomedicine and clinical practice.

Michelle has collaborated with other artists and musicians, such as composer Ryoko Akama and master Koto player Sumie Kent in addition to performing and exhibiting her work both nationally and internationally. Her work has been included in the following recent shows, ‘Re-new Digital Arts Festival’ in Copenhagen, ‘Digital Futures’ at the V&A Museum in London, ‘Artist’s Games’ at Spike Island in Bristol, ‘Future Fluxus’ at Cambridge School of Art’s Ruskin Gallery curated by Bronac Ferran and futurecity as part of the 50th anniversary of Fluxus, ‘Experimental Notations’ at the Mission Creek Music and Art Festival, San Francisco in collaboration with Royal Nonesuch Gallery in Oakland, CA, and ‘Rencontres Internationales’ at various locations in Paris, Madrid and Berlin.

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