USA, 1943

Alan Sondheim is a Providence-based new media artist, musician, writer, and performer concerned with issues of virtuality, and the stake that the real world has in the virtual. He works with his partner, Azure Carter, and others. His current work is concerned with issues of anguish online and off. Sondheim is interested in examining the grounds of the virtual and how the body is inhabited. He performs in virtual, real, and cross-over worlds; his virtual work is known for its highly complex avatars and avatar distortions. Sondheim has used altered motion-capture technology extensively for examining and creating new lexicons of behavior. He focuses on notions of ‘gamespace,’ ‘edgespace’ (the border areas of gamespace), and ‘blankness’ (projections in edgespace). His current music is based on the impossibility of time reversal, on fast improvisation, and anti-gestural approaches to playing and virtuosity.