Jesse Gilbert

Jesse Gilbert is an interdisciplinary artist working at the intersection of visual art, sound and software design, creating flexible frameworks that are activated in live performance, via network interaction, or in installation settings.  Since 2010 he has primarily developed and performed with his software SpectralGL, an interactive listening instrument that generates real-time visual landscapes in response to sound.  Building on his work as a composer, sound designer and lifelong technologist, Gilbert’s creative output probes the phenomenological nature of listening itself through a practice centering on improvisation and collaborative dialogue.  Gilbert co-founded Dark Matter Media LLC in 2007, through which he consults on a variety of projects in the art and entertainment industries. He is currently the Chair of the Media Technology department at Woodbury University, and has taught interactive software design at both CalArts and UC San Diego.

Gilbert’s collaborative and solo work has been shown widely in the US and abroad; venues include Ars Electronica (Austria), Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles), BAM Next Wave Festival (New York), Hammer Museum (Los Angeles), Färgfabriken (Stockholm), Laboral Centro de Arte (Gijón), RedCat (Los Angeles), Operadagen Festival (Rotterdam), Millenium Park (Chicago), Mostra SESC de Artes (São Paulo), Cemal Resit Rey Concert Hall (Istanbul), Festival International de Musique Actuelle (Quebec), Molde Jazz Festival (Norway), Angel City Jazz Festival (Los Angeles), Roulette (New York), Sons d’Hiver (Paris), Saalfelden International Jazz Festival (Austria), Suoni per il Popolo Festival (Montreal), Café OTO (London), Voll-Damm Festival Internacional de Jazz (Barcelona), Guelph Jazz Festival (Ontario), Heineken Jazzaldia Festival (San Sebastián), Axs Festival (Pasadena), Miami Light Project (Miami), Engine27 (New York), New Museum (New York), USC Pacific Asia Museum (Pasadena), Gulbenkian Foundation (Lisbon), Automata (Los Angeles), The Blue Whale (Los Angeles), net.congestion (Amsterdam), Whitney Museum (New York), Grand Performances (Los Angeles), Prototype Festival (New York), CEAIT Festival (Los Angeles), Kunstradio’s Recycling the Future (Austria), and PORT (MIT, Boston).

His work has received support from the National Endowment for the Arts, Eyebeam Atelier, the National Performance Network, turbulence.org, the Studio for Creative Inquiry (Carnegie Mellon), the Jerome Foundation, Creative Capital, the Greenwall Foundation, the Markle Foundation, the Beall Center for Art & Technology (UC Irvine), the Banff Centre for the Arts, the Montalvo Arts Center, the Watson Foundation, ASK Theater Projects, and the Center for Experiments in Art, Information and Technology (CEAIT).