NEW /\ TONGUES

PRESTON SWIRNOFF is a multidisciplinary artist, musician, and writer based in San Diego, California. Over the past 25 years he has worked in a wide range of genres and mediums to create an extensive discography, with a long history of performances and exhibitions worldwide. The common thread that runs through Swirnoff’s work is the primacy of physical presence, experiential learning, and the unbroken chain between our forgotten history and the challenge of being present today. His music engages the legacy of the 20th century avant-garde, early liturgical musics, and the practice of structured improvisation cycles in jazz, folk, and traditional musics. His work often resides within the blurred lines of visual art, writing, and music as ways to approach the sanctity of relationship through interaction with the viewer. As a visual artist, Swirnoff primarily works with light, physical spaces, and sound sculpture, often using fragile materials such as glass, acrylic, rice paper, string, fabrics, liquids, and plants. His work has been featured in The Wire, LA Times, Vice, NPR, Village Voice, The Guardian, and others.

XARENI LIZARRAGA has a long trajectory as a sound operator, soundscape artist and researcher artist from Baja Mexico - who worked in multiple documentaries where she developed her audio production experience and exposure to soundecology; experimenting with different environments and sonic characteristics. In past years, she has been collaborating on documentaries, where nature sounds and indigenous rituals play significant roles, using those symbolic sounds as an acoustic ecology and field recordings. She experiments with diverse explorations around field recording, and sonic data interpretation - contemplating certain species as a part of her work. She has collaborated on an array of projects as a sound recordist/sound design artist putting the capacity to listen into practice.

KATHIA RUDAMETKIN is a musician and producer based in Ensenada, Mexico. An accomplished violist, Kathia has performed with the Baja California Orchestra and served as director of the string ensemble at the University of Cetys. Working with electroacoustics, Kathia combines virtuosic viola performance with electronics and sound design, navigating the intersection between composition, improvisation, and production. She has collaborated with Murcof, Nortec Collective, and Andreas Reihse. Kathia also has been a part of the orchestra that accompanied Andrea Bocelli on his recent tour and the string nonet that supported Julieta Venegas. She holds a degree in music with specialization in viola from the Autonomous University of Baja California (UABC).