Steve Bates

Steve Bates is an artist and musician living in Treaty 6 / Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Early experiences with punk and hardcore, combined with an undergraduate degree in theatre design and philosophy, were influential to his development. Music and art projects usually emerge from thematic areas of research to develop a new body of work. Recent themes include ‘the night’ as a produced space of libidinal and political freedoms, barbed wire as colonial weapon, feedback in music, art, biological, predictive and economic systems, historical and contemporary experiences of pathological and non-pathological auditory hallucination, and currently a speculative project on the sound of Hell. His work often employs listening to noise through desire, agency and encounter. His work has been exhibited and performed in Canada, the United States, Europe, Chile, the USA and Senegal at such galleries as Casino Luxembourg, Musée d’art contemporain du Montréal, Dazibao, and Fonderie Darling as well as festivals including Suoni per il Popolo, Mutek, Radio Revolten, and Tuned City. He works in the field, on the air, in museological/gallery and performance contexts. These shifting territories reflect the content of his practice.