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Dustin Raphael

Narrative Bio

Dustin Raphael is currently an MFA candidate at the University of California, Santa Cruz in their Digital Arts and New Media (DANM) program. He was a summer scholar at CalIT2 2009 summer internship program where he did research with Peter Otto on developing a new musical interface which extend the possibilities of the guitar. Dustin graduated from the University of California, San Diego's groundbreaking undergraduate program in new media, music technology and digital art practice known as the Interdisciplinary Computing and the Arts Major (ICAM) with an emphasis in Music. During his time in San Diego he worked as an audiovisual technician supporting school sponsored concerts, workshops, and conferences. He also was a technical assisstant at the Center for Research in the Computing Arts (CRCA). CRCA was the home of the cutting edge of digital arts research in the San Diego area. Out of the academic world he works with such production and sound companies such as Magnetic Sound, Nexus, Raindance Productions and acklabs all of which are involved in Burning Man theme camps, underground dance parties and music production. He has done both VJ and Soundtech work with these groups as well as working on interactive art installations. Dustin was born in Santa Cruz, CA and plans on working with organizations in around the area promoting open source, community based, underground and thoughtful productions attempting to give a modern free thinking community a place to be and be heard.

Artist Statement

Dustin Raphael is interested in interfacing performance interactions in new ways. Combining techniques, appropriating existing methods and networking actions together to create performances different from those before. Using performance as a main form of engagement he has networked the visual and audio medium together creating a 3D space from multiple projection angles from the different mediums. In a piece performed at the mobile Recombinant Media Labs (RML) setup in UCSD's experimental black box an 8 channel sound work engages the audience by breaking the mold of focusing on the direction of the artist and allows an audio space to exist. This is emphasized by using multi-projection screens surrounding the enclosed area giving the space multi focal points. In pursuing live experiences the hope is to create an artist-audience relationship which is equal to one another and creates a space for interaction.

Playing guitar and bass for many years I look to instruments as a way to engage the body in performance. I have extended these older methods by incorporating sampled and sequenced music as a backdrop then adding a visual element as well. VJing has given a new form of

expression by allowing me to perform in more spaces. I like to think of the VJ as creating a narrative to follow for the music being played. Using commercial VJ software in conjunction with Processing, Arduino, Pd and Ableton Live I build sets to be easily adaptable to the various performance setups.

MFA candidate


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