Cathy van Eck

Biography

Cathy van Eck (1979 Belgium/Netherlands) is a composer, sound artist, and researcher in the arts. She focuses on composing relationships between everyday objects, human performers, and sound. Her artistic work includes performances with live-electronics and installations with sound objects which she often designs herself. She is interested in setting her gestures into relationships with sounds, mainly by electronic means. The result could be called “performative sound art”, since it combines elements from performance art, electronic music, and visual arts. Her work transcends genres and is presented at occasions as diverse as experimental or electronic music concerts, open air festivals, sound art gallery venues, digital art events, or performance art festivals.

Cathy works closely with performers to develop her piece, oftenin interdisciplinary fields, and collaborating regularly with theatre directors and choreographers. Her projects are shown at festivals and venues all over the world.

Cathy has a permanent teaching position at the Department for Sound Arts of the University of the Arts in Bern, Switzerland. She is a regular guest lecturer at other art and music universities. In her PhD-research Between Air and Electricity (supervisors Richard Barrett, Marcel Cobussen and Frans de Ruiter; accepted in 2013 by the University of Leiden, The Netherlands), she investigated the use of microphones and loudspeakers as musical instruments. Her book Between Air and Electricity – Microphones and Loudspeakers as Musical Instruments has been published in 2017.

Tag: performance, electronic music, sound art