Kyle Marler, a member of the artist collective FLATSITTER out of Buffalo, NY, joined us over the week of June 27th for an artist residency in our time media program. Kyle is the artistic director of FLATSITTER, an interdisciplinary collaboration that incorporates video, software programming, performance and installation. FLATSITTER’s artistic works nurture a perception of society, community and environment as interlocking parts of a creative experience and are exhibited in an array of formats, such as ephemeral web collections, live performances, site-specific installations, and live virtual reality experiences utilizing the Oculus Rift. FLATSITTER has exhibited work in the 2015 and 2016 Ann Arbor Film Festival, the Everson Museum of Art, and Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center, among other venues.

During his time at the IEA, Kyle split his time between recording and processing new sound work and continuing research on Oculus Rift projects. On the sound end of his project, Kyle produced sound pieces with his guitar and amps and the Doupfer and layered these recordings back onto themselves to create deeply layered audio works. With the Oculus Rift, Kyle spent time in the video studio corking with our equipment to process new recordings and offered us a chance to try out a VR meditation piece he brought with him. A piece affecting nearly all of the senses, this meditation tracks the viewer’s head movements and changes the image and sound to reflect what direction the viewer is looking at in the piece.

Below are some images from Kyle’s residency.