POM Perth 2025 – Keynote Speaker – Cat Hope

POM Perth 2025

Keynote Speaker

Politics of the Machines
Synthetic Sentience
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The 5th POM Conference
The University Of Western Australia
Perth, Australia
July 16-18, 2025

Cat Hope PhD
Professor of Music at Monash University in Melbourne

Cat Hope PhD is an artist scholar with an active profile as a composer, sound artist, soloist and performer in music groups internationally. A Churchill, Civitella Ranieri and Hamburg Institute of Advanced Study Fellow, Cat is the director and founder of the Decibel new music ensemble, who have premiered many of Lucier’s works to Australian audiences. She is co-author of ‘Digital Arts – An introduction to New Media’ (Bloomsbury, 2014), co-editor of ‘Contemporary Musical Virtuosities’ (Routledge, 2024) and author of a wide range of books and papers on digital notation, artistic practice, archiving and gender in music. Cat is has been called ‘Australia’s most exciting composer’ (McKenzie, 2023) and is Professor of Music at Monash University in Melbourne. cathope.com

Between Sound and Sentience: Technology as a conduit in the music of Alvin Lucier
Professor Cat Hope, Monash University
Artistic Director, Decibel new music ensemble

New music ensemble Decibel is a group of musicians, composers and improvisers who pursue music that combines acoustic and electronic instruments, with the aim of providing a voice to electronics as a member in the ensemble. One of their early foci was American composer Alvin Lucier (1931 – 2021), applying a range of new digital approaches to the reproduction of this important artists’ works, many that examine the nature of electronic sound as an instrument in its own right, as well as a conduit, effect and frame for music. Many of his works examine the relationship of humans to technology through sound, morphing the human voice (Sitting in a Room – 1969), listening to brain activity (Music For Solo Performer – 1969) and tracing field recordings (Carbon Copies – 1989). In doing so, Lucier creates questions around the ability of technology to describe and elaborate on human sentience via sound, engaging technology as a means to realise this [Lucier, 1995]. This presentation will discuss a number of Lucier’s works, touching on their relationship to Revivification, the installation developed by artists Guy Ben-Ary, Nathan Thompson and Matt Gingold with neuroscientist Stuart Hodgetts currently at the Art Gallery of WA.

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