Biography

“Born in 1961 and a graduate in electronics and computer science from the University of Nottingham, he was Head of New Media at INIVA, Institute of International Visual Arts in London from 1995 to 2011. A freelance artist since 2011 his production and installation work has seen him exhibit and lead creative laboratories around the world. His recent work has expanded as part of a global network of collaborators advocating for equality, climate justice and better health through the arts, especially for people from marginalized communities. He lectures in Fine Art Practice at Goldsmiths College, University of London and is the recipient of a research award from the University of Greenwich for a project Exploring Cultural Diversity in Experimental Sound.

A multidisciplinary artist, his work is developed at the intersection of sound, moving image and experimental media technologies. Incorporating elements of dub and musique concrete, playfully using fractured montage techniques to create oblique relations to received meanings. Questioning how history, identity, culture is constructed through seeing, hearing, and sensing our world. Frequently collaborating with other artists and institutions the work emerges from direct response to the specific sites of engagement and environment, often incorporating historical as well as contemporary material and content.”

Dark Energy II (2023)

Using a variety of sound and visual archives, Stewart is presenting a 2-hour live performance at this 15th edition. This experimental work proposes a sound and video reinterpretation and remix inspired by tracing the Sound System from its Caribbean origins in 1970s Kingston up to present day Montreal. This video performance online, celebrates the global legacy of Sound System culture through a journey of poetry, dub, dub techno, jungle, dubstep and post-dubstep. Mapping landscapes of sound and visuals through experiments in Blackness.