Kari Watson premieres Fuse, a new solo performance for analog modular synthesizers and programmed drum machines. The piece plays with clock function and tempo ramps, moving between analog and digital environments as Watson shapes the sound in real time.

Fuse engages a quadraphonic speaker array in tandem with a spatial audio sculpture of unhoused speaker cones distributed through the room. A custom synth garment—made in collaboration with visual artist and designer Av Grannan—houses patch cables and an XLR snake that tie Watson’s body into the setup. Modular instruments sit atop custom ceramic tables made with visual artist and ceramicist Paige Schlosser, designed so cables can be woven in and around the surfaces.

Watson takes theorist Donna Haraway’s cyborg as an origin point for the project: a figure of synthesis and hybridity, where humans and machines are enmeshed and the boundaries between body and environment are continually unsettled. Fuse makes that unsettled boundary audible, asking where the performer ends and the surrounding system begins.

for more information: https://lampo.org/archive/kari-watson-2026/