Kat Austen
Kat Austen
Kat Austen is a person. In her artistic practice, she focusses on environmental issues. She melds disciplines and media, creating sculptural and new media installations, performances and participatory work. Austen’s practice is underpinned by extensive research and theory, and driven by a motivation to explore how to move towards a more socially and environmentally just future.
Austen has performed at KIAF, Ars Electronica festival, Fusion Festival and more. Her work has been exhibited at Jeju Museum of Art, Contemporary Museum Wrocław, Polar Museum and the Changwon Sculpture Biennial among others. She holds a PhD in Chemistry and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
“During my residency I will be working on “Plastic Echoes” which aims to develop an instrument that can create sound from interaction with microplastic particles based on ultra-sound sensing methods. Typically, microplastics are detected through filtration and visual identification. However, new research has broken ground into sound-based detection of microplastic, opening up the possibility of creating an instrument that “plays” environmental samples according to the amount or type of microplastic that they contain. Recent research shows that the size of microplastic particles is proportional to their resonance wavelength, using it for microplastic removal. I propose to adapt the setup to use ultra-sonic sensing for direct sonification of particles’ presence.”
This work was realized in part within the framework of the S+T+ARTS 4Water II residency programme by the ADAPT Centre at Dublin City University and Beta Festival with the support from Port of Galway, Galway Culture Company, Galway City Council, Culture Works and the S+T+ARTS programme of the European Union
