“Chessboard Synthesizer,” Alex Christie

This piece is part of “Synths in Place: An Orchestra of Homemade Electronic Musical Instruments,” an exhibition of projects made in Dogbotic’s DIY synthesizer workshops. The physical gallery show was held at the Window Gallery, Center for New Music, San Francisco, CA from January 11-March 1, 2021.

A synthesizer built into a chessboard. I’ve playing a lot of chess recently and thinking about how technology is wrapped up in figuring out chess in similar ways to how it is wrapped up in figuring out electronic music.

Alex Christie makes acoustic music, electronic music, and intermedia art in many forms. His work has been called “vibrant”, “interesting, I guess”, and responsible for “ruin[ing] my day”. He has collaborated with artists in a variety of fields and is particularly interested in the design of power structures, systems of interference, absurdist bureaucracy, and indeterminacy in composition. He is currently based in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Recently, Alex’s work has explored the ecology of performance in intermedia art and interactive electronic music. Through real-time audio processing, instrument building, light, video, and theater, Alex expands performance environments to offer multiple lenses through which the audience can experience the work. Alex has performed and presented at a variety of conferences and festivals whose acronyms combine to spell nicedinsaucesfeeeemmmmmmfogascabsplotnort.

Alex serves as faculty, Director of Electronic Music, and Academic Dean at the Walden School of Music Young Musicians Program. He holds degrees from the Oberlin Conservatory and Mills College and is currently pursuing a PhD in Composition and Computer Technologies (CCT) at the University of Virginia as a Jefferson Fellow. Other interests include baseball and geometric shapes.