Lisa Karrer is an interdisciplinary artist with an international background in live performance, composition, video and installation. She creates narrative-based works that offer multiple visual, audio and sensory environments to the viewer, conceptual portals into what she calls warm technology. Her art practice includes and combines musical composition and electronic sound design, video (including green-screen), hand-built ceramics, and pastel drawings. Lisa collaborates with a wide range of artists and ensembles, presenting her works in the U.S. and abroad. She is also a visiting artist and professor, facilitating workshops and lecturing on topics such as the theory of Hauntology, The History of Politics and Performance, Cultural Anthropology, and the Art of Installation.
Collaborators and professional colleagues include:
Composers / Musicians David Simons, Jerome Kitzke, Denman Maroney, Tan Dun, Skip LaPlante, David First, John Morton, Tom Buckner, Margaret Leng Tan, Stephanie Griffin, Joshua Fried, Daniel Goode, Elizabeth Brown, Joshua Fried, Paul Geluso, Scott Williams, Michael Evans, and Tony Prabowa; and music ensembles such as Gamelan Son of Lion, Music For Homemade Instruments, The Mad Coyote, and The Flexible Orchestra.
Visual Artists Jenny Lynn McNutt, Gregory Barsamian, Bill Hochhausen, Mary Ziegler, Patricia Hickman, Jacqueline Shatz, Robert Egert, Theodora Skipitares, Jeff Gompertz, Peeter Laurits, Kate Yourke, and filmmaker Toni Dove.
Choreographers Douglas Dunn, Muna Tseng, Jody Oberfelder, Marika Blossfeldt, and Colin Connor.
Awards include two CEC ArtsLink Project Grants, two Greenwall Foundation grants, two Arts International Festival Fund grants and various Meet The Composer awards, as well as grants from the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, the Jerome Foundation, The Aaron Copland Fund, Rockefeller NY State Music Fund, NYSCA Electronic Media and Film, the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, Manhattan Community Arts Fund, and the Sari Dienes Foundation.
Selected performance works: The Birth of George (1997), a chamber opera premiered at LaMama with co-composer David Simons, co-produced by Harvestworks and American Opera Projects, and recorded on the TELLUS label; PUHAMU (’97), a multimedia music-theatre project premiered at Niguliste Church in Tallinn, Estonia; Triskelion (1999-2001) with choreographer Douglas Dunn, at Riverside Church and the 92nd St Y; Woman’s Song: The Story of Roro Mendut (2003), a wayang opera presented at the Kitchen in co-production with World Music Institute; Schismism: Fractured America (2007), curated by Kathy Supove and produced by the Flea Theatre, and Schismism: Natural Law (2008-’12), based on the life of Charles Darwin, premiered at the Living Theatre, with subsequent performances at Dixon Place, Cornelia Street Cafe, Binghamton University’s EvOS series, CAL State University’s Darwin Symposium, and the SEMI Electronic Festival in Hartford Connecticut.
Video and sound works: Ziarah Dalam Gereja Gunung (2009) was featured at Rockland Center for the Arts’ Project Media Room, and her video Claudius Smith (’09), commissioned by composer Denman Maroney, premiered at Garnerville Arts Center, followed by Tenri Cultural Institute, Dixon Place, and The Stone. In 2010 Lisa composed the score for ALICE, an adaptation of Alice In Wonderland commissioned by Ramapo College’s Berrie Center for the Arts. The Language of Life, a chamber composition commissioned by Dan Goode’s Flexible Orchestra, was premiered in 2012 at the Ukranian National Home in NYC; Who Reads Who Speaks Who Hears (’12), a video and sound installation at Garnerville Arts with textile artist Pat Hickman; Roulette’s Vital Vox Festival (2013), and LANDSCAPE Re. Formed (’13) an installation with painter/sculptor Bill Hochhausen at H55 Gallery in Long Island City. In 2014 Lisa premiered Chen Zhen: Drum As Doorway Between Worlds, a multimedia performance based on late artist Chen Zhen’s drum sculpture Traitment Musical Vibratoire, commissioned by HVCCA/Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art; and premiered Forgiveness, a live performance with video and sampled keyboard, at Outpost Artist Resources in Ridgewood, Queens. In 2015 Lisa curated New Lingo at Outpost Artist Resources, an evening of new works by MFA Interdisciplinary Arts colleagues, where she premiered There But Not There, a five-part installation with projections, audience interaction and live performance, examining psychological states of dissociation from various perspectives. Since 2016 Lisa has been lecturing and presenting OVERLANDERS, an interdisciplinary installation based on pioneer migrations in America, incorporating green screen video, ceramics, miniature projections and micro sound installation, at venues such as The City College of New York, University of Rhode Island, SUNY Empire State, and Rockland Center for the Arts in Nyack, NY. In 2017 Lisa was commissioned by artist David Simons and Harvestworks Digital Arts to create Spiritual Ecstasy, as part of Simons’ interactive performance entitled “Activating Electro-Magnetic Life Forms”, premiered at Harvestworks in December 2017. Lisa holds an MFA in Digital Interdisciplinary Arts Practice from The City College of New York/CUNY.
Lisa Karrer 