About
I’m interested in energy and applying scientific methods in a sound art practice. My work is a process of questioning the relationship between nature, language and technology via interdisciplinary and conceptual drawing strategies. For me, drawing is a response to inner and outer stimuli and the act of drawing is a way of making ideas visible or heard. In this alchemy, drawing is a record to play, sample and mix— this mental activity requires coding and decoding of the natural world and recording it with a stylus— the ‘records’ become a dynamic material archive that is taken out of context then re-played, re-mixed, re-shaped and re-presented anew according to ground. This location is where the intangible becomes tangible, and where light and sound can articulate space, cause poetic gestures and ephemeral experiences.
Core questions stem from nature, environmental and ecological concerns. I think about the relationship humans, plants, and organisms have on the environment and draw connections between light, time, movement, sound, space and gravity using time-based media and systems of chance to engage the viewer with open signs while including the audience as an integral component of the work.
Philosophy, research, experimental music performance, turtablism, mediation and Mexican culture are the catalyst to activate the space between drawing and music. Drawings are allographic and examine phenomena experimentally. Compositions oscillate between states of representation and fragmentation, acoustic and electronic, object and process and takes the form of collage, DJ sets, music, performance, instrument design, photography, programming, language, installations, video and works for internet or paper.
Jassie Rios
Laredo, Texas
Washington, DC
Jassie is a musician, visual artist and educator questioning the relationship between nature, language and technology via interdisciplinary and conceptual drawing strategies. The core questions stem from her concerns for the environment, nature and ecology. Site is a ground where intangible ideas becomes tangible, and where light and sound can articulate space, cause poetic gestures and ephemeral experiences. She teaches Drawing and 3D Design at the Catholic University of America and also teaches Darkroom and Digital Media in the Visual and Performing Arts program at Suitland High School with Prince George’s County Public Schools. She holds a K-12 Advanced Professional Teaching Certification in Visual Arts and a 200 YTT Certification in Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga.
Originally from the border city of Laredo, Texas, growing up in a peripheral space intersecting Mexico and United States influenced her ways of thinking about nature, movement, space and language. Hybrid modes of being became ingrained in the architecture of the everyday mix. Her work draws inspiration from Olmec, Maya and Aztec codices, Nahuatl language, land formations, stepped pyramids, Hip Hop, Philosophy, Meditation, Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. Her involvement in women in audio exposed her to the community of open source coding.
Her work has been recognized by Suzanne Ciani, Perry Cook, and Teenage Engineering who juried the 2018 Margaret Guthman New Instrument Design Competition; awarding Jassie the prestigious New Musical Instrument Design Award at Georgia Tech for her instrument GramFX, a hybrid turntable programmed in Pure Data In 2023-2024 she was awarded the Creative Leaders Fellowship: Towards 2040 with Words, Beats and Life. Artist in Residence at Signal Culture, Owego, NY.
She has performed and exhibited at the Kennedy Art Center (Washington, DC), Eaton Hotel (Washington, DC), Katzen Art Center (Washington, DC), Torpedo Factory Art Center (Arlington, VA), Rhizome DC (Washington, DC), Wave Farm (Acra, NY), ShapeShifter Lab (Gowanus, NY), 2016 Pure Data Conference at Stevens Institute for Technology (Hoboken, NJ).