Bozeman Magazine

Tinworks Art is pleased to announce the premier of a newly commissioned performance by
visual artist and composer Kite, entitled Aŋpáwi Aíyokpaza (Eclipse) to be presented October 14.

Kite’s interdisciplinary work spans sound, video, performance, instrument building, wearable
artwork, poetry, prose, interactive installations, and more. As part of her performance practice, she
composes ‘visual scores’ for musicians using components of geometric language identified in linguist
Sadie Red Wing’s Lakȟ óta shape kit.

A ‘visual score’ is a form of experimental musical notation using symbolic forms that performers and
musicians read and interpret. The forms are derived from tradition artmaking such as quill and
beadwork and communicate concepts without using verbal language. Kite frequently records her
scores by embroidering them onto silk or leather; for Aŋpáwi Aíyokpaza (Eclipse), performers will
reproduce the image with stones on the ground and the form will become the stage upon which to
enact the piece.

For this performance of Aŋpáwi Aíyokpaza (Eclipse), Kite will gather a group of local musicians on
October 14, 2023 between 9:11am and 10:52am in Bozeman, Montana. The time was chosen to
coincide with the unfolding of the partial solar eclipse, to further expand upon the traditional
Lakȟ óta cosmological understanding of the mirroring of events that take place on earth and in the
sky.

Kite’s instructions for Aŋpáwi Aíyokpaza (Eclipse) direct the performer to the workings of the sky as
well as the responses here on earth. “Imagine each symbol moves through the human/instrument
body as if the instrument is a bird who has stopped singing during the day, whose heart beats
furiously in terror,” she writes. “No sound should be made without a listening ear to another being,
another instrumentalist, or the birds.”

Aŋpáwi Aíyokpaza (Eclipse) is the final event of “Invisible Prairie” a place-based multimedia art
exhibition focused on the sensory experience of the Great Plains, with a focus on language and sound.
The exhibition was curated by Dr. Melissa Ragain.
Title pronunciation: [On-PAH-wee Ah-EE-yoke-pah-zah]

ABOUT THE ARTIST
Kite is an award winning Oglála Lakȟ óta performance artist, visual artist, composer, and academic
raised in Southern California, known for her sound and video performance with her Machine
Learning hair-braid interface. Kite holds a BFA from CalArts in music composition, an MFA from
Bard College’s Milton Avery Graduate School, and has received a PHD from Concordia University.
Kite’s groundbreaking scholarship and practice explore contemporary Lakȟ óta ontology through
research-creation, computational media, and performance.

Kite often works in collaboration, especially with family and community members. Her art practice
includes developing machine working with machine learning techniques since 2017 and developing
body interfaces for performance since 2013. Kite is the first American Indian artist to utilize machine
learning in art practice.

Kite’s artwork and performance have been included in numerous exhibitions, recently at the
Hammer Museum, Whitney Museum of American Art, Plug In Contemporary, PS122 and the Vera
List Center, Anthology Film Archives, Walter Phillips Gallery, Chronus Art Center, Toronto
Biennial, and Experimenta Triennial. Kite was a 2019 Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Scholar, a
2020 Tulsa Artist Fellow, a 2020 Sundance New Frontiers Story Lab Fellow, a 2020 “100 Women in
AI Ethics”, a 2021 Common Fields Fellow, and the 2022 Creative Time Open Call artist for the Black
and Indigenous Dreaming Workshops with Alisha B. Wormsley.

ABOUT TINWORKS ART
Tinworks Art is a non-profit organization that enriches the cultural and social fabric of greater
Bozeman by supporting inclusive, immersive contemporary art experiences for diverse artists and
audiences in non-traditional spaces. Since its establishment in 2019, Tinworks Art has invited artists
to showcase—and often create—their work in and around former industrial buildings in Bozeman’s
northeast neighborhood, The Rialto theater downtown, and at Story Mill, a historic grain mill on the
outskirts of town. In 2022, Tinworks Art committed to a permanent home to deepen its connections
with audiences and to establish itself as an innovative leader of the changes taking place in the visual
arts, as well as throughout Bozeman and its broader communities.

Tinworks Art is located at 719 N. Ida Avenue in Bozeman, Montana, between Cottonwood and Aspen
Streets. Tinworks Art is currently open seasonally from July to October. For more information visit
tinworksart.org.