CATS+ Spring 2024

About

This residency session is part of the CATS+ program and runs from March to June 2024. The CATS+ Spring 2024 residents are Sabine Brown, Victoria Cantu, Luna Davis, Cathy Le, Jay Thomas, and Mavyn Vu.

Residents

Sabine Brown

Sabine Brown is a queer trans performer and installation artist in Austin, TX. Her work is focused on the misuse of technology, glitches as aesthetic ephemera, and cybernetic surveillance. She is a part-time creative technologist and full-time manic freakshow with a background in DIY electronics and audiovisual installations. Her work seeks to highlight emergent tensions between technology, desire, self, and liberation.

Victoria Cantu

Victoria Cantu (b. 1998, Texas) is an identity-based video artist, blurring the lines between performance and documentation. They were born and raised in the Rio Grande Valley and currently reside in Austin, Texas. While earning their Bachelor of Arts from St. Edward's University in 2020, Vic discovered their love for video art and installation. They’re interested in having an ongoing dialogue about beauty, desire, and suffering, keeping archival practices at the forefront when making. Forever inspired by love, theater, performance, and pop culture, Vic continuously discovers new ways to explore self-portraits. myonlinebedroom.com

Luna Davis

Luna Davis (b. 1999) is an interdisciplinary artist in Austin, Texas. Davis graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a BFA in Studio Art in 2022, where she explored laser cutting, video projection, printmaking, installation, sculpture, and working with CRT TVs which are still central to her work today. Davis’s work comments on memories, emotions, and traumas held in domestic spaces, along with digital identity in the age of the internet. She creates installations, dioramas, video, and sculptures through a personal and universal lens. Recent projects include Hot Wheels at The Museum of Human Achievement and Mass Gallery’s 16th Anniversary Auction. Davis has co-curated Facade at the Visual Arts Center and Portal Fishing with Favored Channels in 2023. lunadavis.com

Wiki

• Laser Cutting, After Effects, Persona & Thought Process

Cathy Le

Cathy Le (b. 2000, Houston, Texas) currently resides in Austin, Texas as a software engineer by day and an artist by night. In her youth, she attended the High School for Performing and Visual Arts, but briefly put her art on hiatus while studying Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Texas. Today, she is easing back into the world of art and exploring what kind of artist she wants to be while trying to mesh her engineering and creative sides. She is intrigued by the human psyche, hidden patterns, data interactions, audience-driven installations, and experiential spaces. thecathyle.com.

Wiki

• Large-Scale Reactive Projection Mapping with TouchDesigner

Jay Thomas

Jay Thomas is a trans, Latine drag king, emcee, and show producer from Laredo, Texas. Their work seeks to disrupt the status quo in drag performance by centering topics such as misogyny, white supremacy, trans rights, and trans safety. They produce Latine, sapphic-centered events around Austin that help cultivate spaces where folks of these identities can feel safe. Jay frequently collaborates with BIPOC and gender diverse artists. @bobbypu512

Mavyn Vu

Mavyn Vu (b. 1999, Hanoi, Vietnam) is a multidisciplinary visual artist and writer who earned her BSA in Biology and BA in Plan II from the University of Texas at Austin. Initially an oil painter, her involvement with the Texas Immersive Institute expanded her practice to experiential installation that uses environmental design to invoke introspective engagement from participants – reimagining the traditional artist/viewer relationship. Her writing has been published in the arts editorials Center Space Project and Spark Magazine. She shares occasional drops of poetry via her Substack. Mavyn experiments with visual memoir through careful dissection of her lived experience as part of the diaspora, with a focus on matrilineal heritages. mavyn.studio

Events

GUTS+

May 25, 2024 | 8pm–10pm

GUTS+ is an immersive media showcase inside of a repurposed city bus! This season’s CATS+ residents created a collection of interactive media, video, projection, and set design experiments inspired by the way our experiences and technologies distort our perception of self and others. Their collaborations offer remixes and reclamations of identity using technology. “We project things onto each other, but we can also project things onto a bus.” Come explore GUTS+, chat with the residents about their process, and digest.

Workshops

Making Web Zines with Downpour

March 20, 2024 | 8pm–9pm

Learn how to make short interactive projects on your phone using Downpour, a free app made by artist and technologist V Buckenham. We'll also cover the basics of paper prototyping as a way to brainstorm and get started. Join a team to collaborate on interactive zines!

Oscillographics and Vector Synthesis

March 27, 2024 | 6:30pm–8pm

Hear about Sabine Brown's coding and performance practice, play with TENS units and a hand-made laser projector, and learn about Raspberry Pi vector synths.

Laser Cutting & Illustrator

April 3, 2024 | 6:30pm–8pm

Learn about the basics of laser cutting, including preparing files in Illustrator, prototyping on cardboard, and choosing materials. Luna Davis will also show off and talk through her process on past projects, and lead us through creating our own CATS+ keychains.

Projection Mapping

April 10, 2024 | 6:30pm–8pm

Learn the basics of projection mapping in VPT and Heavy M. Rachel Stuckey and Sabine Brown will walk through setting up project files, then we'll have playtime with projectors. Bring any materials you'd like to project through and objects you'd like to projection map onto.

Sewing Machine Basics

April 17, 2024 | 6:30pm–7:30pm

Learn the basics of using a sewing machine and some tips for constructing invisible seams. Victoria Cantu will show us some past projects and talk through their process for creating soft sculptures. We'll some pillows and everyone will get a chance to practice using the machine.

Projection Mapping with p5.js

April 17, 2024 | 8pm–8:30pm

Learn the basics of p5.js while Cathy Le shows off her process of working with the p5.projection library for a variety projection mapping experiments. We'll see documentation of projection mapping in the wild, and get a chance to play with the tool in the studio.

TouchDesigner for Interactive Media

April 24, 2024 | 6:45pm–7:30pm

Get inspired by learning what TouchDesigner can do and how Imoni McCorvey uses it in her creative practice. No materials required.

Breadboarding with LEDs

April 24, 2024 | 7:30pm–8:30pm

Cathy Le will teach us how to protype on a breadboard with LEDs. Soldering and working with microcontrollers will also be introduced. Materials provided!

So You Want to Be a Soundcloud Artist

May 1, 2024 | 6:30pm–7:30pm

Mavyn Vu presents a super easy low barrier of entry introduction to DIY sound art/soundscape making. We will learn Bandlab and Garage Band. We'll use our phones to record sounds, so make sure they're charged n ready to go!

Drag 101

May 15, 2024 | 7pm–7:45pm

Drag king Bobby Pudrido (aka Jay Thomas) talks about their process for creating their drag persona and performances. They'll also share about their practice producing, emceeing, and collaborating on drag events in Austin to showcase BIPOC, trans, alternative, and community-driven artists.

Green Screen with After Effects

May 15, 2024 | 7:30pm–8pm

Luna Davis shares her process of working with a green screen and Adobe After Effects to create character-driven video art. We'll learn how to key out the green screen, bring in layers from multiple sources to create a complex image, and tips for troubleshooting. We'll also see behind-the-scenes on how she created her latest video.