Kite
(Oglala Sioux Tribe)
Sylmar CA 1990
Currently based in Tulsa OK
Lakota-Sys (L-Sys), Listener
2018
Digital video with stereo sound
17 min. 25 sec. (total duration)
Collection of the Artist
A video is played. Lakota-Sys (L-Sys) is a visual interface which guides Listener, a science fiction story about a woman wandering alone in the future, receiving transmissions from the Far Place on her listening devices. How can Lakota understandings affect the design of technology? What does a Lakota data-visualizing interface look like?
Kite aka Suzanne Kite is an Oglala Lakota performance artist, visual artist and composer raised in Southern California, with a BFA from CalArts in music composition, an MFA from Bard College’s Milton Avery Graduate School, and is a PhD student at Concordia University and Research Assistant for the Initiative for Indigenous Futures. Her research is concerned with contemporary Lakota epistemologies through research-creation, computational media, and performance practice. Recently, Kite has been developing a body interface for movement performances, carbon fiber sculptures, immersive video and sound installations, as well as co-running the experimental electronic imprint, Unheard Records.
Resources for Further Research
Additional information and writings about Kite, compiled by the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery team.
Listen to the interview with Kite hosted by Jules the Ghoul’s
Watch Kite’s virtual performance of Listener presented by the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery
Suggested Further Reading
Kite, Suzanne, and Mahpíya Nážin, “It’s Not Done Through Our Mind, It’s Done Through Our Spirit.” South as a State of Mind, no. 11 (Fall/Winter 2019): 12-21.
Kite, Listener, 2018, Performance documentation. Photo by vog.photo. Collection of the artist.
