Ess Whiteley (he/they) is a musician and artist working primarily with electronics whose practice encompasses the creation of performances, scores, and installations. His work is inspired by the post-internet, eco-futurity, more-than-human worlds, spiritual experience and the existential impacts of technology on modern life. Ess is interested in speculative world-building, vibrational storytelling, and the capacity of organized sound to mutate the real. Through his work, he seeks to create aesthetic experiences that challenge, expand, and meditate on everyday encounters with the sensuous. Ess has been awarded commissions from ensembles such as Alarm Will Sound and Riot Ensemble, has had work presented at MATA (USA), Int-Act (TH), MANTIS (UK), TIER (DE), Dublin Music Current (IR), WOCMAT (TW), Matera Intermedia Festival (IT) amongst others. Ess has been a resident composer at VICC (SE), I-Park Inc. (USA), MICF (USA), has toured in Europe, the UK, and North America multiple times, and has had music featured on publications like Pitchfork, The Wire and Relevant Tones. He received a BM in Composition from McGill University and is currently a PhD Candidate in Composition at the University of California-San Diego where he studies with Michelle Lou and Roger Reynolds.

Andrew Wharton is a San Diego-based artist exploring the membrane between the organic and synthetic. Working across machine learning, physical computing, alchemy, digital fabrication and simulation, he produces sculptures, environments, and systems where natural and intelligence-directed systems meet, intertwine, and meld in an effort to rupture the natural-unnatural binary. His work speculates on machinic consciousness and post-human futures in the wake of environmental breakdown. Andrew received his Bachelor’s degree in Spatial Studies from the College of Creative Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is currently pursuing his MFA at the University of California-San Diego.