Research and Practice Summary
My research areas focus on personal and social histories/narratives, postcolonial/post-imperial studies, racialization, feminism, migration/diaspora studies, transnationalism, Filipino Americans, and psychoanalysis. My artistic practice works within the realms of sound performance, feminist collectivizing and film. Previously under the Marlo Eggplant alias, my textural compositions aim to blur the definitions of (un)intentional sound and music.
Education
2020 Completed a PhD in Cultural Studies at University of Leeds, entitled 'Like a disembodied shade': Investigating subjectivities through contemporary cultural practices within the Filipino American diaspora regarding migration/postcolonial trauma and subjectivities within Filipino American cultural texts. Supervisors: Griselda Pollock and Claudia Sternberg.
Masters in Psychosocial Studies from Centre of Psychoanalytic Studies at University of Essex.
Associates Degree in Liberal Arts, Bachelors in Theatre/Performance with a concentration in Legal Theory, from Bard College at Simon’s Rock, Great Barrington, Massachusetts, USA.
Artist Residencies/Workshops/Curation
· 2022 The Muckenthaler Artist-in-Resistance
· February 13-22, 2022 – You Can Be My Wingman artist collaboration retreat with Shanti Suki and Natalie Hyacinth, peers of the Sonic Cyberfeminisms collective. Produced by Action Hero, supported by Dartington Trust, UK.
· 2003 to present – Curator of LIN audio series Ladyz in Noyz, Ladyz in Noyz II: An Addendum, and Ladyz in Noyz III. It is an ongoing series that celebrates experimental/fringe/noise/sound artists/musicians who are women. The projects represented span the globe and aim to increase gender diversity, visibility, and representation within musics and sound arts. These, alongside performances and skill shares, also take form as the feminist collective Ladyz in Noyz.
· May-June 2019 – CalArts Immersive Summer Arts Residency. Final works included sound sculptures, mixed media installations, and a live performance in group exhibition, High Fructose Corn Syrup, California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, California.
· April 2019 – Organized and hosted event concerning diversity and inclusion curation, entitled ‘Contemporary Melanin Narratives in Music and Sound’ at the Tetley Leeds. Funding obtained from the Centre for Practice-Led Research in the Arts at the University of Leeds.
· September 2018 – Participation in Wysing Arts Residency and collaboration on zine and podcast with Sonic Cyberfeminisms cohort. Sonic Cyberfeminisms is an ongoing project by an open collective of artists, musicians and writers, which draws upon intersectional feminist praxis and the legacies of cyberfeminism. The project aims to foreground agendas of social justice in the domains of sound, gender and technology and, in doing so, develop critical cultural work.
· April 2018 – Co- curation and performance in Sound|Space|Response, Left Bank Leeds. “Left Bank Leeds brings together 8 sound artists to roll a dice, team up in duos and perform together in response to each other and our building. Expect an evening of unpredictable performances and sound, from primal noise to birdsong – what will be created?”
· March 2018 – Participation in Brighter Sound/ Both Sides Now residency with Shiva Feshareki, Leeds College of Music – selected to participate in group of emerging female musicians in Yorkshire in five days of collaborative improvisation/composition.
· 6 May 2017 – Facilitation and creation of Sounding Personal Narratives workshop, Sonic Cyberfeminisms, University of Lincoln - From childhood journals to the sharing of family histories, we enjoy the embodied process of speaking, sharing, and telling personal experience. Inscribing one's own narrative is an empowering process and politically potent. By taking intimate thoughts and translating them to others in the external social and political world, we further reclaim spaces that aim to make invisible the multiplicity of voices and the specificity of unsaid struggle and resilience. In this workshop, we push beyond the word to sound.
· March 2017 – Curation of audio compilation for Rhinoceritis: Voices in Dissent. Due to recent global events/turns towards tyranny, Ladyz in Noyz and Corpus Callosum Distro would like to erupt in a defiant "NO!" In the face of Trump and Brexit and a world of ideologies that lead to more violence, cruelty, and a divisiveness that we will have to explain to future generations, we must declare our dissent and outrage. This multi-genre compilation was inspired by Ionesco's play Rhinoceros via Teju Cole's November 2016 New York Times piece 'A Time for Refusal’). The digital compilation entitled, "RHINOCERITIS: Voices in Dissent", received submissions from diverse artists of various backgrounds to raise funds to counter this alarming global situation.
· 2 December 2015 and 16 February 2017 – Curation of Rupture and Race I and II: Films on police brutality in contemporary America – CentreCATH, University of Leeds, film program by independent American filmmakers concerning the growing awareness around racialized police brutality in contemporary America.
Films/Installation/Commission Works
· Featured Artist – Leese Street Studio, Alon: Journal for Filipinx American and Diasporic Studies, Volume 2, number 1 (March 2022). "Feeding the Crocodile" (November 2021) and “we are ants” (work-in-progress, October 2021) created specifically for feature.
· “SISTER OUTSIDER: How We Can Do Better For Tomorrow”, (September 2021) While the festivals and associated projects that arise from self-named feminist arts collectives and organizations are admired and recognized, this series will provide the unsaid histories of working with such theoretical frameworks and practice. This is a program of 2021 Titwrench Festival by a generous grant from Denver Music Advancement Fund, a program administered by Denver Arts & Venues.
· ‘pandemic scores: stage one, stage two, stage three, and stage four” – a series of mixed media collage visual scores with accompanying audio that serve as both an inquiry and an aim towards reparative efforts for the survival of the endangered BIPOC populations of 2020-21 as part of the 2021 Asia North exhibition and was funded by the Central Partnership of Baltimore. Virtual Opening 19 April 2021.
· Invited Artist, Recorded Performance, Imaginary Network Topologies 27, virtual concert series, curated by Jeff Carey. Livestreamed 16 April 2021.
· Invited Artist, Intermission from Isolation series, Video Art, a semi-monthly virtual showcase of noise/experimental/electronic music by queer/marginalized voices. March 2020 and March 2021.
· Invited Artist, Coaxial Media Arts Fest, Video Art, Showcase curated by Island of Misfit Toys, Coaxial Arts Foundation. 6 March 2021.
· Open Call Sound Diaries Artist Interviews – Further discussions during lockdown. Q&A: Jacek Smolicki to Marlo De Lara (6 November 2020) and Q&A: Marlo De Lara to Kathryn Tovey (16 November 2020), Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK.
· Invited Video Artist, Axial Age Festival, Coaxial Arts Foundation, 13 October 2020.
· ‘A Perfect Fit’:Untraining the Ear Listening Station by Shanti Suki Osman with participation by Marlo De Lara. Hosted by SAVVY Contemporary: The Laboratory of Form-Ideas, Berlin, DE. Combining storytelling, pre-recorded sounds and intermittent instructions for the listeners, this extended piece for radio, shifts the focus to questions of balancing power from a marginalized perspective, problematizing "one-size inclusion fits all" and calling more attention to voices in unwanted spaces – listening to contradictions in occasional discomfort. Launched 12 July 2020.
· ‘Sound and Visual Composition’ (2020), Audiovisual collage of automatic writing in process, improvised noise and field recording, reprocessed folk songs regarding mortality, and Audre Lorde reading her poetry. eavesdropping London 2020. Premiered 26 April 2020.
· Sound Diaries 2019, Audiovisual collage, ‘Negotiating transnational/transcultural spaces’, March-July 2019, as part of Audiograft festival, Oxford, UK.
· ‘collage response’, Video art, Dystopian glimpses of disconnection in future tomorrows. Screened at future sound of love as part of Transform 19 festival and Love Muscle, Leeds, UK, 27 April 2019.
· ‘Corregidor’, Site specific live performance centered around the recordings of the last Morse Code transmissions sent at the WWII Battle of Corregidor where the Philippines fell to the Japanese on May 6, 1942. 2018 Fort Process Festival within the Carponier Room at Newhaven Fort, Sussex, UK, 22 September 2018.
· ‘Creative Process Cartographies’ (2018), Zine and recorded excerpts. By reviewing my personal archives of childhood journals, field recordings, old photographs, and image stills home movies, I distilled and mapped five moments/stages of my life that catalyzed and instilled my artistic voice. With each of these temporal reflections, I created a sound composition to accompany the making process involved in the memory curation. Spaces of Making, Goldsmiths’ Fringe and Music Underground Group, Goldsmiths University of London, UK. Launched 11 May 2018.
· 'malay/taos/RP/PI' (2017), sound/film/installation regarding the ongoing presence of mass deaths, political unrest, and haunting of the Philippines. Left Bank, Leeds, UK.
· ‘An International Call and Response: Ladyz in Noyz’ (2016), Short film. A call was made out to the international 'Ladyz in Noyz' collective, a virtual collaborative network of women practitioners in experimental musics and sound arts. The initial call/performance was sent out to members and responses were culled in this audiovisual collage. International digital screenings and selected work at 2016 TUSK Festival, Sage Gateshead, Newcastle, UK. Premiered 12 October 2016.
· Ladyz in Noyz Australia tour, funded by the Australian Arts Council, held a panel discussion at This Is Not Art festival, along with live performances in Bendigo, Melbourne, Adelaide, Sydney and Newcastle to celebrate five years of Ladyz in Noyz Australia performances and 2 CD releases. October 2015.
· UnCommons Art / Music / Technology Events in Unusual Spaces #2, Audio and live improvisation. Commissioned collaboration of immersive virtual reality audio visual exploration for smartphones with Annabeth Robinson. A 360 degree personalized virtual submersion was created for each attendee. UnCommons is a series of events from Recon, Bradford Threadfest, M@BU - Music at Bradford University. Delius Cultural Arts Center, Bradford, UK. Performed 8 December, 2016.
· ‘(live)improv’ (2014) – computer installation game playing with concepts of intention, interaction, and virtual community. Using dice and corresponding media files, the participant assembled sounds and images at random from women musicians and sound artists. Föreningen Fylkingen, Stockholm, Sweden.
· ‘neneng: tales of the (dis)enchanted’ (1999) – autobiographical installation of found objects, refuse, super-8 home movies, cassette recordings, and childhood journals. The objects were arranged within a maze and included live art characters/improvisations. The experience concluded by entering a constructed plastic spiral in which a series of filmed autobiographical monologues were played on television monitors; ultimately the artist/performer herself amidst a therapy session in progress, Simon’s Rock College of Bard, Great Barrington, MA, USA.
Artist Talks
· Invited Sound Practitioner Talk, Music and Technology course at California Institute of the Arts, 11 March 2021.
· Invited Sound Arts Visiting Practitioners Talks, London College of Communication / CRiSAP Research Centre, London College of Communication University of the Arts London. 4 February 2021.
· Asia North Fall 2020 Invited Artist Talk. Subjects included Filipino American History Month and contemplating the temporal loop of national traumas in the Philippines. Delivered a virtual tour of segments of 2017 multimedia installation/film, malay/taos/rp/pi, Asian Arts and Culture Center, Towson, MD. Livestreamed 16 October 2020.
Conference Presentations/ Panel Talks
· ‘Filipino American Creative Arts and the Pitfalls of Cultural Subjectivity’, FAEAC Annual Conference 2021, October 2021
· ‘Filipino American Diaspora: Self-Representations Emerging from the Shadows’ panel, Moderator, Asian Arts and Culture Center, Towson, MD. 11 March 2021
· ‘Intersectional Practices Amongst in Virtual Programming in Feminist Communities’, Feminism, art and institutions: towards (post) pandemic cultural politics and practices panel, College Art Association, NY, 11 February 2021
· Accessibility and Network Music Performance, Network Music Festival, virtual, 15 July 2020
· ‘Sound and Performance as Protest’, Keynote, eavesdropping London, 1 May 2020
· ‘Sound Collectives as Sonic Acts of Resistance – the story of Ladyz in Noyz & notes from the field’, Tusk Festival, Sage Gateshead, UK, 13 October 2018
· Racism in Queer Spaces Discussion, Leeds Queer Film Festival, UK, 23 March, 2018
· Panel Discussion: Women in Art, Left Bank Leeds, UK, 7 September 7, 2017
· 'Solidarity with Sonic Sisters: Tales of Acrimony in Resistance [standpoint paper] ', Sonic Cyberfeminisms, University of Lincoln, UK, May 2017
· Investigating National Pride and Shame in the Philippine consciousness within Imelda (2013)’, Psychoanalyisis in Our Time 2017, Sopot, Poland, April 2017
· ‘Filmmaking, Haunting and Transgenerational Trauma Narrative for Filipina America’ - Society for Cinema Media Studies Conference 2017, Chicago, Illinois, March 2017
· Doing Sonic Cyberfeminisms: strategies of sonic resistance, Goldsmiths University, London, 2 Dec 2016
· ‘Beyond Theory: Intersectionality in Peminist filmmaking’, Feminist Readings 2: Theory, Practice and Politics of Reading Today panel, University of Leeds, April, 2016
· ‘Creating Visibility for a Diaspora: Filipino America through Performance and Film’ - Rethinking Re/presentation 2015, University of Manchester, June 2015
Academic
October 2019 to December 2022, Principle Faculty – on BFA and MA/MFA programs, AMDA College and Conservatory of the Performing Arts, Los Angeles, CA, USA
March 2021 to July 2021 - Invited Visiting Lecturer for “Groundwork for Embedded Arts Practice” Residency, Cittadellarte - Fondazione Pistoletto ONLUS, Biella, Piedmont, Italy
September 2016 to February 2019 - Graduate Teaching Assistant/Seminar Leader – Keywords, Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies (FAHACS), University of Leeds
September 2016 to January 2017 - Graduate Teaching Assistant/Seminar Leader - Introduction to Cultural Analysis I, FAHACS, University of Leeds
September 2015 to January 2017 - Graduate Teaching Assistant/Seminar Leader - Introduction to Cultural History, FAHACS, University of Leeds.
November 2015 to December 2019 On call Workshop Instructor in Performance skills and Music Hardware, Yorkshire Sound Women network
September 2013 to February 2014 Graduate Teaching Assistant - Popular Film, Literature, and Television: A Psychoanalytic Approach, Guest lecturer on The Oedipus Complex in The Lion King, Graduate Teaching Assistant -The Unconscious: Psychoanalysis, Culture, and Society - Freud, Centre for Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Essex.
Professional Experience
Oct 2021 – February 2022 - BIPOC Artist Mentor, Interlude - Visual Arts Group Wales, UK
November 2021 – Present - Member of the Services to Artists Committee, College Art Association
September 2021 – Present - Board Vice President and Director of Grants and Collective Care, Coaxial Arts Foundation, Los Angeles, CA - Tends to Coaxial’s funding needs and supports the staff in facilitating decision making within the team. Using their critiques of the nonprofit industrial complex and institutional learning, De Lara aims to transgress and subvert traditional hierarchical ways of managing contemporary art spaces. In the role in community care, Marlo uses mutual aid and emergent strategies in combination with current equity, diversity, and inclusion practices to ensure safety and access for all.
June 2021– Present - Member Liaison and Group Moderator for Black, Asian, Minority, Ethnic – Women in Academia, Guest Editor on Special Issue
November 2019 – Present - Peer Reviewer - Feminist Review
June 2003 – Present - Curator and Organizer of the Ladyz in Noyz collective - A feminist open collective that celebrates musicians and sound artists who are women.
October 2017 – Present - Member of Technical Committee of the International Conference on New Music Concepts – Responsible for reviewing submissions within the following subject areas: Film and Music, Multimedia, Music History, Music Perception, Music and Psychology, Postcoloniality in music/sound art, Intersectionality and Culture, Feminism and Sound, and Subjectivities and the Audiovisual.
May 2017 – Present - Member of Sonic Cyberfeminisms - An ongoing project by a collective of artists, musicians and writers, which draws upon intersectional feminist praxis and the legacies of cyberfeminism. The project aims to foreground agendas of social justice in the domains of sound, gender and technology and, in doing so, develop critical cultural work.
February 2021 – June 2022 - 2021 Programme Advisory Board Member, Tusk Festival, Newcastle, UK
November 2021 – March 2023 -Year 4 Fellow and Co-Facilitator of the Intercultural Leadership Institute of cohort Year 4 Leader Fellows, USA
October 2020 – August 2021 Filipino American Scholar, Asia Arts North Invited Artist – Towson University, Towson MD
October 2020 – April 2021 - Artist Activist Educator - New York City Alliance Against Sexual Assault
February 2019 – April 2020 - Alternate on MediArXiv Steering Committee
September 2016 – April 2021 - Co-convenor of Special Interest Group - Psychoanalysis and Film, British Association of Film, Television, and Screen Studies (BAFTSS)
December 2017 – December 2018 - Member of Self-Assessment Team for Athena SWAN, Intersectionality workstream - Faculty of Arts, Humanities, and Cultures, University of Leeds.
November 2018 - Juror for Leeds International Queer Short Film Competition for Queer Film Shorts – a program of Leeds International Film Festival.
October 2017 – April 2018 - Panel Judge for 2018 BAFTSS Practice Awards
September 2017– September 2018 - Co-organizer of Women’s Paths Research Group, University of Leeds
Publications available upon request.