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About Darsha

Darsha Hewitt (CA/DE) is an interdisciplinary artist investigating the material politics of sound (and music), with a focus on empowerment and agency within technological environments. Through installations, illustrations, how-to videos, and performative workshops, she creates spaces for critical engagement with the entanglements between humans, technology, and ecology.

Working through a media-archaeological lens, she deconstructs disregarded technologies to expose systemic power dynamics embedded in socio-technical infrastructures. Her practice renders these forces tangible and opens pathways for reclaiming, repurposing, and rethinking technological practice. Alongside reverse engineering, restoration, and aesthetic experimentation with decomposing music technology, Darsha engages with diverse technical communities—including retired engineers and technicians—to learn disappearing techniques. She integrates these methods into her practice and shares them within the broader art/technology milieu.

Darsha presents her work internationally, notably at Ars Electronica (AT), Zagreb Museum of Contemporary Art (HR), Hong Kong City Hall, Halle 14 – Centre for Contemporary Art (DE), MU Artspace (NL), Urbane Künste Ruhr’s Grand Snail Tour (DE), The Museum of Arts and Design (USA), Hartware MedienKunstVerein (DE), Gaîté Lyrique (FR), Deichtorhallen (DE), Kampnagel (DE), Modern Art Oxford (UK), transmediale / CTM Festival Berlin (DE), and WRO Media Art Biennale (PL). She is a recipient of stipends from Stiftung Kunstfonds, Edith-Russ-Haus für Medienkunst, Akademie der Künste, the Berlin Senate Department for Culture, and the Canada Council for the Arts. Her projects have been commissioned by institutions such as transmediale, the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology (FACT, UK), and the European Media Art Platform.

Her signature DIY electronics and experimental approach to sound pedagogy have been profiled in forums such as Chaos Computer Congress, Make: magazine, and, most recently, in Garnet Hertz’s book Art + DIY Electronics (MIT Press, 2023). She has held academic positions including Artistic Associate in Media Art and Design at Bauhaus University, Fellow at The Institute of Digital Sciences Austria with Ars Electronica, Guest Faculty in Sound Studies and Sonic Arts at the Berlin University of the Arts, and guest professorships in New Media at Kunsthochschule Kassel and in Sound at Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design. She is currently a Lecturer in Post-Digital Lutherie at the University of Arts Linz.