Info

About Darsha

Darsha Hewitt (CA/DE) is an interdisciplinary sound artist that critically investigates the materiality of music and sound, (planned) obsolescence and the practices of technology that consumer society throws away. She makes sound/electromechanical installations, drawings, audio-visual works, how-to videos, sculptural installations and performative workshops.

With a media archeological approach, she deconstructs generations of obsolete technology to trace out systems of power, economy and control inherent throughout technological infrastructures. Her works simultaneously demystify the confounding inner systems at play within our technology while transforming it into unexpected sonic experiences that raise questions about our technological entanglements and their implications on humans and ecology.

Alongside reverse engineering, restoration and aesthetic experiments with decomposing music technology, she connects with a diverse range of technical communities, including retired engineers and technicians as a means to learn disappearing hands-on techniques that she integrates into her studio research and shares within the art/technology milieu. Her signature DIY electronics and experimental approach to sound pedagogy have been profiled in forums such as Chaos Computer Congress, Make: Magazine and recently in Garnet Hertz’s book ‘Art + DIY Electronics’ (MIT Press, 2023).

Hewitt’s work is presented internationally, with recent exhibitions at Ars Electronica (AU), Zagreb Museum of Contemporary Art (HZ), Hong Kong City Hall, Halle14 – Centre for Contemporary Art (DE), MU Artspace (NL), The Museum of Art and Design (NYC), Hartware Medien Kunstverein (DE), Gaitée Lyrique (FR), Deichtorhallen centre for contemporary (DE), Kampnagel (DE), Modern Art Oxford (UK), Transmediale / CTM Festival Berlin (DE) and WRO Media Art Biennale (PL).

She has worked as an Artistic Associate in Media Art and Design at the Bauhaus University, Guest Faculty Member in Sound Studies and Sonic Arts at the Berlin University of the Arts and has held guest professorships in New Media at Kunsthochschule Kassel and Sound at Karlsruhe University of Art and Design. Most recently she was a Founding Lab Fellow at Institute of Digital Sciences Austria with Ars Electronica.