I am the first Indigenous artist to use Machine Learning, a technique of using algorithms to process large data sets with statistical models, in artwork and the first to present ontological arguments in the Artificial Intelligence field. ![]() These throughlines are all related to each other and have led me to the academic work of my PhD and work with Indigenous protocols and artificial intelligence. The throughlines in my work are sonification, truth and belief, and Lakota ontology and epistemology. My research practice often engages with technologies like AI and Machine Learning, through a belief that Lakota epistemology is done through artwork, especially performative or wearable artwork. My discipline is rooted in sound, composition, and listening, with the understanding that listening occurs through materials or systems which sometimes do not involve audio, but can be purely written or sculptural. Lakota epistemologies require a commitment to contextual ethics, which demands that the reality of locations be folded into artworks and into knowledge. My interdisciplinary practice spans sound, video, performance, instrument building, wearable artwork, poetry, lectures, books, interactive installation, and more, with site-specificity always pulsing throughout the work. I create systems that engage the whole body in order, imagining new protocols which interrogate past, present, and future Lakota philosophies. I ground my practice in a Lakota philosophy which articulates a clear relationship between the body and knowledge-making, which has led me to a listening-based, performance-centered artistic practice. ![]() Currently, she is a 2019 Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Scholar, and a 2020 Tulsa Artist Fellow. Kite has also published in several journals and magazines, including in The Journal of Design and Science (MIT Press), where the award winning article, “Making Kin with Machines,” co-authored with Jason Lewis, Noelani Arista, and Archer Pechawis, was featured. For the inaugural 2019 Toronto Art Biennial, Kite, with Althea Thauberger, produced an installation, Call to Arms, which features audio and video recordings of their rehearsals with Her Majesty’s Canadian Ship (HMCS) York, which also consisted of a live performance with the conch shell sextet, who played the four musical scores composed by Kite. Recently, Kite has been developing a body interface for movement performances, carbon fibre sculptures, immersive video and sound installations, as well as co-running the experimental electronic imprint, Unheard Records. Kite’s scholarship and practice highlights contemporary Lakota epistemologies through research-creation, computational media, and performance. Kite aka Suzanne Kite is an Oglála Lakȟóta 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 candidate at Concordia University.
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