CV

Marlo Jessica De Lara

School of Fine Art, History of Art & Cultural Studies, University of Leeds,
University Road, Leeds, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom LS2 9JT
website : marlodelara.info
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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 and film. Under the Marlo Eggplant alias, my textural compositions aim to blur the definitions of (un)intentional sound and music, performing and speaking internationally in Australia, Europe, and the United States.

 

Education

 

Completing 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, 2013 from University of Essex. Associates Degree in Liberal Arts, 1995; Bachelors in Theatre/Performance with a concentration in Legal Theory, 1999 from Bard College at Simon’s Rock, Great Barrington, Massachusetts, USA.

 

Artist Residencies/Workshops/Curation

  • 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.
  • 2009 to present – Panel discussions and performances at Victoria Noise fest (BC), Norcal Noisefest (US), Denver Noise Fest (US), Titwrench Festival (US), This is Not Art festival (AUS), the extended programme at Colour Out of Space Festival (UK), Threadfest (UK), Catalyst: Festival of Creativity, Electric Spring (UK), Fort Process Festival (UK), and Tusk Festival (UK).
  • 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 programme by independent American filmmakers concerning the growing awareness around racialized police brutality in contemporary America.
  • 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.
  • 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 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.
  • April 2018 – Co- curation and performance in Sound|Space|Response, Left Bank Leeds.
  • August 2018 – Artist in Residence at FLUCTU-8 Festival 2018, Derby.
  • September 2018 – Participation in Wysing Arts Residency with Sonic Cyberfeminisms cohort.

 

Films/Installation/Commission work

  • ‘Creative Process Cartographies’ (2018) – zine and recorded excerpts. Spaces of Making, Goldsmiths’ Fringe and Music Underground Group. 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.
  • ‘malay/taos/RP/PI’ (2017) – sound/film/installation in regard to ongoing presence of mass deaths, political unrest, and haunting of the Philippines. Left Bank, Leeds.
  • ‘An International Call and Response: Ladyz in Noyz’ (2016) – 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, Gateshead.
  • UnCommons Art / Music / Technology Events in Unusual Spaces #2. 8 December, 2016 – 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.
  • ‘(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.
  • ‘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.

 

Conference Presentations

  • ‘Solidarity with Sonic Sisters: Tales of Acrimony in Resistance [standpoint paper] ‘, Sonic Cyberfeminisms, University of Lincoln, 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
  • ‘Beyond Theory: Intersectionality in Peminist filmmaking’ – Feminist Readings 2: THEORY, PRACTICE AND POLITICS OF READING TODAY, 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
  • ‘A Psychoanalytic Approach to Hybridity’ – Beyond Binaries: Exploring the Psychosocial Conference – UEL, December 2013

Panel Talks

  • Doing Sonic Cyberfeminisms: strategies of sonic resistance, 2 Dec 2016, Goldsmiths University
  • Panel Discussion: Women in Art, 7 September 7, 2017, Left Bank Leeds
  • Racism in Queer Spaces Discussion, 23 March, 2018, Leeds Queer Film Festival

Publications

Relevant Employment Experience

  • June 2003 to Present
    Curator and Organizer of Ladyz in Noyz collective. LIN is a feminist DIY virtual open collective that celebrates musicians and sound artists who are women.
  • September 2017 to Present
    Co-organizer of Women’s Paths Research Group. The multidisciplinary group aims to bridge the gap between women’s issues in the community and feminist scholarship in the academy. Focusing on local and global gender inequality and intersectional feminist perspectives, our year long programme combines performances, film screenings and community-based activism with innovative academic scholarship that addresses issues affecting women today.
  • September 2016 to July 2018
    Co-convenor of Special Interest Group – Psychoanalysis and Film, British Association of Film, Television, and Screen Studies (BAFTSS). The group of academics and practitioners focuses on developing discussions regarding these theories and relevant and adjacent concepts such as psychoanalysis, psychosocial studies, affect, trauma, subjectivities, and (post)memory.
  • September 2016 to January 2017
    Graduate Teaching Assistant/Seminar Leader – Keywords and Introduction to Cultural Analysis I,
    Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies (FAHACS), University of Leeds. Supervisors: John Mowitt, Barbara Engh, and Claudia Sternberg.
  • September 2015 to January 2017
    Graduate Teaching Assistant/Seminar Leader – Introduction to Cultural History,
    FAHACS, University of Leeds. Supervisor: Claudia Sternberg.
  • January to June 2016
    A/V Assistant/Project Intern (IGNITE) – Curatorial Consortium Leeds,
    Cultural Analysis, Theory and History (CentreCATH)/FAHACS/ Pavilion, University of Leeds.
  • November 2015 to November 2016
    Working Group Member – Events and Diversity, Yorkshire Sound Women Network. Currently an occasional instructor in Performance skills and Music Hardware.
  • April to July 2015
    A/V Assistant/Project Intern (IGNITE) – Istanbul +/in Leeds,
    CentreCATH/FAHACS/ Pavilion, University of Leeds.
  • September 2013- February 2014
    Graduate Teaching Assistant – Popular Film, Literature, and Television: A Psychoanalytic Approach, The Unconscious: Psychoanalysis, Culture, and Society – Freud, CPS, University of Essex.
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