Matthew Cardinal is an amiskwaciy (Edmonton) based musician, composer, and sound designer. His textural modular synthesizer compositions, featuring a combination of analogue and digital techniques, are vast, sparkling and blissful.
As a composer, Cardinal has produced scores for The National Film Board of Canada, television, film, animation and installations. He has been commissioned by the Edmonton Arts Council, Indigenous Tourism Alberta, The Globe & Mail, and Travel Alberta. In 2020 Cardinal’s band nêhiyawak’s album was shortlisted for the Polaris Music Prize, nominated for the Juno Award for Indigenous Album of the Year and won the Edmonton Music Prize. The same year, Cardinal’s solo album Asterisms was released on Arts & Crafts.
Stephanie Kuse is a Treaty 6 based media artist and designer. Utilizing 3D-animation, digitally produced abstract textures and altered nature footage, Stephanie creates lush visual worlds that blend organic form and movement with vibrant synthetic colours and crisp digital elements. Equal parts nostalgic and technical, her work has been viewed across North America and beyond in the form of projections for live performance, interactive installations, visualizers and music videos.
As a duo, Cardinal and Kuse have collaborated on a number of A/V installations and toured across Canada, including performances of Asterisms Live at MUTEK Montréal and Winnipeg’s Send + Receive Festival. Cardinal’s sonic landscapes and Kuse’s visual worlds merge to conjure glimmering, drifting atmospheres where traces of nature remain half-hidden beneath layers of transformation. Since first touring Asterisms Live, both artists have expanded their individual practices, bringing new depth to their work. At Spectra 2, they will present the latest evolution of this collaborative performance.