interdisciplinary artist | composer | performer
Sean Clute is an interdisciplinary artist, composer, and performer. His work has been presented at venues such as The Kitchen, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, MuseumsQuartier Wien, ISEA (New Mexico, Dubai, Montreal), Shenzhen Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Autonomous Mutant Festival. Currently, Clute is the Co-Director of the Rural Noise Ensemble, Semilimial Research Group, and is a Professor of Media Art at Vermont State University.
Sean Clute is an interdisciplinary artist, composer and performer. Clute’s creations embrace hybridization of media and interactivity to explore forms of interdisciplinary expression. By developing custom software and hardware, Clute experiments with technologies and methodologies to construct audiovisual instruments, sensor-based interfaces and computer generative processes. Collaboration, a key element in his work, is employed through partnerships with choreographers, musicians, scientists, writers and artists. His work can be experienced as exhibitions, performances, screenings and events that often blend absurdity with logic, chaos with harmony, intuition with reason.
Currently, co-directs the the Rural Noise Ensemble, a collective of Vermont-based artists, musicians and makers that employ the aesthetics of noise as a critical framework for interrogating reality. The group, founded by composer Otto Muller, uses scrap wood and rusty nails, interactive electronics, amateur performers and whatever else is present to make sound. Performances, installations and events have included Duet for Tree Branch and Oil Drum (2020), Notweed (2019), Composition #1 (2016) and Cutting Wood (2016).
Clute’s solo work spans many disciplines. Some of his audiovisual performances include Winter (2019), Mud Season (2019), Mythos (2012) and Big Timber (CHOP, CHOP!) (2008). His installations have included exhibitions in galleries, skyscrapers and barns such as Architextonic Flow (2018), Dancing Ellipses (2016), GIHON (2016), The ( ) Between with Al Larsen (2016) and Memory Reset and the Great Modesto Bouncy Thing (2015). Collaborations with choreographers include In No Time (2014) directed by Polly Motley and video artist Molly Davies and ANIMAL (2015) by Hanna Satterlee. Collaborative sound and video work include Neighboring Towns (2019) by Heather Theresa Clark and Pauline Jennings, Mutable Spirals of Ascension (2018) by Jessica Gomula and Pauline Jennings.
Clute’s work has been presented internationally at venues such as The Kitchen, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, The Museum of Natural History, REDCAT Theater, Umspannwerk Kreuzberg (Germany), Shabla Solar Eclipse Festival (Bulgaria), ISEA2014 – Dubai, Shenzhen Museum of Contemporary Art and the Autonomous Mutant Festival. Awards, residencies, and recognition include the Fulbright Award, Meet the Composer’s Metlife Creative Connections Grant, Zellerbach Family Foundation Grant, Frog Peak Collective Experimental Music Award, Djerassi Artist-In-Residency, and MuseumsQuartier Wien Artist in Residency, Austria.
Clute has lectured on intermedia art at colleges and universities including the ICST Institute for Computer Music and Sound, Zurich, Switzerland, Institut Intermédií, Prague, Czech Republic, Pécsi Tudományegyetem Művészeti Kar, Pécs, Hungry, Universität für angewandte Kunst Wien, Austria, University of Arizona, Mills College and University of California Berkeley. He is currently an Associate Professor of Fine and Performing Arts and director of MARS (Media Arts Research Studio) at the University of Northern Vermont – Johnson.
Clute graduated with an MFA in Electronic Music and Recording Media from Mills College where he studied with Pauline Oliveros, Chris Brown, John Bischoff, Maggi Payne, and Les Stuck. Additionally, Sean was awarded scholarships to attend The Kitchen Summer Institute in New York City (2003) and Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Colorado (2007, 2008, 2012) where he studied with Ben Fry, Golan Levin, Casey Reas and Andrea Wallace. Sean holds a BA in Music from the University of New Mexico where he studied with Christopher Shultis and Gene Youngblood.
Currently, Clute lives with his wife and two daughters in Vermont where he occasionally attempts to cross-country ski.