Synaptic Island: A Soundwalk led by IPA Fellow Kii Kang
Saturday, August 2, 2025
Free Event,
Registration Required
8-10pm
The Block House,
Governors Island
Photo by 2025 IPA Fellow David Johnson.
Synaptic Island: A Soundwalk is a site-specific soundwalk on Paggank/Governors Island. Titled in homage to composer Maryanne Amacher’s Synaptic Island (1992), the soundwalk reimagines Governors Island as a resonant nervous system—firing with memory, bringing back absent beings into temporary presences. The composition makes audible the absences of beings that haunt in sonic form. Like unidentified bones unearthed from a stratified past, these sonic remnants are reanimated as embodied (virtual) presences, felt through the eardrums, the soles of the feet. Continuously shifting between the “real” and the artificial, the composition weaves these spectral fragments into a hybrid, cyborg-like sonic body.
The walk on 8/2 will be followed by a performance by MIZU in collaboration with the artist.
Available spots for this event are very limited. Register here.
Once you have received an email confirming your attendance, please plan to take the 8:15 PM ferry on the day from the Battery Maritime Building in Manhattan to Governors Island - arrive at least 10 minutes early. From the ferry landing, walk to the Block House, which takes around 10 minutes. We will hand out instructions for the walk in front of the house. Ferries leave from Governors Island to Manhattan every 30 minutes, with the last ferry off the island at 10:00pm.
Please note that the event schedule is contingent on the weather.
Kii Kang is a digital artist, architect, programmer, and a "hacker" based between Brooklyn, New York and Seoul, South Korea. Working primarily with web-based media and sound, his practice explores the reassembly of virtualities, embodied semiotics, and meaning-making beyond language. His work has been presented at Nam June Paik Memorial House (Seoul, South Korea), Htmlles Festival (Montreal, Canada), and Wiesner Gallery (Cambridge, USA). Most recently at the 2024 Toronto Biennale of Art, he performed Memex Acusmatica at—a live sound performance intertwining live coding, synthetic voices, and soundscape composition into a layered exploration of sonic and textual perception.
“Frequently gorgeous, at times unsettling, and constantly in flux” (Pitchfork), MIZU explores themes of transformation and the infinite possibilities of self through her singular cello playing and daring performing. Trained as a cellist at Juilliard, her experimental practice sees her transforming self-recorded explorations on her instrument into bold and distinct soundscapes. Her works 4 | 2 | 3, Forest Scenes, and Distant Intervals received critical praise and attention from platforms such as Pitchfork, The FADER, NOWNESS Asia, Bandcamp Daily, The New York Times, New Sounds, Stereogum, and Them.
