Robert Blatt (b. 1984 in Anaheim, CA) is a composer, artist, performer, and writer.
His practice explores expanded situations that reevaluate sound and listening through environment, community, and language. His body of work ranges from experimental music to installation, new media, performance, photography, poetry, print/bookmaking, and video, alongside some simply hard-to-pin-down occurrences in the everyday.
His work has been presented at 2220 Arts + Archives (CA), Art in Odd Places (NY), Athens Institute for Contemporary Art (GA), Bank Street Arts (UK), Centrala (UK), Co-Incidence Festival (MA), Darmstädter Ferienkurse (DE), Electric Nights (GR), Hundred Years Gallery (UK), Ideas of Noise Festival (UK), Instituto Internacional (ES), KM28 (DE), Kunstraum Walcheturm (CH), Miami Light Project (FL), Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (CA), The NewBridge Project (UK), OnCurating Project Space (CH), Petersburg Art Space (DE), Studio Loos (NL), Subtropics (FL), toitoiDROME (BE), University of Cambridge (UK), University of Huddersfield (UK), Villa Merkel (DE), Wayward Music Series (WA), Worm (NL), Zentrale (AT), and others, as well as a variety of open/non-institutional settings and situations.
He has received a Music/Sound Fellowship from Akademie Schloss Solitude (DE), as well as grants and residencies from Initiative for Digital Exploration of Arts and Sciences (CA), Jack Straw New Media Gallery (WA), Regional Arts & Culture Council (OR), and Vrije Academie GEMAK (NL).
Recordings of his music include The Free Air (C84 cassette tape and book w/ score and essay by Blatt) on Andromache Records and on releases by Audition Records, iii Editions, Zeromoon, and others. In addition to his book-length collection of text scores, Beach Bums, published by Much Too Much Noise, his work has appeared in a variety of print and online projects, such as The Center for Deep Listening, Neural, Rotations / Poetic Research Bureau Editions, Schlosspost, Small Projects for Coming Communities, Solitude Journal, and Synzine.
Collaborative projects include with filmmaker Sílvia das Fadas; scientist and musician Carla Cao; aritsts Ana Smaragda Lemnaru, Joel Ong, and Jon Paden; and composers Jorge Gomez Abrante, Gustavo Matamoros, David Pocknee, Mark So, Leo Svirsky, Maya Verlaak, and Michael Winter. Additionally, his work has been performed by and/or in collaborative performance situations with many different musicians, which beside the aforementioned includes, among others, Michael Baldwin, Dario Calderone, Erik Carlson, John Dombroski, Maya Felixbrodt, Corey Fogel, Ben Glas, Marie Guilleray, Louis d'Heudieres, Joseph Kudirka, Yun Lee, Steve Parker, Michael Sattelberger, Sepand Shahab, Elliot Simpson, Caspar Sonnet, Greg Stuart, Stefan Thut, Manfred Werder, Luke Wilkins, and James Yeary, as well as ensembles such as Asko|Schönberg, Curious Chamber Players, Extradition, The Living Earth Show, and Modelo62.
He co-founded and directed Inlets Foundation for Experimental Practices in Miami, which typically focussed on realizing performances of experimental music in unconventional locations and situations. He was a member of the experimental music and performance art collectives Acid Police Noise Ensemble and the New Fordist Organization in the Netherlands and Unused Lexical Variable, a composer collective, in Seattle. Additional curatorially aligned projects he developed include Works on Paper: Experiments in Language and Sound with David Abel at Passages Bookshop (OR) and Listening Experiments with Gust Burns at Gallery 1412 (WA). He also co-authored the yearlong twitter-based notation project @textscoreaday. Lastly, he is a frequent performer of works by other artists, primarily from the so-called experimental music tradition, with guitar, objects, voice, electronics, body, etc.
He has been a visiting artist and/or guest lecturer at institutions such as The Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (CZ), Conservatorium van Amsterdam (NL), Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro (BR), Guildhall School of Music and Drama (UK), Parsons School of Design at The New School (NY), Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance (UK), University of California, San Diego (CA), and University of Georgia (GA).
His artist's books, scores, and editions can be found in public and private collections, such as at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Library, Letterform Archive, UC Irvine, Colorado College, and Akademie Schloss Solitude. Additionally, a significant amount of this work is available from Motto Distribution in Berlin and Passages Bookshop in Portland, Oregon.
He holds a Master of Music in composition from the Royal Conservatoire, The Hague and a Bachelor of Music in guitar performance from the University of Washington.
He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
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