John Roach is an interdisciplinary artist from Queens, New York whose installations and performances translate objects and materials into unexpected forms of sensory perception. The work has been influenced by the overlapping processes of science and art since 2014 when he created Shrinktrap an absurdist exploration of sounds emerging from materials in transformation. Recent projects have embraced the impact of numerous collaborators: scientists, musicians, writers, coders, and glass blowers, who have added more variables to an unstable and alchemical mixture. The result is a series of works that explore issues of genetics, ecology, and the degradation of language in the era of Donald Trump.
Recent work includes Symbiotext a sound installation in 2018 that creates sound poetry by mining the genetic data of two organisms with an unusual symbiotic relationship: the spotted salamander and green algae. Frozen Words Hot Air in 2017 was a performance for two glass blowers and three musicians at Urban Glass, Brooklyn that was a mashup of Gargantua and Pantagruel and the verbal bombast of President Trump. Gene Splicing, performed at the 9e2 Festival of Art and Technology in Seattle in 2016, used the DNA data of two percussionists to guide the creative decisions of two glass blowers as well as the performance instructions of the musicians. At the Marble House Artist Residency he worked with local historians as well as a group of children in the project Stone Cold Groove to explore the historical and sonic resonances of the local quarries in Dorset Vermont.
John received a BA in English from Rutgers University and an MFA in painting from Hunter College. He is a full time Faculty at Parsons School of Design where he teaches a wide range of courses that address the aesthetic, spatial, emotional, psychological and political impact of sound.
