KATIE PATERSON

That show featured Vatnajökull (the sound of), which connected a microphone embedded in an Icelandic glacier to audio equipment and a mobile phone line, allowing callers from anywhere in the world to listen in real time to the slow melting of the glacier. It was shown with another work that was equally cogent in its conceptual basis yet deeply poetic in effect, Earth-Moon-Earth (Moonlight Sonata Reflected from the Surface of the Moon). Taking Beethoven’s familiar notes and transcribing them into Morse codes that were sent via radio waves to bounce off the moon, Paterson ended up with returning signals that were degraded by the cratered lunar surface in random yet subtly haunting ways—a Moonlight Sonata altered and reconstituted by the moon itself.

Born in 1981 in Glasgow, Katie Paterson received her BA from Edinburgh College of Art in 2004 and her MFA from the Slade School of Fine Art, London, in 2007. She has exhibited in solo shows at James Cohan Gallery, New York (2011); Modern Art Oxford, Oxford (2008); Albion Gallery, London (2008); and Matthew Bown Gallery, London (2007). She has also been selected for inclusion in important international group shows such as “Space. About a Dream,” Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2011); “Cage Mix: Sculpture & Sound,” BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, UK (2010); “Lifeforms,” Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm (2009); Performa 09, New York (2009); “Universal Code,” The Power Plant, Toronto (2009); and “Altermodern: Tate Triennial,” Tate Britain, London (2009).

Katie Paterson holds a John Florent Stone Fellowship at Edinburgh College of Art and is the Leverhulme Artist in Residence in the Astrophysics Group at the University College London. In 2008, she was awarded the first annual Creative 30 Award, created by Volvo to recognize Britain’s brightest young talent across various creative fields, including art, design, fashion, and music. Katie Paterson currently lives and works in Berlin, Germany.

Courtesy PKM Gallery