Steve Bates is an artist and musician living in Montréal. The sonic is the starting point for his projects, which are evocations of communication networks and systems, or expressions of spatial and temporal experience. He frequently uses sound material that is site-specific in an attempt to uncover place and how the sonic affects our experience of site. Time can be measured, stretched, pulled at, ignored, and extended.
Current projects include solo exhibitions and ongoing collaborations with Douglas Moffat as Field Sound, including Okta, a multi-channel, permanent, outdoor sound installation commissioned by the City of Toronto, and Lanterner, a music duo with Marc-Alexandre Reinhardt. He releases music, both solo and collaboratively. His work has been exhibited in Canada, the United States, Europe and most recently, Senegal. Bates works in the field, on the air, in museological/gallery and performance contexts. These shifting territories reflect the content of his practice.