Andy Slater
Andy Slater (b. 1975 Milford, CT) is a blind Chicago-based media artist, writer, performer, and Disability advocate/loudmouth. Andy holds a Masters in Sound Arts and Industries from Northwestern University and a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He is a 2022 United States Artists Fellow, 2022-2023 Leonardo Crip Tech Incubator Fellow, and a 2018 3Arts/Bodies of Work Fellow at the University of Illinois Chicago.
He is a teaching artist with the Atlantic Center for the Arts’ Young SoundSeekers program, Midwest Society For Acoustic Ecology, and Creative Users’ Sensory Shift program. Andy’s current work focuses on advocacy for accessible art and technology, Alt-Text for sound and image, the phonology of the blind body, spatial audio for extended reality, and sound design for film, dance, and digital scent design.
Andy was the feature on an episode of BBC Outlook in 2023. In 2020 Andy was acknowledged for his art by the New York Times in their article, “28 Ways To Learn About Disability Culture.” His research on Crypto Acoustic Auditory Non-Hallucination was published in McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern volume 61. Andy’s audio description production for Alison O’Daniel’s film,” The Tuba Thieves,” was featured at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. He was music director for the 2022-2023 Lit y Luz festival in Mexico City. His sound description of Molly Joyce’s, “Side By Side,” was commissioned by Carnegie Hall in 2022.
Andy has been published in Array: The International Computer Music Journal, Curating Access: Disability Art Activism and Creative Accommodation (Routledge 2023), the journal English Studies in Canada, the Chicago Reader, There Plant Eyes (Godin 2021), and Jane magazine.
He has exhibited and performed at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Fonoteca Nacional in Mexico City, the Contemporary Jewish Museum San Francisco, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, American Writers and Publishers conference, Transmediale Festival Berlin, Kinetic Light’s Wired,” Technosonics Festival University of Virginia, Ian Potter Museum of Art Melbourne, Meyer Sound Lab SF, Critical Distance Toronto, Gallery 400 Chicago, Experimental Sound Studio, the Art Institute of Chicago, and Inclusive Dance Festival.
Andy is a member of the 3Arts Disability Culture Leadership Initiative (DCLI), New Art City accessibility board, and the founder of the Society for Visually Impaired Sound Artists.
And, last but not least, he is a member of the acid-soul band, the Velcro Lewis Group, and performs solo as electronic melting pot, Calculator Font.
Profile caption: Andy Slater, TV Dad Profile image by: Photo by Tressa Slater
Still from 'While in My Care' video 2020
Featured Artworks
witnesses - Invisible Ink series
invisible InkWitnesses
Witnesses 6’ x 4’ oil on canvas 2021 In the foreground and at the bottom right corner of this painting is a splintering wooden stake. Under each splintered piece is a darker shade of the gray and brown wood. There are numerous splinters up and down the stake making it look like rigid cornsilk. There is a metal chain with tiny links tied around the middle of the stake . The chain leads behind the stake and into the center of the painting. The tarnished metal chain is rolled around a painted stone. The stone is in the shape of a large turtle and is colored like an Easter egg: multiple pastels with tangental color lines. It holds the chain down to the cement ground. The taught chain casts no shadow. The bright rock is the focal point of this painting. Its presence is undeniable as it contrasts the gray sky and ground. There is no definite horizon and the gray dusty cement blends with the overcast sky. Directly above the rock at the top of the painting floats a fuzzy small white square shaped object. It appears to be far off in the distance but the unconfirmed horizon makes it hard to judge.
Roadblock
Roadblock
A photo of a computer screen that shows an open session in Max/MSP. Spread across the screen is a series of one line text. The text is repeated in 2 groups. Each text line is stacked atop each other. White text on a black background resembles a plastic strip from a label maker. The text of the top groups reads, “Max is not accessible” and is repeated over a dozen times. The lower group’s text read, “This shouldn’t be so hard.” This text is repeated over a dozen times. The text lines are staggered to look like a staircase
How many fingers Am I Holding Up?
Front cover of the comic book,How Many Fingers Am I Holding Up? Written by andy slater and illustrated by Steve Krakow