Darsha Hewitt (b. 1982) is a Canadian new media artist known for her examinations of communication technology in the domestic sphere and her use of DIY aesthetics and practices as an artistic method. She makes electromechanical sound installations, drawings, how-to videos and experimental performances with handmade audio electronics. She works in the Faculty of Media at the Bauhaus University, she recently held a guest professorship in the New Media department at the Kunsthochschule Kassel and is presently a fellow at the Graduate School at the Art University of Berlin.

She recently presented her work at: Elektra Festival (CA), Halle14 (DE), Modern Art Oxford (UK), WRO Media Art Biennale (PL), FACT (UK), CTM Festival (DE), and LEAP Berlin. Her performance of 20 Oscillators in 20 has been written about in Hacker forum Hack-A-Day and Create Digital Music. This work was also a field research subject in the Music, Digitization, Mediation: Towards Interdisciplinary Music Studies project based in the Faculty of Music at Oxford University.

She has been awarded several commissions and production stipends from Canadian, German and EU funded Programs such as The Art and Civic Media’ program at the „Art and Civic Media“ of the Innovation Incubator at Leuphana University of Lüneburg and an International Production Stipend from The Edith-Russ-Haus for Media Art, Oldenburg (DE). In 2013 she was nominated for the Marler European Sound Art Award (DE) and completed a Fellowship in the Sound Art program at Hochschule für bildende künste, Braunschweig (DE).

Darsha is an avid technologist and educator. Her do-it-yourself electronics workshops are an integral part of her discipline and are presented internationally. In 2013 she founded the DARDI_2000 Mentorship Program in partnership with The Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music (STEIM) in Amsterdam.

M. KARDINAL & THE KANADAGANS worked together in 2014. The result of this collaboration is the video work TSCHAIKA which was discussed in detail in the French online video magazine VIDEOFOCUS STIGMART10, and screened in New Zealand, Italy and different locations in Berlin. After a two year break they decided to meet again and celebrate the beauty of their energy in an audio-visual live improvisation in the heart of Kreuzberg/Neukölln at SPEKTRUM.

NOT ALL THOSE WHO WANDER ARE LOST is an audio-visual journey through the invisible movement of urban landscapes and their sounds. Created from found footage of urban environments, the running magnetic tape will be manipulated analogue with a modified video mixer. The visual motifs created by M. KARDINAL sway into the  humming-buzzing drone sounds of THE KANADAGANS and vice versa. 

Dealing with the aspects of intuition, distortion, minimalism and monotony the audio-visual cooperation leaves the established paths of perception, finding the hypnotic pulse of urban landscapes channeling its vibration through the malfunction of the machine. Exploring the medium through malfunction as a homage to the poetry of failure. A cathartic wander through humanity in the machine, and a tribute to the emotive – often flawed – feedback of the human mindscape. Gleaning and wafting within an intuitive communication that rises from the mutual submersion and a subliminal sense for the playing and phrasings of each other‘s sonic and visual counterpart. Not all those who wander are lost.

M. KARDINAL is a visual artist working with photography, moving images and multimedial installations. Driven by a long experience with experimental photography and her preference for analog working methods she started to work with obsolete video technique, circuit bent machines and toy cameras in 2012. Her work has been internationally exhibited, screened and discussed including the Anthology Film Archive in NYC (USA), Festival Alto Vicentino (Italy), SI Fest OFF (Italy), Wellington Underground Film Festival (New Zealand), International Short Film Festival Detmold (Germany), European Month of Photography Berlin (Germany), Scope Sessions Berlin (Germany) among many others.

THE KANADAGANS are a Freeform-Drone-Duo consisting of HUEY WALKER and BASSBEES, formerly founded in 2012 as THE SPLENDID GHETTO PIPERS. They perform well-tempered noise, experimental scapes and meandering drones.