Jessika Khazrik (b* 1991, Beirut, based between Berlin and Beirut) is an artist, composer, technologist, writer and DJ whose indisciplinary practice ranges from performance to machine learning, ecotoxicology, cryptography, visual art and history of science and music. Khazrik holds BAs in Linguistics and in Theatre from the Lebanese University (LB) and a MS in Art, Culture and Technology from MIT (US) where she was awarded the Ada Lovelace prize.
Scavenging sounds from online and on-site detritus, trans-millennial compendia of healing, and militarised ads and technologies, Jessika Khazrik’s sonic scapes intimately investigate the ecological and technopolitical premises of the economies we inhabit or forget. Often born out of vocoded collaborations with multi-modal neural networks skewed with incomputable Arabic rhythms, Khazrik festively uses spaces of congregation to search for locally entrenched universalisms that could collectively respond to the dystopias of our current times. In parallel to performing live, teaching speech synthesis and electronic music production, and producing sound installations, Khazrik also composes scores for film, video games and performances and writes about music. She has composed and produced scores for GEOCINEMA, Johanna Hedva, Ahmad Beydoun and Maxim Gorki Theatre, among others.
She has performed her solo work at Rewire Festival (NL), Haus der Kulturen der Welt (DE), Ter-raforma (IT), CTM Festival (DE), Ballroom Blitz (LB), ALL (CN), SONICA (SI), Silent Green (DE), Les Urbaines (CH), Theater Der Welt (DE), in quarries, in her house and in secret locations, among others. Her multi-channel sound installations and sound performances have been commissioned by Para Site (HK), Kunsthalle Wien (AT), the Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions Center LACE (US), Muzeum Sztuki w Łodzi (PL), ar/ge kunst (IT), LUMA Foundation (CH) and Museum of Modern Art Warsaw (PL), among others. Her essays and short stories have been published in edited anthologies, Bidayat Journal (LB), Zweikommasieben (CH), MadaMasr (EG), Kohl Journal (LB), The Funambulist (FR), Almodon (LB) and Ibraaz (US) to name a few.
In 2012-13, she was a fellow at Home Workspace Program in Ashkal Alwan with Matthias Lilienthal, in 2018-19, a fellow at the Digital Earth and in 2020, guest faculty at HfK Bremen and the editor of the International Solidarity Page at the 17teshreen/October17 monthly publication. She is currently a 2021-22 fellow at SHAPE PLATFORM for music, a 2022-23 artist fellow at the performance organization at If I Can’t Dance and a Principal Investigator at the ‘Research on the Arts Programme’ by the Arab Center for Social Sciences (ACSS) and the Arab Fund for Art and Cul-ture (AFAC).
