Lyn Goeringer

Drawing on critical theory, sound studies, and emergent media, Lyn Goeringer’s work focuses on how we are impacted by power, and in particular, how power influences our relationship to space and place in the larger context of the Everyday. Her compositional interest is one of allegory which seeks to outline and illustrate spatial power dynamics. Our bodies are the site where we engage with power within a complex theater of rules and social expectations. For this reason, her works often include literal physical components such as instruments that rely on movement and gesture in performance, or site specific installations that invite the visitor to move through them in order to experience their entire soundscape. Phenomenologically, space and place are made concrete through by visible elements. In her work, she uses light and video to demarcate the visual cues of the physical world that she am exploring, using it as a way to guide the audience towards the meaning within an abstract world of sound.

She studied music composition at the University of Rhode Island under Geoffrey Gibbs, Joe Parillo and Eliane Aberdam. From 2002-2005 she attended Bard College, where her works were guided by artists from many different disciplines. Due to the unusual structure at Bard, she was able to engage in regular studio visits from several different disciplines including film/video, writing, painting, sculpture and music/sound. It was during this time that she was able to begin seriously study electronics under the tutelage of Bob Beilecki. In May of 2011 she received her Ph. D. in Computer Music and Multimedia Composition at Brown University, where her research focused on public space, infrastructure and the Everyday. Her dissertation committee members included Todd Winkler, Butch Rovan, Ed Osborn, Paul Myoda, and Atau Tanaka.

While attending Bard College in New York, Goeringer lived part of the year in Seattle, WA where she engaged in the local improvisation and music composition scene. She composed many acoustic and electronic works during her time there, and laid the groundwork for her future collaborative projects with choreographer Jürg Koch.

Goeringer held a Visiting Assistant Professor of Electronic Music and Digital Arts position in the TIMARA program at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music from 2012-2105, and taught film and video at the University of Rhode Island in 2011-2012.

She is currently working as an Assistant Professor of Composition and Film Studies at Michigan State University, spending equal time in Denver, Colorado; New York, NY; and Lansing, MI, where she lives with her two cats Rinchen and Norbu.