Audio Art
60 Sec Radio 2023: Third Place
Gone: Our Intangible Losses
From the Jury’s Comments:
“From the first seconds, a profound nostalgia emerges. A continous flow of memories arise. Katie Semro knows how to stir what’s buried deep within and hammers it down with precision, method and beauty.” Boris Chassagne
for the exhibition “What We Make of This World” by Melissa Shaak and Sylvia Vander Sluis
Fountain Street Gallery, Boston, April 6-30, 2023
From the Boston Globe Review:
“These aren’t simple monologues; Semro interleaves each artist’s reflections, collaging strands of thought together. Gaps open; meaning ripples and morphs.” - Cate McQuaid
This is an adaptation of The Little Scientist graphic novel in spatial audio.
Trust Me, I’m a Doctor
Audio Installation, exhibited at Sound Scene Fest at the Hirshhorn Smithsonian Museum, Washington D.C. June 4-5, 2022.
Women are disproportionately affected by chronic illnesses, with one in every four women having an autoimmune disease. Daily life for these women can be a struggle, but their symptoms are often hard to treat. Walk in the shoes of nearly ¼ of all women by journeying through a sonically sculptured corridor. Through the layering and fragmentation of real-life stories from women across the country, Trust Me I’m a Doctor examines the struggles these women face in their search for healing.
Trust me, I’m a Doctor also aired on Radiophrenia, a temporary art radio station broadcasting from the Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow, Scotland, on August 26, 2023.
Mother Mine Project
This is an international participatory art project where I’ve collected recordings from 75 people in 30 countries talking about their mothers and who they are because of their mothers.
For each voice, I create a non-narrated, sound-rich audio snapshot which becomes part of the Mother Mine podcast. More than half of the pieces are from people from abroad, and they feature a huge variety of voices.
I’ve taken this project from inception to execution and done all of the audio work, as well as running a successful crowdfunding campaign, and recruiting domestic US and international participants.
Transmission Times
This project documented the first year of the pandemic through audio diaries from people around the world.
I created weekly episodes starting the first week in April 2020 and finishing at end of that year. These non-narrated, montage pieces reflect what that time was like for ordinary people. I also created five special episodes that focused on particular groups of people and their experiences of the pandemic: Parents, Artists, the organization Feed the Frontlines NYC, Religion, and children.
The Transmission Times aired on 38 radio stations around the country.