YASMIN RAI · ARTIST CV
ABOUT
Yasmin Rai is an interdisciplinary artist working with sound, code, and digital art. Her work transforms archives and chaotic datasets into narrative. She has worked with ICA Young Creatives, Serpentine x Stone Nest, and Horse Hospital with Prototype Publishing. She is currently sonifying NASA data and CIA documents, and creating an audio essay from records of pre- to post-colonial India to explore memory, subconscious states, and storytelling through synaesthetic mixed media.
Her practice aims to translate cold or inaccessible data, such as declassified documents, satellite scans, ecological data and historical records into emotionally resonant experiences. She considers how celestial bodies become records of cosmic time; water bodies contain digital fragments, and how interfaces can be reimagined for accessibility in feminist, decolonised tech futures. Her works act as mosaic archives to create threads across what is lost, invisible, or far away.
COMPOSITION
2025 | BENNU 101955 | sculpture & spatial sound sonifying NASA asteroid data | artistic statements | UK
2025 | 55515 | audio-visual composition & graphic score performance activating declassified CIA documents | awe curation | London, UK
2025 | Seed Commission | musical composition | Sound & Music | UK
2025 | RELIC | short film & sound design | crude-castin | China
2025 | conductor | sound & ecological essay | compilation album and accompanying publication ‘Transmit’ (featured on BBC Radio 3) | online
2024 | ICA Young Creatives: Graphic Score Performance & Sound Art Takeover | performance, composition, conducting & co-curation | Institute of Contemporary Art | London, UK
2024 | Sonic Sculptures 3: Playground of Sound | installation | Primary Gallery | Nottingham, UK
2024 | Ghudani Kalan | audio essay with Kode9 (author of Sonic Warfare) sonifying document archives from India, 1923-1975 | CAMP FR | France
2024 | P A C I F I C | AI short film (audio-visual) | online
2023 | INCUBATION: a space for monsters | performance & soundscape with TS Eliot prize winning poet Bhanu Kapil | Burley Fisher Literary Festival | De Beauvoir, London, UK
2023 | INCUBATION: a space for monsters | performance & soundscape with TS Eliot prize winning poet Bhanu Kapil | Prototype Publishing at Horse Hospital | London, UK
2022 | Queer Earth and Liquid Matter Festival for Serpentine Gallery’s Back to Earth programme with dance theatre collective Wringing Metamorphosis (curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist) | performance & soundscape | Serpentine x Stone Nest | London, UK
2022 | TROJAN WOMEN | performance, composition & musical direction | Queen’s College | Cambridge, UK
2020 | Under the Isle of Dogs: Between the Cutty Sark and Greenwich Observatory | soundscape | Goldsmiths University | London, UK
2020 | Cash Machine & Coil Mics | found sound recording | Goldsmiths University, London, UK
2018 | RINSE | short film & musical composition | Institute of Contemporary Music Performance | London, UK
2017 | 80085 | performance & songwriting | Roundhouse | London, UK
CREATIVE TECHNOLOGY
2025 | BLOOD SPATTER | sonification and visualisation interface technology for low vision criminology student in collaboration with Atau Tanaka (Centre for Sound, Technology & Culture) at Goldsmiths, University of London | Python & Supercollider
2025 | BENNU 101955 | sonification of NASA data tracking elements of the asteroid Bennu (topography, ejecta events, orbit etc.) | Supercollider, 3D modelling, Ableton Live & MAX MSP
2025 | 55515 | audio-visual activation of declassified CIA documents for multi-channel (5.1 surround) speaker array and audio-reactive screen projection | Supercollider, MAX MSP, Ableton, Touch Designer
2025 | Feminised DAW Interface | redesigning digital audio workstations for increased intuition, functionality and aesthetics | Node. js, Python
2024 | GHUDANI KALAN | forensic document analysis for audio essay using historical archives from Haryana, India, dating back to 1923 to explore the history of the Partition of India | Ableton, Field Recordings from Ghudani Kalan
AWARDS & RESIDENCIES
2025 | Seed Composer’s Award | Sound & Music UK
2024 | The Art of the Audio Essay Residency with Kode9 | CAMP FR
2024 | mɜː.məˈreɪ.ʃən #5 Residency with Jez riley French | Glenshee, Scotland
2024 | Scholarship to ‘Hybrid Writing’ Residency | Arvon Writing, Totleigh Barton
2023 | ICA Young Creatives Sound Artist | Institute of Contemporary Art
WRITING & FACILITATING
2025 | ROADKILL | ecological essay about habitat loss in the Scottish Cairngorms published online to accompany compilation album ‘Transmit’ for mɜː.məˈreɪ.ʃən #5 residency | Bandcamp
2024 | Sound & Creativity Workshop Leader / Facilitator (commissioned by the Institute of Contemporary Art) | Mosaic Trust, Pimlico Library & Westminster Reference Library with Habibti Nation and Royal Academy of Art
2021 | Women in Music Interview | Institute of Contemporary Music Performance
2021 | Music Theory Teacher (Oud) | Arab British Centre, Gough Square
2020 | Key Change Speaker for Music & Mental Health
EDUCATION & RESEARCH
2025 | Make Your Own Masters (MYOM): Alternative Education & Design Futures | Selfridges, London
2018 | BA Music Business (Dissertation: Digital Futures in the Creative Industries) | Institute of Contemporary Music Performance
2015 | BTEC Music Level 3 | West Thames College
EDUCATION & RESEARCH (CONT.)
2025 | John Chowning Computer Music Lectures | Goldsmiths, University of London
2023 | Software Engineering Foundation (Scholarship) | HyperionDev
2022 | CRiSAP Sound Arts Lecture Series & Workshops | London College of Communication, UAL
2021 | UKISC Conference: Acoustic Ecology | Brighton
2021 | Field Recording & Composition | Goldsmiths, University of London
SKILLS & TECHNOLOGIES
Ableton (Live) · Logic Pro · Pro Tools · Supercollider · Touch Designer · Python
Clarinets · Saxophone · Oud · Saz Bağlama · Piano & Keyboards
Music Theory (Grade 5)
Effective Collaborator
Facilitation Experience
Extensive Technological Knowledge
Performance & Live Experience