Desire, Friction, and Crip Sonic Worldmaking

Thursday, February 12, 2026; 4-5pm

Integrated Motion Studio D1400 (Ground Floor) - Emily Carr University

520 1st Ave E, Vancouver, BC V5T 0H2 [map] (East Entrance at Carolina and Great Northern Way) 

Directions: The talk will take place in D1400 - the Interactive Motion Studio (IMS) on the first floor. Enter through the main entrance of ECU (555 Great Northern Way), turn right and walk down the main hall to the farthest set of stairs leading to the lower flower.

ASL interpretation will be available for this event. If you would like this service please indicate when registering, or email casandra@newmusic.org

This presentation is free but space is limited. Registration is encouraged.

Join multidisciplinary artist AO Roberts for an in-person presentation at Emily Carr University's Integrated Motion Studio. Roberts will discuss insights from recent projects, including Plants Properties Equipment, a virtual world developed with Vancouver independent game designers Séance Collective, featuring an original soundtrack featuring d/Deaf and disabled artists Johanna Hedva, Molly Joyce, Chisato Minamimura, Medical Museum, and Andy Slater.

AO Roberts is a multidisciplinary artist and researcher whose crip sonic practice creates infrastructures resonating with the unruly poetics of disabled life. Exploring the generative frictions of error, access, collaboration, and legibility, Roberts has presented work at Plug In ICA, SOMArts, SOUND/IMAGE, Send + Receive Festival of Sound Art, and Pioneer Works Center for Art and Innovation. Roberts records experimental electronics under the moniker VOR (Ruminant, Makade Star, 2022), holds an MFA from California College of the Arts, and is a MacDowell Fellow (2022), a Sobey Award longlist artist (2021), and a PhD researcher in disability sound arts at York/Toronto Metropolitan University in Tkaronto.

As a February 2026 artist-in-residence at What Lab, Roberts is collaborating with Vancouver artists Sainerine and RITUAL PURIFICATION for a one-night-only performance activation of Zero Input Enclosure Movement v.2 at the first event of Vancouver New Music's On Curation series on February 14 at the ANNEX, curated by Anju Singh.

Presented by New Media and Sound Arts at Emily Carr University of Art + Design in partnership with Vancouver New Music.

Banner: AO Roberts (as VOR) at Send + Receive 2019, photo by Robert Szcolnicki