Nicolás Kisic Aguirre, who lives between Mexico City and Detroit, is a Peruvian-American architect and transdisciplinary sound artist. He creates machines that explore and illuminate the social and political nature of sound in public space. In 2018, he graduated from the MIT program in Art, Culture and Technology. Informed by his background in architecture and a lifelong fascination with machines, Kisic Aguirre designs and builds sound instruments and robots that explore the relationships among space, power, technology, and sound. His critical and aesthetic practice is open-source, collaborative, and deeply engaged with the public. Nicolás earned his Ph.D. from the DXARTS program at the University of Washington in Seattle. Recently, he conducted research in Mexico City on his project Disobedient Robots / Desobediencias Robóticas with support from a Fulbright Arts/Research Grant. Currently, he is building new robots and machines in Detroit as a Michigan Central x Newlab Fellow.
Photo: Janice Bryson
His work has been presented at Centro Nacional de las Artes (CENART) in Mexico City, MIT Museum, Venice Biennial, Dutch Design Week, Ars Electronica Festival, ISEA International, Design Indaba Conference, and at various other experiences and interventions in Japan, Chile, Germany, Peru, Australia, Colombia, France, and the United States.