Since the release of her 2017 LP The Kid, American composer, artist, and producer Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith has focused her energy in several directions. She founded Touchtheplants, a multidisciplinary creative environment for projects including her modular synth work Tides: Music for Meditation and Yoga and the first volumes in her instrumental Electronic Series (Abstractions, 2018) and pocket-sized poetry books on the practice of listening within. She’s continued to explore the endless possibilities of electronic instruments as well as the shapes, movements, and expressions found in the physical body’s relationship to sound and color. In advance of new music, Smith begins 2020 with the announcement of her signing to Ghostly International and a tour supporting Caribou through the US and Europe.

Novi_sad is the guise for Thanasis Kaproulias (b. 1980) who holds a degree from the Economic University of Piraues. He lives in Ancient Olympia, Greece. Influenced by the pioneers of audio assault, he began generating sounds in 2005. Amplified environmental recordings, drone manipulations, structured ambient soundscapes, microtones vs overtones, all come together in a hyper structure of iconoclastic form. Novi_sad’s artistic output displays a high level of technical ability, as well as a sensitivity to the nuances of location. The strength of his soundscapes works in the same elaborateness for the whole creation process, starting from a basis of very strong conceptualism, the intense examination of field recordings over the actual composition work, to the point of performing back the result onto location. Every sound that occurs is treated with a sculptural integrity and his sonic power operates on a level in which the audience participates as transcendental listeners. Novi_sad’s projects have been presented in various forms in cinemas, industrial spaces, theatres, concert halls, churches, museums, auditoriums, squats, galleries, in festivals like Venice Biennale Film Festival [Venice], MUTEK [Montreal/Mexico City], Lunchmeat [Prague], Eletronika [Belo Horizonte], FIMAV [Victoriaville], Transient [Paris], Gray Area [San Francisco], L.E.V. [Gijon], PRECTXE [Seoul], Stimul [Prague] and in such spaces as: Roy O. Disney Concert Hall CalArts [Los Angeles], VPRO National Radio [Amsterdam], Cabaret Voltaire [Zurich], Itaú Cultural [São Paulo], Museum of Contemporary Art [Roskilde], Megaron/The Athens Concert Hall [Athens], Haus der Kulturen der Welt [Berlin], National Gallery [Prague], The Chapel [Seattle], B39 [Seoul], Oi Futuro Flamengo [Rio de Janeiro], EMPAC [New York], National Center for Contemporary Arts [Moscow], KW/Institute for Contemporary Art [Berlin], Wood Street Galleries [Pittsburgh], Fondazione Culturale San Fedele [Milan], The Lowry [Salford Quays], Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ [Amsterdam], Le Fresnoy/Studio National D'Arts Contemporains [Tourcoing], National Academy of Music [Aarhus], Einstein Kulturzentrum [Munich], Sesc Pompeia [São Paulo], MAM/Museum of Modern Art [Rio de Janeiro] and he has been a guest lecturer at universities such as ICST/Zurich University of the Arts [Zurich], USP/University of São Paulo [São Paulo], The Royal Academy of Music [Aarhus], CAAV/Universidad de Medios Audiovisuales [Guadalajara], Tama Art University [Tokyo] a.o. Novi_sad has worked and collaborated with: Lars von Trier, Helge Sten [Deathprod, Supersilent], Francisco López, Mika Vainio [Pan Sonic], Ryoichi Kurokawa, BJ Nilsen, Daniel Menche, Richard Chartier, CM von Hausswolff, Jacob Kirkegaard, Beckie Foon [A Silver Mt. Zion, Set fire to flames], Scott Konzelmann, Irini Kyriakidou, Karl Lemieux, Konstantina Kontzamani, Isaac Niemand and Yorgos Zois. Thanasis Kaproulias is the General + Artistic director of Hertz Festival

David Last is a sound and visual artist living in San Francisco. Over the last 18 years his work has appeared in a variety of contexts including albums & singles, art installation, film & television soundtracks, animation and handmade books. Last year’s album “Meow Wolf’s Arcade Soundtracks” was a smirking reference to neon-splashed electro-funk aesthetics, and a collaboration with his partner Chelsea Faith Dolan (aka Cherushii), who was lost in the Ghost Ship fire in December. This year, Last has spent his time in the studio they'd shared, creating emotionally charged psychedelic compositions which tend toward rich texture and constantly-shifting harmonic tones. The Gray Area Festival will mark his first performance of this material.