The Team

Dr. Abby Aresty is a sound artist, composer, and educator. Her community-based creative practice empowers individuals to work creatively with sound, and to share their stories while building community through collective making, integrated learning, and storytelling. Aresty has presented her research in the United States, Canada, Australia, and Hong Kong, in conferences including ICMC, Balance/Unbalance, ISEA, and Sonic Environments. She has held fellowships at the Studio for Creative Inquiry at Carnegie Mellon University, Grinnell College, and the Acoustic Ecology Lab at Arizona State University’s Herberger Institute of Design and the Arts. She recently taught a workshop in multimodal storytelling for 40 college and university students from around the world as part of a Humanitarian Entrepreneurship summer institute at Lingnan University in Hong Kong.

Gabriel Baskin is a first year schlub at Oberlin College, by way of Ballston Spa, New York. He has a lot of vague interests, many of which have something or other to do with Oberlin’s Technology in Music and Related Arts (TIMARA) department. He’s quite enjoyed what TIMARA classes he’s taken so far, and is very excited to be a part Professor Aresty’s research. Gabriel plays by the rules, keeps his head down, and stays out of trouble.

Michael Gaspari is a composer, pianist, synth player, and DJ from Robbinsville, NJ. He is currently attending Oberlin Conservatory as a composition major and plans on having a second major with Technology in Music and Related Arts (TIMARA). His private instructor for composition is Stephen Hartke. He now writes in many genres and in mediums such as acoustic, fixed media, and electro-acoustic. Michael has recently been working with children with special needs, and has been exploring ways in which music can make an impact on them. He is doing this using programs like Max MSP, and hardware such as USB button controllers for ease of use. This is Michael’s first semester working as a research assistant for Abby Aresty, specifically working on code and audio for the “Of Earth and Sun” installation and helping with the Gratitude Showers Challenge.

Maya McCollum is a first year TIMARA and Studio Art double-degree student at Oberlin College and Conservatory. Maya enjoys building sound sculptures and original instruments, and finds the process of art making incredibly inspiring. She loves using found objects and interweaving their stories and histories into her art. Maya is very excited to be working as Abby Aresty’s research assistant for yet another semester.