Research

I am Professeure adjointe (Assistant Professor) in the Faculty of Music at the Université de Montréal, a French-language research university in Canada, where I have been based since 2024.

My research-creation practice spans experimental music composition, including mixed music for instrumental ensembles, electroacoustic composition, vocal performance, and the development of experimental performance systems and interfaces (including Max/MSP-based environments and custom biofeedback instruments). I work across both score-based composition for instrumentalists and systems-based or non-notated approaches to sound, performance, and installation. My work is grounded in interdisciplinary methods that integrate artistic practice with sound studies, science and technology studies, and feminist approaches to digital instrument design (lutherie numérique), with a focus on embodied computation and physiological sensing in performance contexts.

I am currently accepting new graduate students at both the Master’s and Doctoral levels.

Please note that I teach in a French-language institution; however, written work (including theses and dissertations) may be submitted in English.

erin . gee @ umontreal . ca

Teaching Statement

The importance of new technologies and platforms in cultural production informs my approach to pedagogy and research-creation. I am particularly interested in how access to technological tools shapes artistic practice and discourse; for me, questions of technological access and literacy are fundamentally political. Making technologies accessible, affordable, and critically situated within artistic and research contexts is central to the work conducted within my research group.

Students should come away from my classes with an expanded perspective on what is possible in digital practice, as well as a clearer sense of how to engage in rigorous and productive critical discourse among peers. I emphasize a strong grounding in the conceptual and historical foundations of creative work as a means of extending students beyond their perceived technical or artistic limits, alongside sustained critical exploration of the forms of interaction, embodiment, and engagement that make sonic and musical works compelling, challenging, or unstable.

For music and sound composition, this includes developing fluency across multiple modes of practice: score-based writing for instrumentalists, experimental approaches to vocal and embodied performance, and studio-based or computational workflows in electroacoustic and mixed music environments. I often teach composition with a focus on engaging the listener’s attention, perception, and patterns of listening. Students are encouraged to move between domains of production, understanding composition as the design of systems and attentional/emotional/intellectual relation with the listener(s).

I aim for students to leave my courses with an expanded sense of their own artistic agency and methodological range, as well as tools for situating their practice within broader cultural, technological, and critical contexts. These experiences are intended to support long-term engagement with one’s creative work.

Education

Bachelor of Music Education – Vocal Performance – University of Regina 2007

Bachelor Fine Arts – Studio Arts – University of Regina 2009

Master of Fine Arts – Studio Arts – Concordia University 2014

Doctorate of Music – Composition et Création Sonore – Université de Montréal 2025

Courses I teach at Université de Montréal

MUS6328X-3328X Lutherie numérique et systèmes interactifs (3.0 credits) A winter semester seminar for undergraduate and graduate students focused on the design of digital musical instruments and interactive systems using embedded technologies such as microcontrollers (Arduino/ESP32/Teensy), communication protocols (serial, I2C, SPI, OSC, WiFi), sensors, and light-based interfaces. Students explore digital lutherie, sensor-based interaction, and performance systems through discussion and project-based work.

MUS 4105 Communication numérique en musique (1.0 credits) A short spring intensive course on how musicians and artists share their work online. Students explore creative and critical ways of building clear narratives that extend their artistic practice using text, images, and media on digital platforms.

Individual projects in electronic music composition (fixed media, performance, installation and interactive systems)

Publications

Gee, E. (2023). The BioSynth—An affective biofeedback device grounded in feminist thought. NIME 2023 Mexico City. New Instruments for Musical Expression, Mexico City, Mexico. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1C3Sk96kjcdaLqHe4yPrjyF3rRONMZ6Ur/view?usp=drive_link
Hagler, J., Kim, C., Kateb, P., Yeu, J., Gagnon-Lafrenais, N., Gee, E., Audry, S., & Cicoira, F. (2022). Flexible and stretchable printed conducting polymer devices for electrodermal activity measurements. Flexible and Printed Electronics, 7(1), 014008. https://doi.org/10.1088/2058-8585/ac4d0f
Gee, E., Lee, A. M., & Audry, S. (2020). Playing with Emotions: Biosignal-based Control in Virtual Reality Game Project H.E.A.R.T. ISEA Conference 2020: Montreal, Canada, 4 pages.
Gee, E., & Garcia, F. (2020). Approaches to Biometrics in Experimental Sound Art. Public, 30(60), 14–17.
Gee, E. (2020). Larynx Series, Voice of Echo, and Formants: Three Sound-Based Performance Works. Canadian Theatre Review, 184, 67–73. https://doi.org/10.3138/ctr.184.013
Gee, E., & Audry, S. (2019). Automation as Echo. ASAP/Journal, 4(2), 307–312.
Gee, E. (2013). Repetition as Radical Referral: Echo and Narcissus in the Digital Index. Sound Art Theories 2011, 23, 88–89. https://doi.org/10.1162/LMJ_a_00165
Gee, E. (2010). Other Bodies, Other Voices. eContact! Journal of the Canadian Electroacoustic Community, 12.3. https://econtact.ca/12_3/gee_voices.html