Colin Self (B. Aloha, OR 1987) composes music, performance, and environments that expand consciousness and trouble binaries, working with boundaries of perception and communication. They work with communities across disciplines and use immaterial and material means – including voices, bodies, and computers – to interface with and reimagine worlds. Self has led XOIR (pronounced choir) since 2013, a group singing practice rooted in experimentation, somatic experiencing, and play. Self practices of puppetry and animatronics pull together themes of embodiment, reverence, and trans-dimensional communication.

Self is a frequent collaborator with artists including Holly Herndon, Planningtorock, Martine Syms, and Geo Wyex. Their most recent commissions include The World to Come, composed for Berlin’s State Orchestra in 2020, and Tip the Ivy, a restoration opera premiered in New York in May 2022. Self currently lives between Berlin and Brooklyn. Self releases music on RVNG Intl. and teaches performance at NYU Berlin.
colin-self.com



photo by Agustin Faris