I’ll be performing a solo show every weekend in June at Audium Theater! This will be the culmination of my residency period in April and May.
Poster by Benjamin Rodgers at Optical Sound Experience!
head over to bandcamp to pick up a cassette or digital download
released February 6, 2026
TODAYJAVU (2025) was created by improvising with field recordings from a frog pond in Woodside, California, as well as guitar, my live heartbeat, and memories recorded on cassette many years ago. It is a radio show for the future from the past and present. It is the ongoing formation of an identity – an evolving self-portrait.
blurness (Barbara Nerness) creates audiovisual experiences exploring the fluidity of time, space, body, gender, sexuality, and consciousness. For some, consciousness is the soup between your ears. For me, it is the space between everything else, the invisible fabric of connection.
created by Marco Fusi (viola d’amore) and myself (electronics)
Composed for Manuela Freua (soprano) and myself (guitar). Video editing and videography in Half Moon Bay by Susana Canales Barrón. Manuela and I recorded it at The TANK Center for Sonic Arts in Rangely, Colorado on May 9, 2024. Audio Recording by Michael Van Wagoner and Samantha Wade. Videography at The TANK by Caleb Wiley.
The live performance premiered at The TANK on May 9, 2024, followed by another performance at the CCRMA Stage, Stanford on May 18, 2024.
The video was shown at the CCRMA Stage, Stanford on February 14, 2025 and will be shown at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music on March 8, 2025.
In June 2023, I had the opportunity to collaborate with Elefantöra ensemble (Sayam Chortip, Ewe Larsson, Joel Mansour) in Sweden to create a new piece exploring heartbeats, brainwaves, and breath, as part of ShareMusic & Performing Arts’ TechLab residency series with Stanford. I brought 2 EEG headsets and 3 stethophones, and through experimentation and improvisation, Elefantöra and I crafted a new piece together, Elephant Ears on the Brain.
The piece premiered on June 15, 2023 at the Sound and Music Computing (SMC) conference at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, with Sayam and Joel livestreamed via JackTrip from Gothenburg (more info here).
Elefantöra subsequently performed the piece during their hour-long show at the Freja Funkfestival in Spira Culture Centre, Jönköping, Sweden (watch the full concert here, my piece begins at 45:41).
final project for Music 220B: Compositional Algorithms, Psychoacoustics, and Computational Music, taught by Ge Wang @ Stanford University, Winter 2022
8-channel improvisation utilizes two separate feedback delay networks coded in ChucK. I enjoyed playing the guitar more than my controller, which took a back seat. There are many more settings I could work with, so the system has a lot of possibilities.
Black Bones (2021) is a dance performance created by Bri Peet for completion of Stanford University's Honors in the Arts program. Music was written and performed by Barbara Nerness (electronics) and Seth Parker Woods (cello). Videography by Charlie Nordstrom. Featuring the voices of McKinley Willis, Caleb Dowden, Runako Campbell, Sierra Jones.
Black Bones is a dance performance focused on the lived experiences of Black women in the professional dance industry. Through a series of interviews with Black professional female dancers, Bri discussed the hardships of practicing art within a discipline whose foundations have been molded and reinforced to reject their bodies. Bri used the language from the interviews to craft a soundscape with the help of her sound designer Barbara Nerness, and she choreographed a 10 minute long work in response. Watch Bri talk about making the work.
Completed during the COVID-19 pandemic and released online on May 21, 2021.
Alkimiya Transfer (Stephanie Sherriff and myself) is an ambient noise duo that formed out of shared interests in policed systems and surveillance in January 2019. Their electroacoustic compositions incorporate found objects, field recordings, radio, archival media, custom interfaces, multichannel speaker systems, and experimental engagement with traditional instruments. The duo’s work has been featured in-person and virtually at creative venues such as the Sonorities Festival in Belfast, The Lab, Gray Area, Adobe Books, KZSU, the Center for New Music, CalArts, the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT), and Mills College.
10-23 (Stand-by) (2020)
10-23 (Stand-by) is a subconscious reflection of an internal space; a mirror to the cognitive dissonance of 2020. In its newest iteration adapted for the CineChamber, 2-dimensional forms produced using Zoom, Snap Camera, and video feedback are liberated from a singular screen-space to create an immersive audiovisual experience.
The piece was shown at Gray Area in San Francisco on August 18 & 19, 2021 for Recombinant Media Labs (RML) Incubator Series, utilizing the immersive CineChamber system. The CineChamber consists of 10 screens, 8 speakers & subs, and a raised floor with transducers. You can watch a 360 recording from inside the space below.
Code 6: Responding from a Long Distance (2020)
Code 6: Responding from a Long Distance aims to diagram the historical injustice within the American criminal justice system through an amalgamation of electroacoustic processes, including instruments, objects, and surveillance tools while utilizing fundamental voices integral to the fight for human rights across time. The perspectives of contemporary and historical Black civil rights activists including Angela Davis, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Junior support the inequalities outlined in the poem, Distributive Justice, by artist and activist Kenneth Reams, who has been living in solitary confinement for over 30 years. Real-time police broadcasts from Minneapolis and Louisville further frame contemporary field recordings from Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 that call for the dismantling of systemic racism ignited by the murder of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. The sustained violent response of police and federal government, highlight the critical need for the redistribution of resources and state power accumulated within the American criminal justice system. We hope to leave you questioning who is afforded the right to justice and why.
The piece premiered at Gray Area’s online event, Patch Pulse: Bathing & Alkimiya Transfer, on August 28, 2020. Watch a video below of the performance.
We performed it again in 2020 for CCRMA@HOME (livestream), and in 2022 at Carnival: A Festival for Black Art at Stanford and Sonorities Festival in Belfast, Ireland.
417: Disturbance
Through the incorporation of live streamed police scanner communications, 417 attempts to create a sonic experience structured around the observation of real-time events exploring themes of surveillance and darkness with electronic and analog sounds. Using 5th order ambisonics and custom interfaces, the duo creates immersive soundscapes illuminating the myriad technologies that are listening to and watching us. 417 is the Alameda County police code for “Disturbance”.
Live improvisations (instruments & electronics)
The stethophone pulls from a rich history of research on bio-sensors, embodied cognition, and the body as instrument. Stethophone is the name for my hacked stethoscope, which allows the capture of heartbeat and other bodily sounds at a very low cost (~$6). In Fall 2019, high school student Anika Fuloria began helping with further development, which now utilizes a pulse sensor ($25) + Arduino. I’ve also added visual feedback for use with musicians in live settings. For full documentation, visit this page created by Anika!
embody premiered on May 31st, 2019 at Bing Concert Hall, Stanford
It was screened online in 2020 at the New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME) conference and the Sigma Xi STEM Art and Film Festival, where the stethophone project won the Best Performing Art Award!
embody is a piece for live performers using stethophones (stethoscope microphones), which I have created from hacked stethoscopes, in order to amplify the heartbeat and voice in the chest or vocal tract. The motivation came from my exploration of the sounds trapped within my body, such as my heartbeat and the resonance of my voice in my vocal tract or chest. Is it possible to record our voice as we hear it in our head?
On the surface, embody asks the questions: “What if the ocean had a heart? What if machines could speak?” In some sense, the ocean does have a pulse through tides and machines do make noise, we just do not understand them as human. In the piece, sounds of the natural and built environment are anthropomorphized using the sounds inside the performers' bodies. On a technical level, the sounds were constructed using spectral convolution and envelope following, probing the spectral overlap of our bodies with sounds external to us.
The piece includes sounds from two field recording sessions; one at the beach in Pescadero, California and another on a tour through the Stanford Energy Facility. The piece is spatialized in 3rd order Ambisonics to resemble a sonic body.
Performers - Michiko Theurer: stethophone; Julie Zhu: stethophone; me: live electronics and heartbeat
Video recorded by Dave Kerr; Audio recorded by Fernando Lopez-Lezcano
On view @ CCRMA, Stanford, January 9 - February 3rd, 2019
Inaugural piece for the Wall for AudioVisual Expression (WAVE)
Opening Reception and Talk on January 9th, 2019, 5:30 - 7pm (CCRMA Event)
Doublevision is a video installation that turns audio and movement into visuals. The visuals are created using the Synchronator, which turns audio into visuals by imitating old CRT television technology. Ambient sounds and movement also affect the visuals in real time, hence the name Doublevision.
fff ensemble is an interdisciplinary feminist improv collective dedicated to supporting collaboration in the Bay Area and beyond. fff formed in 2018 and is currently comprised of Clara Allison, Doğa Çavdir, Michele Cheng, Simona Fitcal, Julie Herndon, Tiffany Lin, Patricia Robinson, Stephanie Sherriff, Michiko Theurer, Katherine Whatley, Julie Zhu, and myself.
In 2021 we had the honor to share a virtual concert with Pamela Z. You can watch a recording below (starts at 8:24).
On January 26, 2019, we performed our first evening-length concert at the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) at Stanford University. You can watch our opening improvisation below.
created during Music 256A: Music, Computing, Design I: The Art of Design, taught by Ge Wang @ Stanford University, Autumn quarter, 2018
LIFERAFT
Liferaft is a game, an instrument, and a story. It was inspired by Minecraft, and allows the player to create both a sonic and physical landscape. Go here to view the full documentation and code.
SATURNIA
Saturnia is an audio visualizer implemented in C++ and OpenGL. The video for saturnia shows a narrative of the birth, life, and death of a fictional planetary body with audio. Go here to view the video and full documentation.
GLOWSEQ
GlowSeq (pronounced "glowseek") is an audio sequencer programmed in Unity, ChucK, and Chunity, that allows the user to change the pitch and speed of playback for preloaded audio samples. Go here to view a video of it in action and full documentation.
@ ZKM | Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, DE, August, 2018
Audiovisual installations by Barbara Nerness (visuals) and Benjamin Miller (audio) for KAMUNA 2018 on August 4th, 2018.
Audio is primarily bass, so unless you have a sub or some good headphones, you may not hear much when watching the video.
Audio was remixed from livestreamed performances by Lasse-Marc Riek, Lintu + Royk, KITeratur, and No Input Ensemble. Videography by Jürgen Galli.
final project for Music 255: Sonic Crossroads, taught by Guillermo Galindo @ Stanford University, Spring 2018
Relate is an instrument, a composition, and a performance. The instrument is made out of a Leap motion controller and programmed in Max/MSP using the granular synthesis patch from Wekinator. Additional drones were created using FM synthesis in ChucK.
score
The score shows the gestures available to the player. However, it does not specify any other information, as it is meant to be left open to interpretation. Performers could choose a starting position and travel only to adjacent squares.
an intermedia performance piece, 2018
Resist is an audiovisual performance investigating surveillance, presence, and vulnerability of the body using found footage, Max/MSP, and voice. It utilizes helicopter surveillance footage from the 2015 Baltimore protests, which the FBI secretly took, and audio samples from protests around the world (found on freesound.org). The audio is spatialized in 5th order ambisonics.
Resist premiered at the CCRMA Transitions Concert in 2018, and has been performed at the CCRMA Open House, Mills College, and UC San Diego.
Performed at the CCRMA Open House on the CCRMA Stage (Stanford University), March 2, 2018. Video documentation by Dave Kerr.
Final Project Performance for Intermedia Workshop class at CCRMA stage (Stanford University), March 15th, 2018. Video documentation by Dave Kerr.
This piece was recorded in October 2013 at The Integratron, an acoustically shaped dome, in Landers, California. Movement II was released in Issue No. 5: Field Guide by Mudthroat Records.
Karte Kinski was a four-piece band led by myself. We formed in 2011, performed around the SF Bay Area throughout 2012, and recorded an album in January 2013. You can listen below and buy cassettes or CDs over on bandcamp!
An earlier version of Adam was released in Issue No. 5: Field Guide by Mudthroat Records.
analog & digital
Single artwork for Stanford Counterpoint’s release, Wake Me Up, 2018
Crux Magazine, Issue 01 (6 photos), Oakland, 2017
Album cover (background and design) for Julie Herndon's Amisare, Stanford, 2017
Life Framer Alternative Lives Exhibition, Menier Gallery, London, 2013
Album cover/art for Karte Kinski's Here Is How, Oakland, 2013
Cal Literature & Arts Magazine, Volume XV, Fall 2009
Cal Literature & Arts Magazine, Volume XIII, Fall 2007
Cal Literature & Arts Magazine, Volume XII, Spring 2007
photo by Ashleigh McArthur
Barbara Nerness is an artist and researcher whose work spans music composition, live performance, video, and cognitive science. She currently teaches Technology and Applied Composition at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. She received her PhD and Doctoral Certificate in Composition from Stanford’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA). Her research focuses on brain dynamics measured by EEG during music improvisation, and she also writes, performs, and improvises her own multichannel music inspired by sounds of the body (heartbeat, breath, brainwaves). Barbara also enjoys collaborating with other artists, especially projects investigating the body, surveillance, and technological subversion. In 2019, the Stanford Department of Music awarded her the Carolyn Applebaum Memorial Prize for “helping to engender a robust and engaged arts community”. She has performed at venues throughout the Bay Area and Los Angeles, as well as the Brooklyn Academy of Music (USA), ZKM (Germany), Royal College of Music (Sweden), and the Sonic Arts Research Centre (Ireland).
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I’m performing as blurness featuring Celeste Betancur Gutierrez on guitar, along with ylang ylang aka tenses (featuring Mitch Stahlmann and matt robidoux), and sprinkler (Jasmine Zhang)
TODAYJAVU album release - pick up a cassette
$10 NOTAFLOF
I will be performing with Ramya Shankar’s Ensemble, bringing live heartbeats from myself and the audience
Community Music Center: 544 Capp St, SF, CA 94110
Tickets: Early Bird: $20, Gen Adm: $25, Door: $30
Conceptualized by sound artist/vocalist Ramya Shankar, "The Human Experience: Emotion in a World of AI," is an interactive vocal and sonic journey exploring emotion as energy in motion.
I will be performing with Ramya Shankar’s Ensemble, bringing live heartbeats from myself and the audience
$25 / students $10
Find me at the Djerassi Artists Program booth! Selling cassette tapes of my album, TODAYJAVU, and showing an installation from my residency there last summer
Speaking on a panel about brainwaves, data, and privacy. I’ll also briefly describe my PhD research about alpha waves during music improvisation.
TODAYJAVU album release! I’m performing as “blurness”. Sean Keenan is also releasing an album!
You can hear my piece, Under the Surface, on Saturday January 10, 2026 at 7pm! The piece was improvised on guitar with live electronics for 5th order ambisonics.
Build a small biofeedback system with galvanic skin response (GSR) that you can keep! We’ll also play with heartbeat sensors to control sound and video in Max/MSP.
I’ll lead a hands-on biofeedback music workshop with three types of EKG devices and techniques for heartbeat sonification
Collaborator Anastasia Chernysheva will guide us through the history of biofeedback art from the 1960s to the present and an overview of the main approaches to live representation of biological data (video, sound), and an outline of the possible developments and challenges of this hybrid art-science practice.
Come see what we are up to at the incredible Leonardo x Djerassi Artist Residency program!
I will discuss my process composing a new solo performance piece, called TODAYJAVU, and perform it live. The piece involves improvising with field recordings, guitar, biosignals, and memories.
From having conversations to playing sports, humans improvise often in daily life. For researchers, music improvisation provides a window into the creative process and social coordination in real-time, revealing the extraordinary capability of the human mind and its underpinning physiology. What happens in the brain when we improvise musically? Furthermore, how do improvisers manage the simultaneous demands of playing an instrument, coming up with new ideas, and listening to other musicians, all in millisecond timescales?
I will discuss three research projects investigating brain dynamics during music improvisation in solo, duet, and group contexts. The first describes Pauline Oliveros’ 1973 experiment, the Meditation Project, where she investigated the cognitive and behavioral effects of meditation and music improvisation over a 10-week class. I will present the digitization and analysis of her paper electroencephalography (EEG) data. The second project was designed as a modern follow-up study using EEG to look at attention, engagement, and creative ideation during an adapted Sonic Meditation by Oliveros. The third project investigates neural activity during piano duet improvisation versus score playing. I will explain how brain dynamics change depending on creative freedom and musical role. These studies reveal fundamental aspects of musical creativity in the mind, illuminating how musicians pay attention to an evolving musical context while coming up with new material and performing it in the moment.
performing a solo set with heartbeats and brainwaves alongside Alex Chechile and Micah Huang, curated by Anastasia Chernysheva
Video showing of The Art of Falling
performing as “blurness” - watch here
performing a solo set on guitar and electronics
performing a solo set on guitar and electronics
performing a solo set on guitar, heartbeats, and electronics
Poster presentation: Alpha Power Dynamics during Guided Meditation with Humming and Imagery Inspired by Pauline Oliveros’ Sonic Meditations
Performance of The Art of Falling, for soprano Manuela Freua and myself (guitar, electronics)
Premiere of The Art of Falling, a new piece for soprano Manuela Freua and myself (guitar, electronics), exploring space, resonance, and the body
Premiere of Circular Ruin, a live improvisation with Marco Fusi (viola d’amore), inspired by Jorge Luis Borges’ The Circular Ruins, for 5th order ambisonics
Premiere of a new fixed media piece, Under the Surface, featuring a guitar improvisation from 2021 spatialized in 3rd order ambisonics
Assistant for Dr. Patricia Alessandrini’s installation featuring cymatics and heartbeats
Live improvisation with Julie Zhu featuring stretched samples, heartbeats, and electronics
Live improvisation with Julie Zhu featuring stretched samples, heartbeats, and electronics
Community Dialogue (inspired by Pauline Oliveros’ Environmental Dialogue)
Scientific Talk: Alpha Power Dynamics during Guided Meditation with Humming and Imagery Inspired by Pauline Oliveros’ Sonic Meditations
Elephant Ears on the Brain (composed in collaboration with Elefantöra ensemble, performed by Elefantöra ensemble)
watch the full performance here (begins at 45:41)
Community Dialogue (inspired by Pauline Oliveros’ Environmental Dialogue)
Elephant Ears on the Brain (composed in collaboration with Elefantöra ensemble, performed by Elefantöra)
Panelist and guest performer
Talk: Continua in Natasha Barrett’s The Umbrella
Talk: Pauline Oliveros, Sonic Meditations, and EEG
Scientific Talk: Pauline Oliveros’s Investigations Into the Effects of Sonic Meditations on Behavior and Neurophysiology
Premiere of a new piece by Alkmiya Transfer
Live performance by Alkimiya Transfer of Code 6: Responding from a Long Distance
Artist Talk: The Sound of the Body in Resistance
Artist Talk: The Sound of the Body in Resistance
Live electronics improvisation by Alkimiya Transfer
Artist Talk: The Sound of the Body in Resistance for the UC Berkeley Graduate Composition Program
Live performance by Alkimiya Transfer: Code 6: Responding from a Long Distance & Liquēre
Live performance by Alkimiya Transfer of Code 6: Responding from a Long Distance (recording)
Live electronics improvisation with Alkimiya Transfer, called 10-91B: Animal, noisy
Premiere of Liquēre by Alkimiya Transfer
10-23 (Stand-by) by Alkimiya Transfer, adapted for the CineChamber (10 screens, 8 speakers)
Scientific Talk: Pauline Oliveros’s Investigations Into the Effects of Sonic Meditations on Behavior and Neurophysiology (recording)
Live electronics improvisation by Alkimiya Transfer (San Francisco, USA) with Quarantine Session core: Constantin Basica (Palo Alto, CA), Chris Chafe (Woodside, CA), Henrik von Coler (Berlin, DE), Fernando Lopez-Lezcano (San Carlos, CA), Juan Parra (Ghent, BE), Klaus Scheuermann (Berlin, DE)
Poster: Neural alpha oscillations during turn-taking piano duet index creative thinking and engagement to the partner’s action
Premiere of ffface by Clara Allison for fff ensemble, and live electroacoustic improvisation
Premiere of 10-23 (Stand-by) by Alkimiya Transfer
Poster: Neural alpha oscillations during turn-taking piano duet index creative thinking and engagement to the partner’s action
Screening of embody
Winner of Best Performing Art Award!
Artist Talk: in(visible) forces
Premiere of Code 6: Responding from a Long Distance by Alkimiya Transfer
Screening of embody
Live electronics improvisation by Alkimiya Transfer (San Francisco, USA) with Jonathan Impett (Norwich, UK) and Quarantine Session core: Constantin Basica (Palo Alto, CA), Chris Chafe (Woodside, CA), Henrik von Coler (Berlin, DE), Fernando Lopez-Lezcano (San Carlos, CA), Juan Parra (Ghent, BE), Klaus Scheuermann (Berlin, DE)
Poster: Neural alpha oscillations during turn-taking piano duet index creative thinking and engagement to the partner’s action
Live performance from home by Alkimiya Transfer of Code 6: Responding from a Long Distance - watch full performance
I will assist Patricia Alessandrini in demoing her Piano Machine, using a Leap motion controller
Live electronics improvisation with Alkimiya Transfer
Premiere of SOLI, an evening-length dance performance choreographed by TAPS PhD student, Anna Jayne Kimmel, 10 undergraduate dancers, and the Stanford New Ensemble (directed by Hans Kretz). The work deals with the life of artist and activist Kenneth Reams, an inmate on death row who has been in solitary confinement for over 25 years. I composed all of the music for the Stanford New Ensemble, ran sound during the show, and performed live electronics throughout.
Premiere of unbody, for percussion, guitar, and heartbeats
Live electronics improvisation by Alkimiya Transfer
Performing live multichannel electronics for Elli Papakonstantinou’s fantastic mind-bending opera!
Guest talk: The Musical Brain
Guest talk: Music and the Brain
Live electronics improvisation with Alkimiya Transfer
Performing live electronics with Alkimiya Transfer, alongside the duo of Christopher Jette and Chris Christensen, and John Davis
Premiere of embody for 3 heartbeats, featuring Michiko Theurer and Julie Zhu
I will be performing on stethophone in fff ensemble and showing a 5th order ambisonic audiovisual interlude in collaboration with Michiko Theurer!
I am curating an interdisciplinary event where artists and musicians fill the galleries of the Anderson collection with sounds and visuals.
Performance of Resist
Performance of Resist
Performance with Alkimiya Transfer of 417
Performance of Resist
Performance with Alkimiya Transfer of 417
Performing live multichannel electronics for Elli Papakonstantinou’s fantastic mind-bending opera!
Alkimiya Transfer performs 417, utilizing the 56.8 system on the stage and 5th order ambisonics
My video installation, Doublevision, will also be on view
Alkimiya Transfer improvises live on the air from 8:00 - 8:30 AM!
Alkimiya Transfer premieres 417
listen to the binaural recording
Live electronics improvisation with a newly formed interdisciplinary feminist collective, called fff ensemble
Opening event for CCRMA’s Wall for Audiovisual Expression (WAVE), with my video installation, Doublevision (on view from 1/9 - 3/1/19)
Artist talk and reception
Performance of Resist (remixed for 5th order ambisonics)
Premiere of two video installations, one involving 10 analog televisions in an underground parking garage, and the other on the ZKM Cube outdoor screen.
Performance of Resist
