Innovative artist, composer and ‘musical weirdo and visionary’ (as described by Vice), Beatie Wolfe has trodden an entirely singular path; from her captivating catalogue of songs, to the multidisciplinary artistic projects that interrogate the human response to music, to posing challenging questions about the existential threat of climate change. We spoke to Beatie at the tail ‐end of her recent imPRINTING installation at London’s Somerset House, to find out more about her latest ventures and the centrality of music to her art and life

Photo: Manuela Batas

Beatie Wolfe has long-defied simple categorisation. Originally hailing from South London, but now based in Los Angeles, Beatie’s formative passion for crafting acoustically-oriented songs would lead her on a journey far beyond that which many songwriters undertake. As a globally renowned artist and public thinker, Beatie has conceived numerous groundbreaking musically focused (or musically linked) visual and aural art projects. These include creating the world’s first 360° AR live-stream from the Bell Labs’ anechoic chamber, beaming her music into space in association with NASA and, perhaps most critically, crafting From Green to Red – an environmental art piece about humanity’s impact on planet Earth, developed from 800,000 years of CO2 data. She’s regarded as a passionate musical explorer, delivering lectures and TED talks on its power to heal, transform and define the human condition.

Her 2013 debut album, 8ight, set the tone for Beatie’s career, with the LP’s enrapturing set of songs twinned with a unique world-first 3D interactive app. This created an engrossing palm-top 3D theatre experience that enhanced the listening process. This was followed up in 2015’s Montagu Square with a collaboration with iconic tailor Michael (Mr.) Fish, who created an innovative ‘musical jacket’, weaving the sound waves of the album’s tracks into fabric and thus making the record entirely wearable. Pushing further boundaries, 2017’s Raw Space utilised the Bell Labs anechoic chamber. Within what is considered ‘the quietest place on Earth’, Beatie streamed the world’s first live 360° AR stream, allowing global viewers a route to experience Beatie live in this astounding environment. The record would later be broadcast into the outer reaches of space; something that very few artists can claim.

Nearly a decade ago, Beatie, co-founded the charity Music for Dementia, based on research Beatie herself had done into how music can still spark a response from those who are suffering from extreme memory loss. In her latest installation, imPRINTING, Beatie digs further into the deep subconscious interactions between music and the self. Consisting of eight rotary telephones, playing back audio recorded across decades – and captured on a groundbreaking new storage medium (we’ll come to that…), imPRINTING features fragments of conversations with luminaries and friends from different fields (including her good pal, Brian Eno), songs both new and old, as well as echoes of Beatie’s own childhood via snippets of sound from early birthdays and other longforgotten memories.