Pixelated Ancestors investigates the liminal space between ancestral memory and emerging technologies. blending audio-reactive visuals, lasers, cello, and ancestral tape samples to explore animism and folklore through performance, connecting nature and technology, analog and digital.
My work integrates composed and improvised cello performance,
archival Icelandic recordings, digital audio production, and audio-reactive video, light, and lasers
to create immersive environments that transform traditional folk songs through technology.
Central to this research are cassette recordings of my great-grandmother, Ingibjörg
Guðmundsdóttir (1891–1994), whose Icelandic folk songs were captured in the 1980s. These lo-
fi archives function as collaborators rather than artifacts. Through sampling, spectral processing,
and probability-based sequencing in Ableton Live, her voice, aleatoric in nature, surfaces and
recedes in dialogue with my cello, creating layered temporalities that blur the boundaries
between the archival past and the improvisatory present.
At the heart of this project is a question: How do ancestral voices resonate in the digital age?
I use the pixel as both a conceptual and technical framework. As the smallest addressable
unit of digital media, the pixel parallels ancestral traces, appearing as micro-fragments that
require activation. Each sample of Ingibjörg’s voice becomes a sonic pixel—latent until
addressed within a larger system of relations. The contrast between analog tape grain and digital
precision reveals how ancestral presence emerges through micro-level operations.
The Waterfall and the Oak
(Start at 0:17) Treated with Effects
Icelandic Folk Song ‘Fossinn og eikin’ by Páll Jónsson
Sung by Ingibjorg Gudmundsdottir (1891-1994)
Translation:
"The waterfall sang joy and hardship, battle and love, life and death. Day and night, its roots are buried in the dark depths while reaching toward the sun. Love, Freyja, and fate intertwined in its song, as did the enduring strength of the oak tree’s roots." These thematic contrasts also influenced the sonic design.
These sonic interventions serve as portals, where folklore and futurism meet.
"[We] can comfortably speak of “an oral poem” as a freestanding item—is necessarily to take it
out of context. And what is the lost context? It is the performance, the audience, the poet, the
music, the specialized way of speaking, the gestures, the costuming, the visual aids, the occasion,
the ritual, and myriad other aspects of the given poem’s reality [...]".
-Terry Gunnell, “Performance Archaeology, Eiríksmál, Hákonarmál, and the Study of Old Nordic Religions,” in
John Miles Foley's World of Oralities: Text, Tradition, and Contemporary Oral Theory, ed. Mark C. Amodio (Arc
Humanities Press, 2020), 137.
2
Through this project, I aim to create performances in which technology becomes an extension of the ancient, and ancestral voices pulse through light and sound, opening portals between times, cultures, and inner worlds.
Recent Live Performances (2025)
"Live Medley"
Sampled voice of great-grandmother Ingibjörg Gudmundsdóttir (1891-1994) opens into 'What is B4 You' (Icelandic folksong guitar loops with original lyrics), followed by an improvised cello section with effects over real-time loops—the introductory movement to 'Sorcery,' with audio-reactive laser lights.
August 21st, 2025, Brooklyn, NYC
Draw the Line ft. Ingibjörg Guðmundsdóttir:
Live performance of 'Draw the Line' incorporating archival recordings ofIngibjörg Gudmundsdóttir. Building from manipulated cello loops and ancestral vocals into an original composition.
Mothership NYC, August 27th, 2025.
Live audiovisual performance of 'Seek Solace' feat. Siide Quest.
Real-time audio-reactive visual projection designed and operated by Tyr Jami.
Mothership NYC, August 2025. Videography by Edward Pankov
Visual Works
Highlights reel - 2024 (music, visuals, performance)
Music and audio-reactive visuals by Tyr Jami
Music and audio-reactive visuals by Tyr Jami
Each excerpt is 1.5-2 minutes
1.Once in a Lifetime
2.Nouvelles Roses
3.The Sacrifice
4.Live excerpt
5.Wait for the Sun
6.Abundance
Stills from 'Nouvelles Roses' featuring audio-reactive visuals with Icelandic landscape footage.
Screenshots of "Abundance", created using archival VHS tape and video effects
(2024)
The visuals of VHS static relate to crossing between the thresholds of the conscious and subconsciousness, blurring the lines of fantasy and reality, analog (VHS) and digital (effects)
Screenshots of "Sleep Darling" (2023)
The "Sleep Darling" visuals depict 4 states of water: Solid, liquid, foam, and vapour.
Each Icelandic folk song and place sampled to create this work carries a story that inspired it, allowing for new interpretations of folk songs and tales.
"Exalted" (2022)
A collage of ethereal texture and melody fusing colour blends and forms using 16mm and 8mm
archival footage with samples of Arca and cello. Live performance with audio-reactive inherited
archival footage.
"The Door" (feat Siide Quest)
Music + Visuals by Tyr Jami