Navid Navab

Navid Navab (t{s/he}y) is an anti-disciplinary composer with a background in contemporary music, biomedical sonification and philosophical biology. Through an investigative art-science practice, Navab’s recent creations meticulously stage uncanny forms of order, imbuing machines with a sense of liveliness. Making the imperceptible palpable, Navab’s investigative works orchestrate sensory attunement to forms of life, at the pre-metabolic border between breathing and not breathing, while cybernetically enfolding their excitable dynamics. 

As a gestural sound composer and machine-improviser, Navab centers the poly-temporal, intercultural, in-situ and material dimensions of the sonic event, and, where possible, completely steers away from fixed media and digital grids. Navab often composes and performs with similarly minded composer-performers such as George Lewis, Lori Freedman, Rainer Weins, Jean Derome, Sandeep Bhagwati, Quatuor Bozzini, Maya Kuroki, Amelia Cuni, No Hay Banda, Mei Han, Lan Tung, Wu Wei, Mike Svoboda and Nikita Carter. 

Navab’s art works take on the form of gestural sound compositions, responsive architecture, site specific interventions, theatrical interactive installations, kinetic sound sculptures and multimodal compro-visational performances. They tour internationally at diverse venues such as Ars Electronica, Kapelica Gallery, Device_art, Némo, Sonica Glasgow, 798CUBE, Rewire Festival, KIKK Festival, ELEKTRA Montréal, ISEA, Eufònic and Haus der Kulturen der Welt. 

As a researcher, Navab has been leading interdisciplinary experiments since 2010, conceiving uncanny assemblages at the edge of science, synthesizing research at Institut de recherche et coordination acoustique/musique (IRCAM), Living Architecture Systems Group, Centre de recherche interdisciplinaire en musique, médias et technologie (CIRMMT), Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT) and others. 

Navab also directs the Topological Media Lab (TML), leveraging phenomenological studies, fused with a multitude of disciplines and practices, to inform the creation of computationally augmented performance environments. 

As of October 2025