FALL 2020 ALUMNI ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE

Tom Comitta is a Los Angeles-based writer and multimedia artist. He is currently working on a novel, The Nature Book (Coffee House Press, forthcoming 2022), which he began at Bemis in 2016. The book is made entirely out of nature descriptions from 300 canonical novels. During his alumni residency, Comitta continued this project by recording it as an audiobook, a sound installation for a future art show, and as material for live collage in collaboration with musicians, building on his ongoing practice in vocal performance and sound poetry. Outside of the recording studio, Comitta worked on his next book, a follow-up to The Nature Book, which explores other patterns, apart from nature descriptions, in how we produce fictions.

Comitta performed a reading from the prairie section of The Nature Book, accompanied by a sound performance by composer Lea Bertucci, Fall 2020 Bemis Sound Art + Experimental Music Artist-in-Residence, at LOW END on October 9, 2020.