Kikù Hibino is a Chicago-based sound artist and the director of Signal Noise, an independent platform for avant-garde sound and video art. Using voice, text, and noise, his work creates tension between music and non-music, and explores non-linear temporality within time-based media. Recent releases include Sky Trajectories (Superpang, 2024) and Fell to Fern (Superpang, 2022).
His work has been shown in the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts, Experimental Sound Studio, Chicago Cultural Center, Three Walls, Compound Yellow, Elastic Arts, Hairpin Arts Center, Hyde Park Art Center, Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, among others. He is a 2017 Individual Artist Grant recipient from the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and a 2021 Outer Ear Artist in Residency at Experimental Sound Studio. Kikù lives and works in Chicago.
The publication, The Wire (U.K.) once described his music as "trying to cram in as many memories as possible before it all disappears" and that the music "concerns itself with themes of capturing and preserving fleeting moments" (2007, issue 279).
He studied electronic music composition at Keio University Shonan Fujisawa Campus with Toru Iwatake, Atau Tanaka, and Christopher Penrose, and at University of California at Santa Barbara with Curtis Roads and Karen Tanaka, and holds M.A. in media art and technology.
photo: Isak Han, Liina Raud
illustration: Kongkee