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. His work spans installations, multichannel environments, and beat-driven electronic pieces. Recent releases include Fell to Fern (Superpang, 2022), composed for the Lincoln Park Conservatory, and Sky Trajectories (Superpang, 2024).
His collaborative album with Merzbow, Rococo ∞ Echomatter (Superpang, 2026), develops an approach where dense noise fields collide with spoken voice and acoustic instruments. Rather than smoothing contrasts, the work treats noise as an ornamental structure—sound proliferating across the surface in endlessly mutating forms.
His work has been shown in the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Wrightwood 659, 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: Ivana Micic, Isak Han, Liina Raud
illustration: Kongkee