Zoë Sparks

Who I am Hello! I'm Zoë Sparks, a music and language artist with a deep interest in computers and food. In all of my endeavors, my focus is on surprising and intricate beauty—like tasting a mathematical object, or having a telepathic interaction with a flower. I make a wide variety of things. Some of them are purely aesthetic—music, literature, videogames and computer art. Others are more functional—utility programs and recipes. I strive to have enough breadth and depth in my work to have something that resonates with everyone. I'm also eager to share the specialized knowledge I have and help others to create their own beautiful things. On top of my solo work, I also collaborate with other artists. <a href="http://cicadamarionette.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Lily Zone</a> (<a href="http://cicadamarionette.com/Games/CryptWorlds/Main.html" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Crypt Worlds</a>) and I work closely together—we're making <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/357609386/crypt-underworld-a-sequel-to-crypt-worlds" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Crypt Underworld</a>, as well as a soon-to-be-released multipack of games (Song of Homunculus, The Last Car, and Crypt Worlds: Director's Edition). Also, <a href="http://everest-pipkin.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Everest Pipkin</a> and I have worked together; in addition to performances and gallery shows when we lived in Austin and a residency we did together in Kansas, we've done a YouTube curation project called "<a href="http://katierosepipkin.com/snowfall-destroys-three-cars/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Snowfall DESTROYS Three Cars</a>" (see playlists <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB8367A3D7478C3A4" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">1</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdm5JOTaGssCIjfIfzIuEEdaYXH4jARsr" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">2</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjN99r1L3D-9fA1Z9AFRn317Wt5KUlrVU" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">3</a>, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZq1-oIPehfSTZFXtLx7BYYU45fK1q22m" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">4</a>). If you'd like to see my work, take a look at <a href="https://milky.flowers" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">my website</a>. If you find my work meaningful, please contribute here, so I can stay alive and healthy enough to keep working. My personal circumstances If you're curious about the situation I'm living in, here is a bit of information: I'm trans, I live in poverty—this is my sole source of dependable income—and I have a number of health conditions that leave me reliant on the often-hard-to-access healthcare system and make it difficult to consistently function. I've been diagnosed with chronic complex migraine with aura, psoriatic arthritis, delayed sleep phase syndrome, and ADHD; my life has been a kind of constant carousel of getting and losing treatment for those conditions as I move around the country to wherever the rent is cheapest, gain and lose health insurance, and so on. These days, Lily Zone and I live together, so any threats to my housing impact her as well. I'll keep making art as long as I'm physically able—I've focused my life on it since I was a kid and it's what drives me to keep going in life. Your contribution helps ensure that I'll be able to get healthcare, buy food, and have a place to live and work while that's going on. Thanks so much to everyone who supports me! Even those of you who just give a dollar are making a real impact on my life—that's sometimes the difference between the red and the black for me. My lovely avatar is by <a href="https://twitter.com/men_icandoit14" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">@men_icandoit14</a>.I don't offer paid rewards or gate any of my posts behind contribution tiers or anything like that now, because I feel more and more strongly each year that any media put online should be made freely available to all regardless of their ability to pay. I think we would have a psychologically healthier and more vibrant society if that was so. As such, I would like to encourage you to support my artistic and technological work financially if you appreciate it and can afford to, with the understanding that you will have free access to what I produce whether you contribute financially or not.

Recent posts by Zoë Sparks