Sound Art Alums Lemon Guo '18 and Elyse Blennerhassett '18 Receive Brown Institute Magic Grants

Alums of the Sound Art Program Lemon Guo '18 and Elyse Blennerhassett '18 recently received grants from the David and Helen Gurley Brown Institute for Media Innovation’s Magic Grant program for their collaborative project Blind Envy.

Founded in 2012, the Brown Institute is a joint effort between Stanford’s School of Engineering and Columbia Journalism School. Each year, the Brown Institute awards more than $1 million in year-long grants and funding awards, allowing recipients to follow their passion, explore new stories, and experiment with alternative storytelling tools and platforms. In addition to funding, grantees have access to a distinguished advisory and mentoring group and an extensive alumni network. Since its inception, the Brown Institute has funded over 150 projects and supported nearly 400 people through its Magic Grant program.

Successful Magic Grant projects have included novel journalism projects, new software platforms, and hardware innovations. This year saw the 15th cohort of Magic Grants, with winners proposing new work in investigative reporting, civic technology, accessible technology, public health, and tools for creative work.

Blind Envy incorporates a pair of tactile audio tools—a field recorder and a studio editor—designed for blind creators, and an eight-episode podcast series, featuring blind storytellers using the devices to produce their own work. According to Guo, the project was inspired by the “cassette tape era,” when blind audio engineers relied on aural and tactile workflows, now displaced by screen-bound digital audio workstations. Their project’s hardware replaces graphical interfaces with motorized faders, jog wheels, and dedicated single-function controls, offering blind creators an accessible domain for professional audio.

Guo, an interdisciplinary artist, composer, and vocalist from China’s southeastern coast, leads this initiative. She is drawn to the visceral, evocative nature of the voice and creates voice-based performances and installations that explore what haunts her and won’t leave her alone. 

“I spent most of my adult life working with sound,” said Guo. “My collaboration with blind musicians over the past few years has helped me confront the strange ways people edit audio in the digital age. Why do we stare at screens to edit sounds, instead of feeling and touching them? Did you know that some blind people used to be top audio engineers in the analog era, where they could touch knobs and splice tapes by hand? With the Blind Envy project, we are building audio hardware that returns touch to the craft of sound. We will also use these devices to train blind participants in audio production and publish an audio magazine that blind participants will both create and curate.”

Guo has performed and exhibited her works internationally at venues including the Sundance Film Festival, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Rubin Museum of Art, Katonah Museum of Art, Fridman Gallery, Ambient Church, 3-Legged Dog Art & Technology Center, EcoSono Festival of Environmental Music and Sound Art, New Interface for Musical Expression, New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival (US), BBC Radio 3 (UK), International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (Netherlands), International Computer Music Conference (Korea), Chronus Arts Center, and Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture (China). In addition to an MFA in Visual Arts from Columbia University, Guo holds a BA in composition from the University of Virginia and is currently a DMA student in composition at Stanford University. 

Blennerhassett, Guo’s collaborator, is a long-form narrative and documentary producer, editor, scriptwriter, and sound designer for radio, podcasts, films, and immersive exhibitions. Her work prioritizes restorative justice and giving voice to people often overlooked in society, from the incarcerated to immigrants and refugees to everyday people, misfits, artists, and grassroots leaders and revolutionaries seeking to create a more just and joyful world. 

Reflecting on their longstanding creative partnership, Blennerhassett shared: “I met Lemon back when we were MFA students at Columbia. I was immediately moved by her sincerity, imagination, and kindness. Since then, we’ve worked together on several projects. Over the years, I hired Lemon to sound design and score several podcasts for the United Nations Development Program, as well as an immersive multichannel sound installation about the moral injury of war. Now, I’m looking forward to working on one of Lemon’s projects. I will be working specifically on the podcast production side with the participants, who will use the prototype currently being designed to tell their stories.”

See a full list of grantees here.