Art In the Open: Miles Jefferson Friday and Katy McCarthy

Step into a captivating exploration of San Antonio’s natural and non-human watershed environments with Intimate Ecologies, an innovative multimedia installation from artists Miles Jefferson Friday and Katy McCarthy, that brings audiences into close connection with the delicate ecosystems often hidden in plain sight. 

This immersive experience uses groundbreaking video and audio techniques to reveal the subtle activities of our local ecological systems. Visitors will explore Confluence Park as carefully manipulated field recordings of water systems and insects play through headphones, creating a “silent” yet deeply resonant journey. 

Projected visuals—captured using macro lenses, analog video cameras, and digital microscopes—will transform the park’s landscape. These images are synchronized with soundscapes displayed on uniquely positioned spandex screens to craft an intimate, multi-sensory environment. 

This installation underscores the importance of environmental collaboration, offering a space to reflect on our shared biosphere. Don’t miss this one-night-only opportunity to encounter San Antonio’s watershed ecosystems through a lens of artistry, intimacy, and wonder. 

is a San Antonio River Foundation initiative and program to support artists and engage the San Antonio River community and our visitors with contemporary art experiences. Artists are invited to present projects at Confluence Park that align with San Antonio River Foundation’s mission to enhance the river as a vibrant cultural experience and promote and encourage the conservation, stewardship, and enjoyment of the San Antonio River Basin.

Free and open to the pubic. Registration is not required, but encouraged.

Miles Jefferson Friday is a composer and researcher who aims to construct communities where sound can serve as a site for critical inquiry to be realized, not just in the abstract, but in practice. Within this guiding principle, Miles’s creative output acts as a form of project-based research, where he utilizes music technologies and engages with theoretical scholarship as a means of exploring personal subjectivities of auditory reception, re-thinking instruments and/as objects, and proposing ways in which sound-based practice can operate more dynamically and equitably. Miles’s works have been performed across the United States and internationally by ensembles such as the AIR Contemporary Music Collective (China), Athens State Orchestra (Greece), Ensemble InterContemporain (France), Ensemble Suono Giallo (Italy), the Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble (Russia), the Tacet(i) Ensemble (Thailand), and the Tönkunstler Orchestra (Austria). Additionally, Miles has exhibited installations at festivals such as the SinusTon Festival (Germany), the International Computer Music Conference (Ireland & China), the Thailand New Music and Arts Symposium (Thailand), and the SEAMUS Conference (USA). Miles holds a BM from Indiana University, an MA from the Eastman School of Music, and an MFA and DMA from Cornell University. Miles is currently an Assistant Professor of Digital Music at UTSA.

Katy McCarthy (she/her) is an artist, filmmaker and educator based in Austin, Texas. She holds a BFA from UC Santa Barbara and an MFA from the Interdisciplinary Studio Arts program at Hunter College in New York. Her short films weave narratives that tell human stories backgrounded by social and environmental themes and have been screened at the Dallas International Film Festival’s Short Film Fest, Cindependent Film Festival, The Every Woman Biennial FIlm Festival, CUNY Film Festival, and NurtureART’s Single Channel: Video Art Festival. Her video works have been included in group shows at Tiger Strike Asteroid Gallery Los Angeles, Flux Factory, and the Santa Barbara Contemporary Art Museum among other venues. She has been an artist-in-residence at Lighthouse Works, LMCC Governors Island, SOHO20 Residency Lab, Grin City and The Wassaic Project. In 2018 Katy was the inaugural and sole recipient of the St. Elmo Fellowship at UT Austin. In 2021 she received the Austin Film Society short film grant for her short film “The Violinist.” She is an Assistant Professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Confluence Park, 310 West Mitchell Street, San Antonio, United States