About the Project
The Harmony Show (THS) is a durational performance, social mode of study, and multi-faceted talk show conceived by Amber Hawk Swanson and co-created/hosted by Synthetiks advocate Davecat, his life-size roboticized spouse Sidore Kuroneko, and Hawk Swanson.
Video production by Amber Hawk Swanson and Audio Chemists, compilation edit by Renato Velarde.
The seminar leaders and cooking show guests in the compilation above are—in order of appearance—Lilian Mengesha, Olivia Michiko Gagnon, Renato Velarde (via a digital puppet designed by Velarde), Ilana Harris-Babou, Amber Jamilla Musser, Leslie Bow, and Constantina Zavitsanos.
The seminar leaders and cooking show guests in the compilation above are—in order of appearance—Lilian Mengesha, Olivia Michiko Gagnon, Renato Velarde (via a digital puppet designed by Velarde), Ilana Harris-Babou, Amber Jamilla Musser, Leslie Bow, and Constantina Zavitsanos.
After twenty-one years of marriage, Sidore, the Doll who shares marriage with Davecat, became roboticized and spoke aloud for the first time in May 2021. In the months leading up to Sidore’s robotization, Davecat, Sidore, and Hawk Swanson collaborated to create the twenty-one episode series of Zoom performances that comprised Semester / Season One of THS.
Based around the discussion of readings or conversations around the stove with invited scholars and artists, the episodes fall into two categories: seminars and cooking shows. During seminar episodes, invited scholars and artists lead Amber, Davecat, and Sidore through readings and screenings relevant to their research. During cooking show episodes, guests are invited into related conversations while Hawk Swanson cooks and bakes recipes developed by Nicole, a food blogger and scholar of racialized risk, technoscience, and postcolonial biopolitics.
During Spring 2023, THS received a commission for six new episodes—three seminars and three cooking shows. Each integrated live and online participants into performances for live audience, broadcast, and recording components. During THS Live! episodes, Hawk Swanson and her cooking show guests prepared soup that was later served to the live audience.
Based around the discussion of readings or conversations around the stove with invited scholars and artists, the episodes fall into two categories: seminars and cooking shows. During seminar episodes, invited scholars and artists lead Amber, Davecat, and Sidore through readings and screenings relevant to their research. During cooking show episodes, guests are invited into related conversations while Hawk Swanson cooks and bakes recipes developed by Nicole, a food blogger and scholar of racialized risk, technoscience, and postcolonial biopolitics.
During Spring 2023, THS received a commission for six new episodes—three seminars and three cooking shows. Each integrated live and online participants into performances for live audience, broadcast, and recording components. During THS Live! episodes, Hawk Swanson and her cooking show guests prepared soup that was later served to the live audience.
[Three large posters announcing THS Live! hang on a museum wall behind a bright purple carpeted reading area.]
![]()
[Xiomara Sebastián Castro Niculescu and Amber Hawk Swanson make soup during the filming of a hybrid cooking show episode of The Harmony Show entitled Tired Selena, “The Tranny,” and Caribbean-inspired Beef Soup. A projection of Sidore’s Zoom room appears in the background.]
During Spring 2024, THS received a commission to create a new episode in artist quori theodor’s installation, Gnaw, at Performance Space New York (PSNY). Structurally similar to the THS Live! episodes from the previous year, the episode was a cooking show that integrated live and online participants into a performance for a live audience. After the episode was recorded and broadcast, the audience was served bowls of soup prepared by Hawk Swanson during the performance.
[Amber Hawk Swanson makes soup atop a pink diner counter in front of a shelved fermentation wall during the filming of a hybrid episode of The Harmony Show entitled Cooking Show with Ilana Harris-Babou and Kyla Wazana Tompkins. Two television screens flanking Amber display Zoom rooms and live captioning. A mostly silhouetted live audience watches.]
[Hawk Swanson serves soup to art workers and live audience members during the filming of a hybrid episode of The Harmony Show entitled Cooking Show with Ilana Harris-Babou and Kyla Wazana Tompkins.]