Born in Lethbridge, Alberta, Katie retired as a national-level gymnast before moving to Vancouver to pursue a university basketball career. Katie played for four years on the Simon Fraser University women’s basketball team and competed in the NCAA. After earning a Bachelor of Business Administration (Finance), she joined Modus Operandi under the direction of Tiffany Tregarthen, David Raymond and Kate Franklin. Within the Vancouver dance community, Katie has had the pleasure of working with Shay Kuebler (Radical System Art), Fight with a Stick (Stephen Hill, Alex Ferguson), Josh Hite, Serge Bennathan (Les Production Figlio), Justine A. Chambers (choreographic mentorship), and Deanna Peters. In collaboration with two other colleagues, Katie co-founded the alternative performance space Boombox (an alternative performance space built in a semi-truck trailer) in 2016, where she has created and performed her own choreographic work and continues to co-direct with Diego Romero. Boombox has hosted the research and creation of over forty multi-generational artists in a variety of presentational formats.
Currently, Katie is pursuing a Master’s of Computer Science through Northeastern University. As an artist, she developed a variety of skills necessary for success in the field of Computer Science including the ability to collaborate with team members, creative problem-solving in high-pressure environments, communicate with artists in varying disciplines, and adapt quickly to current and new demands.
In her MSCS program, she has programmed in Python, Java, C#, and C languages. Katie loves to learn new skills and technologies and is adaptable to fast-paced, evolving environments and circumstances. Her creative and strategic thinking combines to allow for a different approach to ideation and complex problem-solving challenges. Katie’s experience as an artist, in conjunction with the skills she is developing in her MSCS program, will make her a valuable contributor to the technology industry.
Github Link
Projects and Papers:
Virtual Reality - Escape Room
Virtual Reality - Future Application of Virtual Reality for Educational Purposes
Augmented Reality - Tag Game
Augmented Reality - Future Application of Augmented Reality in Cultural Institutions
Machine Learning - Drone Search and Rescue Operations using YOLOv4
Data Structures - KD Tree and Trie (in C)
Unity Virtual Reality Escape Room
Created as a final project for a graduate mixed reality class, this unity-created escape room uses puzzles, incorporating audio and visual cues, for the user to interact with.
all things wet are dangerous.
Created and performed by Katie Lowen
all things wet are dangerous (ATWAD) is a solo, site-specific, live performance installation in collaboration with selected film works of Martin Arnold.
This research is a reinterpretation and performance of Martin Arnold’s work, Passage a’lact. This film takes a twenty second family breakfast scene from the 1950’s classic To Kill a Mockingbird and ruthlessly scrubs through the content. Arnold keeps the original sound attached to the movement and extends this short clip from To Kill a Mocking Bird (TKMB) into a twelve minute film, now described as a “surrealist nightmare.” His formalist approach to repetition of small movements progressing through a typical morning score, such as eating breakfast, quickly becomes layered with sexual and social innuendo.
Location: Boombox, Vancouver BC
good art. bad art. not art.
Using the YOLOv4 algorithm, this research explores the utilization of machine learning and image recognition to identify the “category” of historical artwork through modern subjectivity. The database used to train the model is currently being built through submissions by the public, where each submitted image is classified in one of the three categories. This database built on subjectivity will then be used to train the image recognition model to reveal whether our modern-day tastes agree with what has been determined as historically “good art.”
Boombox
53” of alternative performance and rehearsal space
Created in September 2016.
The container, about 16 meters long by three meters tall and three meters wide, is now an informal rehearsal and performance space called Boombox. It's parked in a secret location. This past year Boombox hosted six shows, each with about 30 audience members inside the narrow space and has been in operation since 2016.
Morning Glory
Executive Producer/Assistant Video and Sound Editor
A rouge, queer, satirical look into the classic structure of a morning news show.
(In collaboration with Laura Bell, Lex Gray, Bruna Arbex)