Marisa Demarco is an installation and performance artist, musician and composer based in Albuquerque, N.M.
She composed “Overnight Dreamform,” an eight-hour song based on the adult sleep cycle, and played on the radio for an audience of dreamers. She created “The Mountains Wore Down To The Valleys,” a collaborative work with Adri De La Cruz, which included 21 of Demarco’s compositions installed as 21 vinyl records playing continuously and eroding at the National Hispanic Cultural Center. She developed an outdoor sound installation, mural and performance of the work “There Must Be Other Names For The River,” co-created by Demarco, Jessica Zeglin and Dylan McLaughlin, for SITE Santa Fe.
In January 2024, Demarco performed alongside composer Laura Ortman and artist Jeffrey Gibson in “Malinxe,” created by Ortman and Autumn Chacon, in New York’s Prototype Festival for new operas. She also appeared in “For Four (Caldera),” a song and installation by Raven Chacon.
Compositions by Demarco have been featured in the John Donald Robb Composers Symposium and commissioned for The Chuppers Electric Ensemble, and her work has appeared as interventions in the Society of Ethnomusicology Symposium and the Best of Burque showcase.
Demarco’s pieces have appeared in galleries and museums, such as 516 Arts, GRAFT Gallery and the UNM Art Museum. She has also been part of exhibits and performances as part of the Death Convention Singers at the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, Coconino Center for the Arts, and at the Carlsbad Museum as part of the Atomic Culture series.
She was invited to perform as part of performance art pieces by Rebecca Belmore and Szu-Han Ho in 2016.
Demarco is the founder of Gatas y Vatas festival for boundary-pushing performance and Milch de la Máquina, a women’s performance art crew. She’s a leader with Death Convention Singers, the largest noise collective in the Southwest.
She’s toured her solo project Bigawatt through the United States, Mexico and Europe with hand-built electronic instruments, performing at festivals and showcases like Ende Tymes (NY); Titwrench (Stockholm and Denver); Indie / Electro / Punk Fest (Shiprock, N.M.); Volta (Mexico City); Denver Noise Fest (Denver); Labial Majority (Oakland); Wolftones (ABQ); and Earwaves Soma FM electronics fest (Budaghers, N.M.). She’s released albums on Sicksicksick Distro and Obsolete Media Objects. Her compositions appear on compilations around the country, including Ladyz in Noyz Vol. 1, Running Up That Hill, Under the Covers, Ladies Killin’ It and RATSKIN (2017).
Demarco received her MFA in Experimental Art + Technology from the University of New Mexico in 2022. She is also a journalist and works as a national editor with States Newsroom, a network of nonprofit outlets across the country.