What is Contrabute? It’s me, Alexis Halverson, or by me or perhaps started by me. It depends on whether it becomes a short lived project, my professional career or an idea/organisation that grows beyond me. We’ll see!

I consult and create under the Contrabute brand, exploring the ways community, creativity, and technology contribute to each other. Sometimes separate but always informed by the ways they interact. I can't disentangle my perspective on connection and community from building things with technology, making art, or exploring faith. You'll find it all here, still entangled.

Exploring Creativity

While I like to think of myself as an artist, creativity is fundamental to being human. You shouldn't have to be an artist, amateur or professional, to create things. I enjoy many creative outlets like crochet, cooking and writing poetry that I keep private but I have publicly made algorithmic art on and off for nearly a decade now. Using code, light and physical objects to create installation art is my particular passion. My art doesn't change the world, create community or uncover meaning, at least not by itself. Art can inspire, stir emotion, prompt questions and is dependent on connection and community.

Creatively, my goal is to entangle technology, human connection, and faith, using all three as medium, inspiration and subject. I aim for my art to question technology and faith, both separately and together, the ways they can both cause division and bring people together. As "a member of" multiple communities (queer and Christian in particular) I'm particularly interested in the ways creativity can inspire people to seek connection and find community.

Exploring Faith

I'm (almost) unapologetically both Christian and transgender. I've seen the ways faith, religion and spirituality can both enrich and deplete people, depending on how it's used. My faith is deeply entangled in community and creativity. For me the weird wonders of religion (or at least Christianity) is best explored with other people as well as God. As much as many people would prefer not to admit it, public/communal worship is deeply creative from visual design and music to the "performance" of ancient traditions and contemporary slide show sermons.

I'm annoyingly passionate about creative, generous, resilient faith communities in which everyone can explore regardless of tradition or belief. I'm working within my own tradition discerning a call and trying to find space for trans, queer, and other folk who like me have felt excluded from and uncomfortable in Christian spaces. To me art and faith are both about asking and exploring difficult questions. Often with open ended, changing, deeply personal answers and sometimes no answer at all. Wrestling with these questions with others is deeply rewarding.

Exploring Technology

For both better and worse digital technology has become the organisational backbone of our lives. I was always "good with computers" and failed to escape being a professional computer girl. I learnt to code specifically for making art and have worked in IT and software development for most of my adult life, ending up managing the software engineering team at a medtech startup in my last role. Digital technology is a tool though, a medium and a conduit. As much as I appreciate the artistry and accomplishment I found in a tech career I'm much more interested in the ways it can contribute positively to community. All too often it seems like the goal of tech is to force people to adapt around it, and I want to pursue the ways it can adapt to us. I think this often this looks more like helping a kids football team sort out their spreadsheets, a church setup a website or a gay club manage their ticketing system than developing the next subscription widget.

Entangled

So, is this an artist's statement? The start of a manifesto for community organising? A very strange lay pastor profile? A pitch to hire me as a consultant?

No. And yes. You can follow me on Instagram or subscribe to the newsletter on this site if you're interested in seeing where this goes!