Travis Johnson, curator of Ilse, was born in 1979 and began experimenting with radios, tapes and open circuits as a child, inspired by the work of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop for Doctor Who and by the rural isolation of Suwannee County, Florida.

He received training on the guitar as a teenager, but has never been much interested in conventional musical phrasing, preferring to explore the possibilities of vibrating strings and magnetic pickups, as well as membranophones and other percussion instruments, to create surprising timbres. Even when playing a drum kit or acoustic stringed instrument, his approach is informed primarily by electronic/electroacoustic music.

More recently, he has become interested in digital synthesis, the manipulation of live and sampled sound and digital music production.

In live performance, Johnson is primarily interested in collaborative improvisation and has played with countless musicians including Bryan Eubanks, Cave Bears, David Kirby, Hal McGee, Jamison Williams, Tatsuya Nakatani and Wade Matthews.