Installations presented on 2023
Videomusic Installation - Immersions and Resonances
January 14 to February 27, 2023. Open 10 am to 4 pm everyday except Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Closed Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year's Day.
NAISA North Media Arts Centre, 313 Highway 124, South River, Ontario
Pay by Donation
Spending time immersed in nature can bring to the surface evidence of not just what is visible or audible in nature but what is unspoken or unseen in the consciousness of the perceiving individual. This program of videomusic works contains reflections on the natural spaces encountered by artists of a variety of disciplines.
January 14 to February 27, 2023. Open 10 am to 4 pm everyday except Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Closed Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year's Day.
NAISA North Media Arts Centre, 313 Highway 124, South River, Ontario
Pay by Donation
Spending time immersed in nature can bring to the surface evidence of not just what is visible or audible in nature but what is unspoken or unseen in the consciousness of the perceiving individual. This program of videomusic works contains reflections on the natural spaces encountered by artists of a variety of disciplines.
Program:
I. Space_03 by Hector Centeno
This piece is part of Centeno's ongoing Space_ series of media art works. The works in the series are derived directly from the attentive and phenomenological exploration of a specific geographical/physical location. The majority of the visual and acoustic elements present in these pieces come from processing photogrammetry, spatial audio (ambisonic) and still images captured during a period of attentive immersion and observation that Centeno conducts while physically present at the recording location. This observation and recording technique follows mindfulness processes among others.
This new piece in the cycle was commissioned by New Adventures in Sound Art in honour of its 20th anniversary and the recording process for the piece was facilitated by a residency at Warbler's Roost in South River, Ontario. The recordings made at Warbler's Roost are used to create a photorealistic virtual place composed of 3D geometry and reactive spatial audio. From this content Centeno performs a real-time virtual exploration that determines the final recorded audiovisual sequence presented in this piece.
This piece is part of Centeno's ongoing Space_ series of media art works. The works in the series are derived directly from the attentive and phenomenological exploration of a specific geographical/physical location. The majority of the visual and acoustic elements present in these pieces come from processing photogrammetry, spatial audio (ambisonic) and still images captured during a period of attentive immersion and observation that Centeno conducts while physically present at the recording location. This observation and recording technique follows mindfulness processes among others.
This new piece in the cycle was commissioned by New Adventures in Sound Art in honour of its 20th anniversary and the recording process for the piece was facilitated by a residency at Warbler's Roost in South River, Ontario. The recordings made at Warbler's Roost are used to create a photorealistic virtual place composed of 3D geometry and reactive spatial audio. From this content Centeno performs a real-time virtual exploration that determines the final recorded audiovisual sequence presented in this piece.
II. breathwatersoundscannon by Iddo Aharony and Arom Choi
“Now / make room in the mouth / for grassesgrassesgrasses” reads the epigraph opening Layli Long Soldier’s poetry collection Whereas (2017). This collaborative piece emerged from a thirst for some of the liminal spaces that these words seem to invite us to open — between voice and place, breath and earth, perhaps “now” and memory. Whereas is in part a response to the Congressional resolution of apology to Native Americans, a document of carefully crafted legal language signed by President Obama in obscurity in 2009. Long Soldier’s specific poem which both inspired this piece and is woven into its fabric, “Resolution 2,” is adapted from the language of this Congressional resolution itself. However, its text — “I commend and honor Native Peoples for the thousands of years that they have stewarded and protected this land” — is put into question as it is disassembled on the page before the reader’s eyes: its words are listed top to bottom, one by one, at the very left of the page; meanwhile, the rest of the page is made of empty space. Within this space two words float, reappearing in different placements — “this” and “land.” Each iteration of these two words seems to carry its own timbre, density, and frequency, carry its own questioning of how this language has been used in the past and present, carry its own defiance.
breathwatersoundcannon was created as a dipping of a toe into a fraction of the many streams potentially flowing out of this poem’s empty spaces.
Credits:
bass-flute: Shanna Pranaitis
text and recorded voice: Layli Long Soldier
video: Arom Choi
performance in video: Mónica Sanchez
composition and electronics: Iddo Aharony
“Now / make room in the mouth / for grassesgrassesgrasses” reads the epigraph opening Layli Long Soldier’s poetry collection Whereas (2017). This collaborative piece emerged from a thirst for some of the liminal spaces that these words seem to invite us to open — between voice and place, breath and earth, perhaps “now” and memory. Whereas is in part a response to the Congressional resolution of apology to Native Americans, a document of carefully crafted legal language signed by President Obama in obscurity in 2009. Long Soldier’s specific poem which both inspired this piece and is woven into its fabric, “Resolution 2,” is adapted from the language of this Congressional resolution itself. However, its text — “I commend and honor Native Peoples for the thousands of years that they have stewarded and protected this land” — is put into question as it is disassembled on the page before the reader’s eyes: its words are listed top to bottom, one by one, at the very left of the page; meanwhile, the rest of the page is made of empty space. Within this space two words float, reappearing in different placements — “this” and “land.” Each iteration of these two words seems to carry its own timbre, density, and frequency, carry its own questioning of how this language has been used in the past and present, carry its own defiance.
breathwatersoundcannon was created as a dipping of a toe into a fraction of the many streams potentially flowing out of this poem’s empty spaces.
Credits:
bass-flute: Shanna Pranaitis
text and recorded voice: Layli Long Soldier
video: Arom Choi
performance in video: Mónica Sanchez
composition and electronics: Iddo Aharony
III. breathwatersoundscannon by Iddo Aharony and Arom Choi
“Now / make room in the mouth / for grassesgrassesgrasses” reads the epigraph opening Layli Long Soldier’s poetry collection Whereas (2017). This collaborative piece emerged from a thirst for some of the liminal spaces that these words seem to invite us to open — between voice and place, breath and earth, perhaps “now” and memory. Whereas is in part a response to the Congressional resolution of apology to Native Americans, a document of carefully crafted legal language signed by President Obama in obscurity in 2009. Long Soldier’s specific poem which both inspired this piece and is woven into its fabric, “Resolution 2,” is adapted from the language of this Congressional resolution itself. However, its text — “I commend and honor Native Peoples for the thousands of years that they have stewarded and protected this land” — is put into question as it is disassembled on the page before the reader’s eyes: its words are listed top to bottom, one by one, at the very left of the page; meanwhile, the rest of the page is made of empty space. Within this space two words float, reappearing in different placements — “this” and “land.” Each iteration of these two words seems to carry its own timbre, density, and frequency, carry its own questioning of how this language has been used in the past and present, carry its own defiance.
breathwatersoundcannon was created as a dipping of a toe into a fraction of the many streams potentially flowing out of this poem’s empty spaces.
Credits:
bass-flute: Shanna Pranaitis
text and recorded voice: Layli Long Soldier
video: Arom Choi
performance in video: Mónica Sanchez
composition and electronics: Iddo Aharony
“Now / make room in the mouth / for grassesgrassesgrasses” reads the epigraph opening Layli Long Soldier’s poetry collection Whereas (2017). This collaborative piece emerged from a thirst for some of the liminal spaces that these words seem to invite us to open — between voice and place, breath and earth, perhaps “now” and memory. Whereas is in part a response to the Congressional resolution of apology to Native Americans, a document of carefully crafted legal language signed by President Obama in obscurity in 2009. Long Soldier’s specific poem which both inspired this piece and is woven into its fabric, “Resolution 2,” is adapted from the language of this Congressional resolution itself. However, its text — “I commend and honor Native Peoples for the thousands of years that they have stewarded and protected this land” — is put into question as it is disassembled on the page before the reader’s eyes: its words are listed top to bottom, one by one, at the very left of the page; meanwhile, the rest of the page is made of empty space. Within this space two words float, reappearing in different placements — “this” and “land.” Each iteration of these two words seems to carry its own timbre, density, and frequency, carry its own questioning of how this language has been used in the past and present, carry its own defiance.
breathwatersoundcannon was created as a dipping of a toe into a fraction of the many streams potentially flowing out of this poem’s empty spaces.
Credits:
bass-flute: Shanna Pranaitis
text and recorded voice: Layli Long Soldier
video: Arom Choi
performance in video: Mónica Sanchez
composition and electronics: Iddo Aharony
IV. In-Between by Mark Gustavson and Chris Myhr
“In-Between” is an experimental audio-visual collaboration. The electroacoustic composition presents two complementary musical characters. The visual component presents a mediating character that cycles somewhere in-between the two discrete-yet-interconnected musical elements.
The work explores themes of liminality and contradiction; simultaneous becoming/disappearing; transmission/reception; organization/entropy; and aims to make sensible that which operates between polarities—the forces that make things whole, yet paradoxically multifaceted and fragmented.
Imagery consists of macro HD video of particles vibrating on scientific Chladni plates, time-lapse sequences of evaporating water collected from sections of Lake Ontario contaminated with blue-green algae, as well as other footage captured above and below various bodies of water in Central and Eastern Canada.
The musical characterizations of the elements other than water, including fire, air, earth. The processing of sound sources in some cases reveals their essence.
“In-Between” is an experimental audio-visual collaboration. The electroacoustic composition presents two complementary musical characters. The visual component presents a mediating character that cycles somewhere in-between the two discrete-yet-interconnected musical elements.
The work explores themes of liminality and contradiction; simultaneous becoming/disappearing; transmission/reception; organization/entropy; and aims to make sensible that which operates between polarities—the forces that make things whole, yet paradoxically multifaceted and fragmented.
Imagery consists of macro HD video of particles vibrating on scientific Chladni plates, time-lapse sequences of evaporating water collected from sections of Lake Ontario contaminated with blue-green algae, as well as other footage captured above and below various bodies of water in Central and Eastern Canada.
The musical characterizations of the elements other than water, including fire, air, earth. The processing of sound sources in some cases reveals their essence.
Forced Migration
By Michelle Wilson
February 4 to April 3, 2023. Open 10 am to 4 pm everyday except Tuesdays and Wednesdays
NAISA North Media Arts Centre, 313 Highway 124, South River, Ontario
Pay by Donation
In this interactive textile map, Michelle Wilson stitches together organic and technological material to memorialize specific bison killed, captured, or bred in an effort to save the species from extinction. “When viewers touch a segment of this journey, they will hear an associated story; not a straightforward narrative but a glimpse at the places, beings (human and non-human) and tales that have shaped our current relationships with bison.”
The audio stories in "Forced Migration" take as their focal point men who tried to control the bison establishing themselves as 'saviours', the bison who lived in reciprocity with one another and the Land, and the colonial system of conservation itself.
Sound design is by Angus Cruikshank. The textile map is made from wool (felted and roving), embroidery thread, conductive thread, glass beads, copper tape, wood and imitation sinew.
By Michelle Wilson
February 4 to April 3, 2023. Open 10 am to 4 pm everyday except Tuesdays and Wednesdays
NAISA North Media Arts Centre, 313 Highway 124, South River, Ontario
Pay by Donation
In this interactive textile map, Michelle Wilson stitches together organic and technological material to memorialize specific bison killed, captured, or bred in an effort to save the species from extinction. “When viewers touch a segment of this journey, they will hear an associated story; not a straightforward narrative but a glimpse at the places, beings (human and non-human) and tales that have shaped our current relationships with bison.”
The audio stories in "Forced Migration" take as their focal point men who tried to control the bison establishing themselves as 'saviours', the bison who lived in reciprocity with one another and the Land, and the colonial system of conservation itself.
Sound design is by Angus Cruikshank. The textile map is made from wool (felted and roving), embroidery thread, conductive thread, glass beads, copper tape, wood and imitation sinew.
Michelle Wilson is an artist and mother currently residing as an uninvited guest on Treaty Six territory in London, Ontario. In her current work, she makes palpable the presence and absence of bison and their inseparability from the land and its people. In the Euro-American archive, bison bodies have been used to convey colonial knowledge systems, and their story of survival has been used to perpetuate myths of “settler saviours." As a feminist of settler descent studying in colonial institutions, this is the legacy that Wilson has inherited and is confronting.