Installations in 2006

Journées Sonores, canal de Lachine is a soundscape project based on soundwalks, historical research and interviews with earwitnesses in the neighbourhood of the Lachine Canal in Montreal, from 1999-2003. It was first presented at La Dépendance de la maison Le Ber -Le Moyne, Musée de Lachine in 2003, in the oldest complete building on the island of Montreal, situated adjacent to the entrance of the canal. Over twenty earwitnesses, soundwalkers and researchers were involved in its creation. We invite you to experience the installation and write your comments and responses in the accompanying book.

Originally a radio broadcast using two 1-Watt FM transmitters, Fram/Forward was created for exhibition in Oslo and Moss, Norway. This work interweaves two narratives on two different frequencies at opposite ends of the FM dial to form a dialogue. The stories involve a fictional recounting of the expedition of real-life 19th century Norwegian arctic explorer Fridtjof Nansen, who reached the farthest point north in his time. Nansen’s method was to wedge his ship on ice floes and let the naturally occurring arctic currents carry his team through the North Pole. The structure between the two frequencies is of correspondence between Nansen, and Canadian inventor Reginald Fessenden who was developing radio technologies around the same time as Nansen’s expedition. The first broadcast is taken from Nansen’s journals; I selected passages which make reference to keywords having to do with sound, silence, chaos, calmness and transmission. The second frequency carrying Fessenden’s response, is comprised from a collage of actual fictional narratives discussing the invention of audio technologies in the 19th century. Together, they reveal parallel stories of invention, adding a new level to the story of Nansen’s expedition. The work intervenes not into architectural public space but into the phantasmic space of the airwaves. In the 19th century, “wireless” meant telegraph, then radio, but now the term refers to satellite-driven telecommunications networks.

Stop by the Drake during the festival and beyond to hear stories about the Hotel and the Queen West Neighbourhood. Look for the green [murmur] ear!

[murmur] is an archival audio project that collects and curates stories set in specific Toronto locations, told by Torontonians themselves. At each of these locations, a [murmur] sign with a telephone number and location code marks where stories are available. By using a mobile phone, users are able to listen to the story of that place while engaging in the physical experience of being there. Some stories suggest that the listener walk around, following a certain path through a place, while others allow a person to wander with both their feet and their gaze.

[murmur] believes interesting things don't just happen at the Rogers Centre and Nathan Phillips Square -- the city is full of stories, and some of them happen in parking lots and bungalows, diners and front lawns. The smallest, greyest or most nondescript building can be transformed by the stories that live in it. Once heard, these stories can change the way people think about that place and the city at large. These are the stories that make up Toronto's identity, but they're kept inside of the heads of the people who live here. [murmur] brings that important archive out onto the streets, for all to hear and experience, and is always looking for new stories to add to it's existing locations.

[murmur] was first established in Toronto's Kensington Market in 2003. That same year projects were launched in Vancouver's Chinatown and along St. Laurent Boulevard in Montreal. In 2004 [murmur] spread north from Kensington to the Annex neighbourhood and also established a site at The Drake Hotel . In 2005 [murmur], as part of the City of Toronto's "Culture Capital" program, collected stories along Spadina from Bloor down to Queens Quay which was launched in October 2005.

Soundroam (Halifax to Toronto) is a sound walk. This abstracted tourist audio guide explores a visitor's perspective of Halifax, created site-specifically for the Toronto location. Participants follow a mapped route while listening to the composition on headphones and are aurally trans-located to another place, experiencing the familiar in a new way.

"Soundroam" plays with a range of emotions—from an eerie opening of drawn-out bagpipe sounds that skip and punctuate the air, to an expression of cynical, sharp humour during a bar-band medley which includes "Grease Lightning" and a boozy, screaming crowd. Peepers chirp and casino slot machines take on the impression of an orchestra warming up: Underlying the piece is a strange musicality which, as King points out, blends with natural sounds that creep in under the headphones. It's an enveloping experience that places the listener right in the centre of the work. - excerpted from an article by Sue Carter Flinn in the January 5, 2006 edition of The Coast Halifax's Weekly.

Matério is an acousmatic sound art composition by Louis Dufort that places a microscope on natural sound materials.

Unearthed is a site-specific audio installation for the central median of University Avenue in Toronto that takes the form of an audio-walk.

"We are defined by our landscape: internal and external, psychological and physical. What happens when the present imposes its needs and desires on the past and our geography and memories are buried? As Toronto’s rivers have been sent underground and flow hidden, so can our memories, but if we listen, really listen, we can hear the past that is hidden underfoot." -MR

The sound sculpture Key Piece was created from antique brass keys purchased twenty years ago. For the viewer/auditor the sight and sound of these keys may be used to symbolically unlock the past and open the future. The age and character of the keys relate to the passage of time while the electroacoustic aspects of the sound access the doors to the future.

The installation ‘Artist’s Loft (In the Old Style) With Mashed-Potato Preparation Station for Leprechaun' is a new work produced for the Flicker sessions at the SOUNDplay festival. Taking the form of a faux-naif psychedelic grotto, the installation will create a portal through which visitors may enter a realm of healing and regeneration.