Installations in 2012

Indigenous Youth Radio Art Installation is the outcome of a sound art residency in which selected participants were challenged to create short pieces responding to the concept of freedom, the theme of this year’s Deep Wireless Festival of Radio & Transmission Art. The installation involves the works presented from individual radios hidden from view in the hallway adjacent to the NAISA Space, creating a unique aural experience.

Radio Mind draws on early 20th Century experimental radio, Protestantism, historical and mythic seafaring cults, and the powerful mythology of the radiophonic ether, as notions of radio art and religious imaginary are brought into question.

Visitors that encounter the Synthecycletron, a favourite amongst Toronto cyclists, generate power by pedalling on stationary bicycles which in turn activate synthesizers and generate sounds connected to their movements.

Ghostwood a/v is an audio-visual installation which investigates the psychogeography of Ontario's northern wilderness. It is primarily focused on the use of infrasound, provided by specially-constructed tactile transducers, and is supported with a single-channel video component.

It is part of an ongoing series of sound-art projects which investigates the liminal spaces which exist between humans and their natural environment. The project title is a reference to those suburban neighbourhoods in which the sole memory of what has been displaced or eradicated as a result of their construction survives in the now-prosaic street names ('Valleyview', 'Forest Hill', etc.). This version of the project focuses on the 'near north', rural areas where the encroachment of civilization has clearly begun, but in which nature has yet to be suppressed as a dominating force.

PulseCubes is an interactive sound installation. Visitors are invited to become part of an implicit feedback loop whose other components include a set of small cubes on a flat surface, computer vision and digital signal processing. The cubes are tracked by a web camera positioned overhead and processed through a partially opaque system implemented in the programming environment Max/MSP/Jitter. Audience interaction is created through the placement and movements of these cubes acting as a control device which in turn results in the production of audio and physical vibrations.

trace: evidence or an indication of the former presence or existence of something

Can one man stand amidst his many voices and find herself there? Can one man sing harmony with different parts of himself? Can we trace the sound of ourselves as we change? If so, what remains of the original voice?

trace transforms a private story into a performative experience, exploring the idea that change is constant and we are always becoming someone new. trace puts the audience at its centre, and asks the question: how do we reconcile who we used to be, with who we are now, and who we are yet to become?

trace is an interdisciplinary work integrating sound, video, live performance and installation in an exploration of voice. This immersive sound based installation uses archival recordings taken before and during Tristan Whiston’s gender transition from female to male along with recent recordings and live vocals. Throughout the room are 12 speakers through which the audience can piece together their own experience of a multi-part soundscape with each speaker playing a single element or part. Audience is invited to contribute to the performance by entering one of the installation’s beach inspired changing huts and, using old-fashioned technology, create their own vocal recording, eliciting an experience of auditory self-reflection.

Room Dynamics is an audiovisual installation consisting of 12 incandescent light bulbs and 14 channels of sound. The 12 bulbs - each coupled to a small audio speaker hanging above the bulb - are arranged into a permeable site-responsive media architecture which both occupies the gallery space and is in dialog with its surrounding architectural character. The media architecture is animated by a generative, algorithmic, multi-modal composition, exploring the perceptual and affective states arising from the interactions of dynamic media architectures and the material architectures within which they are embedded. The 12 "points" of light and sound - perceived as "sounding bulbs" - manifest various dynamic behavioural states, ranging from individual activities to collective operation. Each subsequent behavioural state exerts itself on its surrounding environment: reshaping its appearance and volume, creating movement and changes in perspective. Through these activities, the gallery space is activated: making available architectural features, articulating navigable pathways, “colouring” and “shading” the experiential space through which the spectator navigates.

Installation Experimental video work by Laurel MacDonald, initially developed for use in her live solo performances. Nenia Sirenes and BenSolo are both animation works; Virgoscillo and Ad Superni are each lens-based works, using video and film respectively.

Virgoscillo 2008
2:44 : HD video : stereo sound
Video, Voice and music arrangement by Laurel MacDonald
arrangement of O Virgo Splendens, anonymous, late 14th century from the Llibre Vermell de Montserrat, Montserrat monastery, Catalonia

Nenia Sirenes 2008
5:11 : HD video: stereo sound
Video by Laurel MacDonald
Music Composition by Philip Strong
Ad Superni 2008
3:32 : super 8 film : stereo sound
Video, Voice and music arrangement by Laurel MacDonald\
arrangement of Ad Superni regis decus, Magister Albericus, Archiepiscopus Bituricensis,12th century, from the Codex Calixtinus, Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela

BenSolo 2009
4:18 : HD video : stereo sound
Vocals and Animation by Laurel MacDonald
Music Composition by Philip Strong