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Installations presented in 2020
Songs of Ice
By Michael Waterman and Jesse Stewart
January 17 to March 30, 2020. Open 10 am to 4 pm everyday except Tuesdays and Wednesdays
NAISA North Media Arts Centre, 106 Ottawa Ave, South River
Pay by Donation
Songs of Ice brings together the work of Michael Waterman and Jesse Stewart, two Ottawa-based interdisciplinary artists who have a shared passion for sonic exploration. In this exhibition, they explore the sonic properties of ice in both solid and melting forms while creating a two-way interaction between an outdoor geodesic dome and an indoor exhibition area at NAISA. Elements of the work will be developed through a two-day workshop with students from the South River Public School.Visitors are invited to make music with the delicate ice instruments, but please be gentle. For added enjoyment there is Glacialis, a video documenting performances by Jesse Stewart using ice instruments.
By Michael Waterman and Jesse Stewart
January 17 to March 30, 2020. Open 10 am to 4 pm everyday except Tuesdays and Wednesdays
NAISA North Media Arts Centre, 106 Ottawa Ave, South River
Pay by Donation
Songs of Ice brings together the work of Michael Waterman and Jesse Stewart, two Ottawa-based interdisciplinary artists who have a shared passion for sonic exploration. In this exhibition, they explore the sonic properties of ice in both solid and melting forms while creating a two-way interaction between an outdoor geodesic dome and an indoor exhibition area at NAISA. Elements of the work will be developed through a two-day workshop with students from the South River Public School.Visitors are invited to make music with the delicate ice instruments, but please be gentle. For added enjoyment there is Glacialis, a video documenting performances by Jesse Stewart using ice instruments.
Michael Waterman is a Canadian visual and audio artist whose work focuses on sound installation, improvisational performance, and radio art. His sound installations have been presented in galleries and festivals throughout Canada and the United States and have been featured at the Guelph Jazz Festival, Sound Symposium in St. John's and at both CAFKA and Open Ears Festivals in Kitchener.
In 1997 Waterman created the Mannlicher Carcano Radio Hour at Trent Radio in Peterborough where he was artist-in -residence. The weekly show links participants from Los Angeles, Berkeley, Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal, Guelph, Peterborough and Sarnia via tele-conferencing and web streaming to perform live weekly audio improvisations.
He has given artists talks, offered instrument building and sound workshops for youth and adults as well as facilitated sound art jam sessions.
Jesse Stewart is a visual artist, composer, percussionist, instrument builder, and educator dedicated to re-imagining the space between artistic disciplines.
After studies in both visual art and music at the University of Guelph and York University, his creative work has often crossed disciplinary boundaries, exploring the links between the visual and the sonic arts. An example is Glacialis which is a piece for instruments that he designed and built out of ice that was premiered at the WinterCity and Winterlude Festivals in Toronto and Ottawa.
As a visual artist, Stewart has exhibited work in over twenty exhibitions at galleries including the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, the Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Thames Art Gallery, the Glenhyrst Gallery, the Peterborough Art Gallery, the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre, and the Ottawa Art Gallery. Five exhibition catalogues have been published about his work. As a musician, he works primarily in the areas of jazz, experimental music, and free improvisation. His music has been documented on over twenty recordings including Stretch Orchestra’s self-titled debut album which received the 2012 “Instrumental Album of the Year” JUNO award. He has performed and/or recorded with musical luminaries from around the world.
He also has extensive experience facilitating community-engaged art and music projects. Through the We Are All Musicians (WAAM) project, an organization he founded and directs, he has conducted hundreds of inclusive music workshops throughout Canada and the United States. In 2019, director Hasi Eldib made a documentary about the We Are All Musicians project (see https://vimeo.com/334477726 ).
Jesse Stewart has received numerous awards and honours including the Ottawa Arts Council’s Mid-Career Artist Award and the Order of Ottawa. He is a Professor in the School for Studies in Art and Culture at Carleton University, and an adjunct faculty member in the Visual Arts Department at the University of Ottawa.
Radio in Transformation
January 17 to March 30, 2020. Open 10 am to 4 pm everyday except Tuesdays and Wednesdays
NAISA North Media Arts Centre, 106 Ottawa Ave, South River
Admission by Donation
NAISA’s media art lounge will include the latest in the on-going transformation of radio and transmission art with recent works selected from across Canada and around the world played back using a multi-channel system.
January 17 to March 30, 2020. Open 10 am to 4 pm everyday except Tuesdays and Wednesdays
NAISA North Media Arts Centre, 106 Ottawa Ave, South River
Admission by Donation
NAISA’s media art lounge will include the latest in the on-going transformation of radio and transmission art with recent works selected from across Canada and around the world played back using a multi-channel system.
NAISA Radio Cafe
January 17 to March 30, 2020. Open 10 am to 4 pm everyday except Tuesdays and Wednesdays
NAISA North Media Arts Centre, 106 Ottawa Ave, South River
Admission by Donation
NAISA Radio Café is a curated listening experience delivered through radio receivers on café tables. The broadcast will consist of works made by Canadian and International artists who have responded to NAISA’s 2020 programming theme of Transformation.
January 17 to March 30, 2020. Open 10 am to 4 pm everyday except Tuesdays and Wednesdays
NAISA North Media Arts Centre, 106 Ottawa Ave, South River
Admission by Donation
NAISA Radio Café is a curated listening experience delivered through radio receivers on café tables. The broadcast will consist of works made by Canadian and International artists who have responded to NAISA’s 2020 programming theme of Transformation.
Octet
By Matthew Rogalsky
June 25 to August 17, 2020. Open 11 am to 3 pm everyday except Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
NAISA North Media Arts Centre, 106 Ottawa Ave, South River
Pay by Donation
Octet is a sound installation with eight SM58 vocal microphones wired in reverse to become tiny loudspeakers, and eight modified archival birdsong recordings by William WH Gunn (1951, with permission of the Macaulay Library of Environmental Sound, Cornell University).
This sound installation, which re-purposes common stage vocal microphones as tiny loudspeakers - eight of them hanging from the widespread branches of a tree - is part of ongoing research with Laura J. Cameron into the life and work of William W.H. Gunn, early Canadian environmental sound recordist. Octet is a creative response to Gunn's practice, and it was followed in 2017 and 2018 by two other sound installations exploring his sound library.
Beginning in 1951, Gunn recorded environmental sounds all over Canada and around the world. He gave numerous public lectures on birdsong and to reveal its intricacies he often played his tapes back at slow speeds. This presentation of the piece employs eight birdsong recordings made by Gunn in Ontario in 1951. You will periodically hear Gunn’s voice introducing a recording, followed by playback slowed down by 80%. Each microphone-speaker is a unique source.
The piece, situated in a tree, plays with the culture of “soloist” birdsong recording (isolating one bird from its surrounding “noise” as much as possible), the notion of birds as performers, the “reversibility principle” of microphones and loudspeakers, and Gunn’s encouragement of birdsong identification and appreciation through his lectures and the “Sounds of Nature” LP series he produced from the 1950s into the 1970s.
By Matthew Rogalsky
June 25 to August 17, 2020. Open 11 am to 3 pm everyday except Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
NAISA North Media Arts Centre, 106 Ottawa Ave, South River
Pay by Donation
Octet is a sound installation with eight SM58 vocal microphones wired in reverse to become tiny loudspeakers, and eight modified archival birdsong recordings by William WH Gunn (1951, with permission of the Macaulay Library of Environmental Sound, Cornell University).
This sound installation, which re-purposes common stage vocal microphones as tiny loudspeakers - eight of them hanging from the widespread branches of a tree - is part of ongoing research with Laura J. Cameron into the life and work of William W.H. Gunn, early Canadian environmental sound recordist. Octet is a creative response to Gunn's practice, and it was followed in 2017 and 2018 by two other sound installations exploring his sound library.
Beginning in 1951, Gunn recorded environmental sounds all over Canada and around the world. He gave numerous public lectures on birdsong and to reveal its intricacies he often played his tapes back at slow speeds. This presentation of the piece employs eight birdsong recordings made by Gunn in Ontario in 1951. You will periodically hear Gunn’s voice introducing a recording, followed by playback slowed down by 80%. Each microphone-speaker is a unique source.
The piece, situated in a tree, plays with the culture of “soloist” birdsong recording (isolating one bird from its surrounding “noise” as much as possible), the notion of birds as performers, the “reversibility principle” of microphones and loudspeakers, and Gunn’s encouragement of birdsong identification and appreciation through his lectures and the “Sounds of Nature” LP series he produced from the 1950s into the 1970s.
Matthew Rogalsky is a composer, sound artist and musicologist. Since 1985 he has presented work regularly in performances and gallery exhibitions across North America and Europe.
His areas of research include histories, reconstructions and new performances of late 20th century electronic and experimental music. He has given performances of the music of David Tudor, Alvin Lucier, Phil Niblock, John Cage, David Behrman, Rhys Chatham and Terry Riley, among others. His writing has been published in Leonardo Music Journal, Canadian Theatre Review, Social and Cultural Geography, Public, and Musicworks. An exhibition catalog with DVD, entitled "When he was in high school in Texas, Eric Ryan Mims used a similar arrangement to detect underground nuclear tests in Nevada," is available from the Agnes Etherington Art Centre at Queen's.
Constant Plancks
By Bentley Jarvis
July 30 to September 21, 2020. Open 11 am to 3 pm everyday except Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
NAISA North Media Arts Centre, 106 Ottawa Ave, South River
Pay by Donation
This digital sound sculpture uses algorithmic composition techniques to create a musical response to traffic noise. The piece listens to the traffic, ponders for a while, then responds by playing an improvised passage through resonant structures. Traffic sounds are picked up by a microphone and broken up into several spectral bands. The contents of the different bands are used to influence a generative electroacoustic music system. All programming is done with Max/MSP software from Cycling 74. Multiples of Planck’s constant, the quantum of electromagnetic action that relates a photon’s energy to its frequency, 6.62607015×10?34 are used throughout the piece to determine pitch relationships. The highly resonant structures that produce the electronic sounds are constructed from cedar planks and loudspeakers.
By Bentley Jarvis
July 30 to September 21, 2020. Open 11 am to 3 pm everyday except Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
NAISA North Media Arts Centre, 106 Ottawa Ave, South River
Pay by Donation
This digital sound sculpture uses algorithmic composition techniques to create a musical response to traffic noise. The piece listens to the traffic, ponders for a while, then responds by playing an improvised passage through resonant structures. Traffic sounds are picked up by a microphone and broken up into several spectral bands. The contents of the different bands are used to influence a generative electroacoustic music system. All programming is done with Max/MSP software from Cycling 74. Multiples of Planck’s constant, the quantum of electromagnetic action that relates a photon’s energy to its frequency, 6.62607015×10?34 are used throughout the piece to determine pitch relationships. The highly resonant structures that produce the electronic sounds are constructed from cedar planks and loudspeakers.
Bentley Jarvis has been composing and performing electroacoustic music since 1975 and teaching Sonic Arts and Electroacoustics at the Ontario College of Art and Design University in Toronto since 1983. In 2004 he began teaching computer modelling and animation at OCADU. Born in Balmertown, Ontario in 1949, Bentley studied visual arts and electronic arts at the Three Schools in Toronto in 1970, electronics at Fanshawe College in 1972 - 1973, computer science and visual arts at the University of Western Ontario (1974-76), electronic music composition and system design at the University of Waterloo (Honours BIS 1982), and computer modelling and animation at Fanshawe College 2001-2003. Bentley has sat on the Board of Directors of the Canadian League of Composers, has been president of the Forest City Gallery (London), and vice-president of the Canadian Electroacoustic Community. Most of his work integrates electroacoustic music with a visual element such as dance, slide or video projection, computer prints, or sculpture.
Porch Radio
May 21 to September 21, 2020. Open 11 am to 3 pm everyday except Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
NAISA North Media Arts Centre, 106 Ottawa Ave, South River
Pay by Donation
Enjoy NAISA Radio without internet, without computers, and in the open fresh air. Porch Radio is an outdoor listening space on the porch of the NAISA North Media Arts Centre at 106 Ottawa Ave. with seating for up to 4 people.
May 21 to September 21, 2020. Open 11 am to 3 pm everyday except Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
NAISA North Media Arts Centre, 106 Ottawa Ave, South River
Pay by Donation
Enjoy NAISA Radio without internet, without computers, and in the open fresh air. Porch Radio is an outdoor listening space on the porch of the NAISA North Media Arts Centre at 106 Ottawa Ave. with seating for up to 4 people.
Audio Bench
June 25 to September 21, 2020. Open 11 am to 3 pm everyday except Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
NAISA North Media Arts Centre, 106 Ottawa Ave, South River
Pay by Donation
Works from NAISA’s first online Sound Travels compilation will be available for listening at the picnic tables outdoors at the NAISA North Media Arts Centre. A headphone extension will be provided for you to plug in your own headphones and listen while you enjoy a take out beverage from the café at NAISA.
June 25 to September 21, 2020. Open 11 am to 3 pm everyday except Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
NAISA North Media Arts Centre, 106 Ottawa Ave, South River
Pay by Donation
Works from NAISA’s first online Sound Travels compilation will be available for listening at the picnic tables outdoors at the NAISA North Media Arts Centre. A headphone extension will be provided for you to plug in your own headphones and listen while you enjoy a take out beverage from the café at NAISA.
From the Edge
By Teresa Connors
September 24 to December 21, 2020. Open 10am to 4 pm everyday except Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
NAISA North Media Arts Centre, 106 Ottawa Ave, South River
Pay by Donation
From the Edge is an audiovisual installation that explores the environment of East Coast Newfoundland. The work is part of a series that expands on Connors’ use of environmental data-sets as an artistic device to create nonlinear artworks. The creative system is coded to live-stream data off the SmartAtlantic St. John's Buoy, located 1 KM offshore of Cape Spear, Newfoundland. The buoy is capable of measuring and transmitting a variety of atmospheric and surface conditions, including surface temperature, wind speed and direction, wave height, period and direction, and current speed and direction. From the Edge live-streams, then parses these data-sets to trigger and shift parameters of the audiovisual work, which continually evolves depending on the transmitted measurements. Embedded in the creative system are improvisational music files specifically created for this work, plus audiovisual material captured off this coast, with video artist Shannon Lynn Harris. This material, in turn, is randomly triggered, depending on the ocean data.
By Teresa Connors
September 24 to December 21, 2020. Open 10am to 4 pm everyday except Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
NAISA North Media Arts Centre, 106 Ottawa Ave, South River
Pay by Donation
From the Edge is an audiovisual installation that explores the environment of East Coast Newfoundland. The work is part of a series that expands on Connors’ use of environmental data-sets as an artistic device to create nonlinear artworks. The creative system is coded to live-stream data off the SmartAtlantic St. John's Buoy, located 1 KM offshore of Cape Spear, Newfoundland. The buoy is capable of measuring and transmitting a variety of atmospheric and surface conditions, including surface temperature, wind speed and direction, wave height, period and direction, and current speed and direction. From the Edge live-streams, then parses these data-sets to trigger and shift parameters of the audiovisual work, which continually evolves depending on the transmitted measurements. Embedded in the creative system are improvisational music files specifically created for this work, plus audiovisual material captured off this coast, with video artist Shannon Lynn Harris. This material, in turn, is randomly triggered, depending on the ocean data.
Teresa Connors is active as a creative coder, opera singer, and audiovisual installation artist. Her works have received awards and support, including ICMA Award, Canada Council for the Arts and British Columbia Arts Council, and have been presented at international conferences, film festivals and galleries and published in leading journals. Having recently completed postdoctoral research with the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation, Teresa’s current artistic focus is the live-streaming of environmental datasets as a co-creative device for public engagement artworks.