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Installations presented in 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.
Community Soundscapes
April 6 to June 12, 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
Community Soundscapes surrounds one with the sounds of spring using a multi-channel speaker system and recordings made by residents in the local region. The spring season is a special time of the year in the Almaguin Highlands as the snow melts, the ice breaks up on the lakes and the arrival of insects and birds is loudly announced by the sounds made by peepers. The soundscape of the installation is updated weekly to reflect sounds of the most recent weeks. If you live in the Almaguin Highlands and wish to contribute to Community Soundscapes then please get in touch (naisa at nasia dot ca). Listen to a selection of the recordings by visiting Aporee.org
April 6 to June 12, 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
Community Soundscapes surrounds one with the sounds of spring using a multi-channel speaker system and recordings made by residents in the local region. The spring season is a special time of the year in the Almaguin Highlands as the snow melts, the ice breaks up on the lakes and the arrival of insects and birds is loudly announced by the sounds made by peepers. The soundscape of the installation is updated weekly to reflect sounds of the most recent weeks. If you live in the Almaguin Highlands and wish to contribute to Community Soundscapes then please get in touch (naisa at nasia dot ca). Listen to a selection of the recordings by visiting Aporee.org
Secret Reception
By Kristine Diekman, Ben Pagac and Tony Allard
June 15 to September 10, 2023. Open 10 am to 4 pm everyday except Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
Opening Artist talk on June 15 at 1 pm
NAISA North Media Arts Centre, 313 Highway 124, South River, Ontario
Pay by Donation
By Kristine Diekman, Ben Pagac and Tony Allard
June 15 to September 10, 2023. Open 10 am to 4 pm everyday except Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
Opening Artist talk on June 15 at 1 pm
NAISA North Media Arts Centre, 313 Highway 124, South River, Ontario
Pay by Donation
Secret Reception combines art and bioacoustics to creatively engage the public in questions about sound reception in more-than-human worlds. This sonic art installation offers new paradigms for hearing through the design of haptic objects and tactile interfaces that use vibration to transmit sonic information. Drawing on scientific research that examines how insects detect sound through body parts, we transpose insect hearing to the human listening experience using sonic impulses that emulate the way insects receive them.
Kristine Diekman is a media artist and educator. Her recent media art investigates climate crisis and water scarcity. As an educator, she designs and facilitates community-based workshops using interactive tactile audio interfaces to tell stories. She is Emeritus Professor in the Art, Media & Design Department at California State University.
Ben Pagac is an entomologist by day but also an independent radio producer and sound artist based in Annapolis, MD. His interests include science communication, public health, and the impact of climate change on disease vectors. He is a founding member of the sound collective, Listening Lounge, based in Washington D.C.
The Sensation of Distribution
By Mitchell Akiyama and Brady Peters
June 15 to October 15, 2023.
Opening Artist talk on June 15 at 1 pm
NAISA North Media Arts Centre, 313 Highway 124, South River, Ontario
By Mitchell Akiyama and Brady Peters
June 15 to October 15, 2023.
Opening Artist talk on June 15 at 1 pm
NAISA North Media Arts Centre, 313 Highway 124, South River, Ontario
The Sensation of Distribution is a reprise of Mitchell Akiyama and Brady Peters’s 2019 work, The Distribution of Sensation, which they created while artists in residence at The Bentway, a large, urban public space situated under an elevated highway in downtown Toronto. The Distribution of Sensation was a sound sculpture composed of PVC pipes installed around The Bentway that invited visitors to listen through the natural resonance of the cylinders, creating a series of musical experiences across the site. Mimic the plumbing infrastructure of the site, the installation was meant to create aesthetic slippages that might potentially lead to confusion as to what exactly functioned or counted as art.
The re-installation of this work at NAISA blends the pipe sculptures into a more domestic vernacular. Mounted on NAISA’s exterior walls to impersonate furnace vents and erupting from the ground to suggest rogue plumbing gone awry, The Sensation of Distribution re-invites visitors to explore the unnoticed or imminent sonic and aesthetic potential of our built environment.
The re-installation of this work at NAISA blends the pipe sculptures into a more domestic vernacular. Mounted on NAISA’s exterior walls to impersonate furnace vents and erupting from the ground to suggest rogue plumbing gone awry, The Sensation of Distribution re-invites visitors to explore the unnoticed or imminent sonic and aesthetic potential of our built environment.
Mitchell Akiyama is a Toronto-based scholar, composer, and artist. His eclectic body of work includes writings about plants, animals, cities, and sound art; scores for film and dance; and objects and installations that trouble received ideas about history, perception, and sensory experience. Akiyama’s output has appeared in commensurately miscellaneous sources such as Leonardo Music Journal, ISEA, Sonar Music Festival (Barcelona), Raster-Noton Records (Berlin), Gendai Gallery (Toronto), and in many other exhibitions, publications, and festivals. He holds a PhD in communications from McGill University, an MFA from Concordia University, and is currently an Assistant Professor of Visual Studies at the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design at the University of Toronto.
Brady Peters is a Canadian designer and researcher who successfully bridges technology and design. He has significant expertise in the use and development of design technology, in integrative construction, and in digital fabrication. With many years of experience in practice, Peters has successfully collaborated with experts in architecture, engineering, and computer science.
He specializes in architectural acoustics, environmental simulation, computational design, and digital fabrication. He uses computer programming, parametric modelling, and simulation to design performance-driven forms, and is skilled in the communication and fabrication of buildings with complex geometry. He received his PhD in Architecture from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, Denmark, a Professional Master of Architecture from Dalhousie University, a Bachelor of Environmental Design (Distinction) from Dalhousie University, and, Bachelor of Science in Geography (Distinction) from the University of Victoria.
O Telephone
By Don Ritter
September 14 to December 4, 2023. Open 10 am to 4 pm Thursday to Monday.
Opening Artist talk on September 14 at 7 pm
NAISA North Media Arts Centre, 313 Highway 124, South River, Ontario
Pay by Donation
Visitors to "O telephone" experience a contemplative and responsive sound environment comprised of a ringing telephone and recordings of voices speaking 'om.' The installation recognizes various types of interactions between visitors and the phone and responds with a corresponding multi-channel sound experience. Within the installation, a modified 1960s telephone randomly rings and invites visitors to pick up its handset. If a viewer answers a ringing phone, a collection of voices speak 'om' through the handset and pan through the six speakers arranged around the phone. The installation continually adjusts the multi-dimensional sound arrangement as viewers interact with the phone. The symbol 'om' has represented various concepts since antiquity, including the sound of existence.
Watch interview with Don Ritter about "O telephone" on the Making Waves YouTube podcast.
By Don Ritter
September 14 to December 4, 2023. Open 10 am to 4 pm Thursday to Monday.
Opening Artist talk on September 14 at 7 pm
NAISA North Media Arts Centre, 313 Highway 124, South River, Ontario
Pay by Donation
Visitors to "O telephone" experience a contemplative and responsive sound environment comprised of a ringing telephone and recordings of voices speaking 'om.' The installation recognizes various types of interactions between visitors and the phone and responds with a corresponding multi-channel sound experience. Within the installation, a modified 1960s telephone randomly rings and invites visitors to pick up its handset. If a viewer answers a ringing phone, a collection of voices speak 'om' through the handset and pan through the six speakers arranged around the phone. The installation continually adjusts the multi-dimensional sound arrangement as viewers interact with the phone. The symbol 'om' has represented various concepts since antiquity, including the sound of existence.
Watch interview with Don Ritter about "O telephone" on the Making Waves YouTube podcast.
Don Ritter has been active in the field of media art since 1988. Most of his works are video-sound installations and large projections controlled by music, voices or the body gestures of audiences. His interdisciplinary artworks and writings integrate art and digital media with aesthetics and ethics. Ritter held professorships in art and media at universities in Montreal, New York City, Seoul and Hong Kong after working as a telecommunications designer and researcher in Toronto and Ottawa. His work has been exhibited throughout North America, Europe and Asia. Website: http://www.aesthetic-machinery.com
Threads of an Unwritten Future
By Kelly Ruth
December 7 to January 8, 10 am to 4 pm
In-person at NAISA North Media Arts Centre, 313 Highway 124, South River, Ontario. Click Here to experience the piece in Second Life
Pay by Donation
Threads of an Unwritten Future is an interactive media installation created for the online platform of Second Life. NAISA has set up an avatar in Second Life for gallery visitors to use to experience the installation and navigate the customized world created by Edmonton artist Kelly Ruth. Alternatively, you can create your own avatar and account in Second Life and experience the installation remotely.
Working with both a weaving loom and a spinning wheel in her sound practice has led Edmonton artist Kelly Ruth to explore the personification of destiny in the form of the archetypical Three Fates. The three women — Clothos who spins the thread, Lachesis who measures the allotted length, and Atropos who cuts the thread with shears — seem to exist in another dimension responsible for the human experience of linear time. This exhibit reflects on the word “allotment” and its relationship to the fragile and transitory nature of life, economy, society, and imagined futures.
By Kelly Ruth
December 7 to January 8, 10 am to 4 pm
In-person at NAISA North Media Arts Centre, 313 Highway 124, South River, Ontario. Click Here to experience the piece in Second Life
Pay by Donation
Threads of an Unwritten Future is an interactive media installation created for the online platform of Second Life. NAISA has set up an avatar in Second Life for gallery visitors to use to experience the installation and navigate the customized world created by Edmonton artist Kelly Ruth. Alternatively, you can create your own avatar and account in Second Life and experience the installation remotely.
Working with both a weaving loom and a spinning wheel in her sound practice has led Edmonton artist Kelly Ruth to explore the personification of destiny in the form of the archetypical Three Fates. The three women — Clothos who spins the thread, Lachesis who measures the allotted length, and Atropos who cuts the thread with shears — seem to exist in another dimension responsible for the human experience of linear time. This exhibit reflects on the word “allotment” and its relationship to the fragile and transitory nature of life, economy, society, and imagined futures.
Kelly Ruth has been activating her textiles and tools through using electronics and sound, and has been integrating microcontrollers into the foundations of her woven cloth. In performance she uses contact microphones and effects pedals on her weaving loom and other fibre-related tools in addition to light activated drone machines that she has built herself. She has created several bodies of work using weaving, felting and dyeing with plants, recognizing these as early technologies, and a relationship that humans have had with the land. Most recently she has been researching, creating, and performing in virtual worlds with her continued interest in humanities relationship to technology.
Issue 130 of Musicworks Magazine profiled Kelly Ruth.
The Decomposing Piano
Open 24/7 in All Seasons
NAISA North Media Arts Centre, 313 Highway 124, South River, Ontario
FREE
Open 24/7 in All Seasons
NAISA North Media Arts Centre, 313 Highway 124, South River, Ontario
FREE
The Decomposing Piano is a semi-permanent outdoor installation exploring the effects of the Northern Ontario climate on an upright piano. Lately there has been interest among arts organizations in the phenomena of the Ruined piano. A ruined piano is a piano left outside in a natural environment for an extended period of time (see https://bolleter.wixsite.com/warpsmusic for further insights). This project began in December 2022 at the stage where the piano was still playable despite some tuning deficiencies. As time goes on it will become more and more difficult to play. However, in the gradual "decomposition" of the piano over time, new sounds will emerge with increasing amounts of aid from amplification. Through its entire decomposition process, the public is invited to play the piano and experience its transformation until it deemed unsafe to play.