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Installations presented in 2024
Helios 2024
By Dan Tapper
January 14 to April 1, 2024. Open 10 am to 4 pm Thursday to Monday.
NAISA North Media Arts Centre, 313 Highway 124, South River, Ontario
Pay by Donation
By Dan Tapper
January 14 to April 1, 2024. Open 10 am to 4 pm Thursday to Monday.
NAISA North Media Arts Centre, 313 Highway 124, South River, Ontario
Pay by Donation
Helios 2024 is a celebration of the sun in its phase of solar maximum by audiovisual artist Dan Tapper. The exhibition gathers solar data from space organizations, as well as utilizing Tapper’s DIY devices that encode solar data into lo-fi playable records and reveal radio spectrum from the earth’s ionosphere and space.
The data captured ranges from realtime images captured by the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) to quantitative mappings of daily sunspots accessed as spreadsheets of data. These images and datasheets are analyzed to extract key information about the sun and to create virtual simulations of the sun alongside new sounds and images.
Tapper’s DIY devices capture a less cosmic radio soundscape. Coils of wire translating radio naturally produced by the earth’s ionosphere into clicks, crackles, pops and hums. This radio spectrum includes a clicking chorus of lightning from all around the world as well as the ionospheres interaction with the sun at high levels of solar activity.
Helios 2024, moves between directly representational sound and imagery of the sun and more abstract experimentation, this interplay lets us sit in a transient space, imaging and imagining the sun through meditative static.
The data captured ranges from realtime images captured by the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) to quantitative mappings of daily sunspots accessed as spreadsheets of data. These images and datasheets are analyzed to extract key information about the sun and to create virtual simulations of the sun alongside new sounds and images.
Tapper’s DIY devices capture a less cosmic radio soundscape. Coils of wire translating radio naturally produced by the earth’s ionosphere into clicks, crackles, pops and hums. This radio spectrum includes a clicking chorus of lightning from all around the world as well as the ionospheres interaction with the sun at high levels of solar activity.
Helios 2024, moves between directly representational sound and imagery of the sun and more abstract experimentation, this interplay lets us sit in a transient space, imaging and imagining the sun through meditative static.
STORY TREES (opus 3)
By Don Hill
Click Here for Online Experience
For laptop or desktop computer with webcam and Chrome browser
STORY TREES is an experimental series of interactive exhibitions of sound art & telepresence. In 2021 NAISA premiered Opus 1 of Story Trees for the Deep Wireless Festival and it featured interviews recorded in the 1970's with elders in Northern Ontario. Opus 3 of Story Trees uses field recordings mixed with ambient analog & synthetic audio sources. Similar to the previous iterations, Opus 3 uses the webcam and Chrome web browser on your computer to modulate and alter the sonic experience. Click Here to read more and to experience the piece.
Recordings & Interactive Design: Don & Anne Hill
Digital Coding Consultation: Kyle Elliot Mathewson
Responsive Architecture Consultation: Jim Ruxton
Produced with Support from the Canada Council for the Arts
By Don Hill
Click Here for Online Experience
For laptop or desktop computer with webcam and Chrome browser
STORY TREES is an experimental series of interactive exhibitions of sound art & telepresence. In 2021 NAISA premiered Opus 1 of Story Trees for the Deep Wireless Festival and it featured interviews recorded in the 1970's with elders in Northern Ontario. Opus 3 of Story Trees uses field recordings mixed with ambient analog & synthetic audio sources. Similar to the previous iterations, Opus 3 uses the webcam and Chrome web browser on your computer to modulate and alter the sonic experience. Click Here to read more and to experience the piece.
Recordings & Interactive Design: Don & Anne Hill
Digital Coding Consultation: Kyle Elliot Mathewson
Responsive Architecture Consultation: Jim Ruxton
Produced with Support from the Canada Council for the Arts
Don Hill is a sound artist & designer, writer, broadcaster, musician and interactive media producer, as well as a former national host of CBC Radio One’s Tapestry. His newest work STORY TREES is a modified ‘responsive architecture’ & interactive online exhibition. Don’s prior investigation of psychoacoustics of ‘place’ inspired his augmented reality app Edmonton Soundwalks, a 3D audio guide for mobile phones. Special Places: Writing-On- Stone is an immersive 360 video presentation that scales from full-dome screens to VR (virtual reality) headsets. In residency with the UK’s renowned Blast Theory he made WRGO (what’s really going on), a surreal 3D audio narrative.
Almaguin Community Soundscapes
April 4 to June 17, 2024. 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
To contribute sounds from a location you know in the Almaguin Highlands consult these guidelines or visit us at NAISA.
April 4 to June 17, 2024. 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
To contribute sounds from a location you know in the Almaguin Highlands consult these guidelines or visit us at NAISA.
Sixteen Chimes
By Alexandre Klinke
June 20 to September 23, 2024. Open 10 am to 4 pm Thursday to Monday.
NAISA North Media Arts Centre, 313 Highway 124, South River, Ontario
Pay by Donation
By Alexandre Klinke
June 20 to September 23, 2024. Open 10 am to 4 pm Thursday to Monday.
NAISA North Media Arts Centre, 313 Highway 124, South River, Ontario
Pay by Donation
Sixteen Chimes is a sound art installation that features 16 chime bars, each one controlled electronically by a custom-made circuit. By placing the chimes in different parts of the gallery, the installation emphasizes the spatial nature of sound, and its interaction with distinct acoustic spaces. The generative aspect of the piece is determined by the irregular beats that each chime makes, repeating every 1 to 25 seconds, which can be modified by exhibition visitors from a knob located with each chime. The result is an ever-changing composition that is affected by the audience's interaction with the piece.
With the prospect of Artificial Intelligence affecting several aspects of our society in a pervasive manner, Sixteen Chimes encourages constructive collaboration between humans and machines, inviting reflection on how a system can be modified collectively, and how the effects of individual actions shape the outcome of an event at any given time.
Sixteen Chimes employs aspects of generative art and sound spatialization, using physical sonic objects that can be manipulated by the audience, without the use of computers or audio speakers. The ever-changing musical piece creates an immersive sonic environment, where the public can observe different aspects that affect one’s listening experience.
With the prospect of Artificial Intelligence affecting several aspects of our society in a pervasive manner, Sixteen Chimes encourages constructive collaboration between humans and machines, inviting reflection on how a system can be modified collectively, and how the effects of individual actions shape the outcome of an event at any given time.
Sixteen Chimes employs aspects of generative art and sound spatialization, using physical sonic objects that can be manipulated by the audience, without the use of computers or audio speakers. The ever-changing musical piece creates an immersive sonic environment, where the public can observe different aspects that affect one’s listening experience.
Alexandre Klinke is a composer and media artist from Sao Paulo, Brazil, based in Vancouver, BC. His work encompasses different fields such as video, multimedia art, music for film, sound design and live music performance. The appreciation of sound is at the core of his practice.
He releases music under his own name, as well as using the alias Playback Head, an experimental project that ranges from jazz to electronic and ambient, merging traditional instruments with field recordings, sound-making objects and electronic devices.
Working with video and multimedia, he looks at the perceptual effects of the interplay between sound and image, using both analog (magnetic tape, super 8 film, VHS) and digital technologies. His audiovisual pieces incorporate a variety of textures that allude to the ambiguous nature of perception and memory.
A Soundmap of Sherbrooke’s Machine Songs
By Colin Frank
September 26, 2024 to January 6, 2025. Open 10 am to 4 pm Thursday to Monday.
NAISA North Media Arts Centre, 313 Highway 124, South River, Ontario
Pay by Donation
This interactive installation allows visitors to virtually explore machine sounds from the city of Sherbrooke, Québec. Machines pervade urban environments, yet their sonic performances are often overlooked. From air conditioners to electrical boxes, mechanical sounds resonate all around us, forming urban soundscapes that are frequently ignored. Visitors can navigate a virtual environment comprising of field recordings and 3D models the artist made of machines encountered in Sherbrooke. Through the compression and digitization of those everyday spaces, the industrial urban environment becomes unexpectedly aesthetic, providing a reimagination of the city whereby non-humans have their own voices, and beauty arises from the functionality of industrial objects.
By Colin Frank
September 26, 2024 to January 6, 2025. Open 10 am to 4 pm Thursday to Monday.
NAISA North Media Arts Centre, 313 Highway 124, South River, Ontario
Pay by Donation
This interactive installation allows visitors to virtually explore machine sounds from the city of Sherbrooke, Québec. Machines pervade urban environments, yet their sonic performances are often overlooked. From air conditioners to electrical boxes, mechanical sounds resonate all around us, forming urban soundscapes that are frequently ignored. Visitors can navigate a virtual environment comprising of field recordings and 3D models the artist made of machines encountered in Sherbrooke. Through the compression and digitization of those everyday spaces, the industrial urban environment becomes unexpectedly aesthetic, providing a reimagination of the city whereby non-humans have their own voices, and beauty arises from the functionality of industrial objects.
Colin Frank is a percussionist, field recordist, installation artist, improviser, and multimedia composer. He is a founding member of Brutalust and Drift Ensemble, and has worked notably with the International Contemporary Ensemble, the Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble, and TAK Ensemble. His installations have appeared at Salem Art Works, Dai Hall, and Analix Forever. His PhD dissertation at the University of Huddersfield considered how unconventional instruments and objects influence his creative process. He teaches percussion, improvisation, and experimental music. Click Here for his website.
Borderline (Almaguin Highlands): Collective counter mapping through sonic geographies
By Jessica Thompson
Open after September 14, 2023. Open 10 am to 4 pm Thursday to Monday.
NAISA North Media Arts Centre, 313 Highway 124, South River, Ontario
Pay by Donation
By Jessica Thompson
Open after September 14, 2023. Open 10 am to 4 pm Thursday to Monday.
NAISA North Media Arts Centre, 313 Highway 124, South River, Ontario
Pay by Donation
Borderline is a critical mapmaking project that uses sound to illuminate social and economic differences in local geographies. Visitors to the NAISA North Media Arts Centre are invited to contribute to a large-scale soundmap of the Almaguin Highlands by borrowing a toolkit to map sounds in one of the villages of their choice, or by using the Borderline mobile app. The sounds collected will be added to the map on an ongoing basis.
The Borderline iOS app enables users to automatically map sounds in their environment, put them in dialogue with other forms of data, and generate interactive soundscapes by playing sounds back into the environment. Click here to download
The Borderline iOS app enables users to automatically map sounds in their environment, put them in dialogue with other forms of data, and generate interactive soundscapes by playing sounds back into the environment. Click here to download
Jessica Thompson is a media artist working in sound, performance and mobile technologies. Her interactive artworks have shown at venues such as the International Symposium of Electronic Art (San Jose, Dubai, Vancouver), the Conflux Festival (New York), Thinking Metropolis (Copenhagen), Beyond/In Western New York (Buffalo), NIME (Oslo), Artists’ Walks (New York), Locus Sonus (Aix-en-Provence), the AGW Triennial (Windsor), InterACTION (Kitchener), HASTAC (Vancouver), Re:Sound (Aalborg), and Entorno Encuentro Exploración (Pamplona), The Politics of Sound (Lethbridge) and CAFKA (Kitchener). She has received grants from the Ontario Arts Council, the Toronto Arts Council, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and the Government of Ontario.
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 that explores the effects of the Northern Ontario climate on an upright piano at its location at the NAISA North Media Arts Centre in South River, Ontario, Canada. This is inspired by musical explorations in Australia of performing on - and of collecting - 'ruined' pianos - pianos left outside in the natural environment for an extended period of time (see https://bolleter.wixsite.com/warpsmusic for further insights).
The Decomposing Piano at NAISA was installed in December 2022 at a point where the upright piano was still playable despite some tuning deficiencies. As time goes on it is expected to become more and more difficult to play. However, in the gradual "decomposition" or "weathering" of the piano over time, new sounds should emerge - some of which might require increasing amounts of aid from recording and amplification to be experienced. Through its entire decomposition process, the public is invited to play the piano at NAISA and experience its transformation until it is deemed unsafe to play. The NAISATube YouTube Channel features a 24/7 webcam of the Decomposing Piano.
View Project History
On January 17, 2024 NAISA is presenting the Art's Birthday Weathered Piano Exchange which is a collaboration with pianist and composer Jesse Budel. Jesse Budel at the Murray Bridge Piano Sanctuary in South Australia and Nadene Thériault-Copeland at NAISA will exchange recorded improvisations on pianos from their respective locations that will be made into a composition that will be aired on the radio show Electric Sense on CIUT Radio and during a special Art's Birthday broadcast on CITR in Vancouver called 24 Hours of Radio Art. The improvised recordings form a musical correspondence mixing weathered pianos recorded on location during both the Canadian winter and the Australian summer.
In the summer of 2023 NAISA's Executive Director Nadene Thériault-Copeland hosted a series of fundraising concerts with invited guest performers to join her on the Decomposing Piano. Audience members were also invited to perform during the interval breaks.
August 26, 2023 - Decomposing Piano and Violin Concert
July 29, 2023 - 4 Hands Piano Duets
June 24, 2023 - Duet for Decomposing Piano and ‘Crutch'
In the first month of the piano being outdoors recordings were made to demonstrate the character of the piano and the variations in tuning and keyboard action that occurred as the winter temperatures changed.
January 22 2023 - Only 15-20 keys working
January 17, 2023 - Piano Improvisation for NAISA North Re-Opening Party
December 29, 2022 - Three Weeks after being Outdoors
The Decomposing Piano at NAISA was installed in December 2022 at a point where the upright piano was still playable despite some tuning deficiencies. As time goes on it is expected to become more and more difficult to play. However, in the gradual "decomposition" or "weathering" of the piano over time, new sounds should emerge - some of which might require increasing amounts of aid from recording and amplification to be experienced. Through its entire decomposition process, the public is invited to play the piano at NAISA and experience its transformation until it is deemed unsafe to play. The NAISATube YouTube Channel features a 24/7 webcam of the Decomposing Piano.
View Project History
Art's Birthday Weathered Piano Exchange
On January 17, 2024 NAISA is presenting the Art's Birthday Weathered Piano Exchange which is a collaboration with pianist and composer Jesse Budel. Jesse Budel at the Murray Bridge Piano Sanctuary in South Australia and Nadene Thériault-Copeland at NAISA will exchange recorded improvisations on pianos from their respective locations that will be made into a composition that will be aired on the radio show Electric Sense on CIUT Radio and during a special Art's Birthday broadcast on CITR in Vancouver called 24 Hours of Radio Art. The improvised recordings form a musical correspondence mixing weathered pianos recorded on location during both the Canadian winter and the Australian summer.
Summer 2023 Fundraising Concerts
In the summer of 2023 NAISA's Executive Director Nadene Thériault-Copeland hosted a series of fundraising concerts with invited guest performers to join her on the Decomposing Piano. Audience members were also invited to perform during the interval breaks.
August 26, 2023 - Decomposing Piano and Violin Concert
July 29, 2023 - 4 Hands Piano Duets
June 24, 2023 - Duet for Decomposing Piano and ‘Crutch'
Winter 2022-23 Recordings
In the first month of the piano being outdoors recordings were made to demonstrate the character of the piano and the variations in tuning and keyboard action that occurred as the winter temperatures changed.
January 22 2023 - Only 15-20 keys working
January 17, 2023 - Piano Improvisation for NAISA North Re-Opening Party
December 29, 2022 - Three Weeks after being Outdoors
The Sensation of Distribution
By Mitchell Akiyama and Brady Peters
Open 24/7 year round.
NAISA North Media Arts Centre, 313 Highway 124, South River, Ontario
By Mitchell Akiyama and Brady Peters
Open 24/7 year round.
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.