Performances Presented in 2019

Art's Birthday anyWare Broadcast
By Jane Tingley, Cindy Poremba and Marius Kintel
January 17, 2019, 2:30 - 3:30 pm
NAISA North Media Arts Centre, 106 Ottawa Ave, South River

Escape the chill of winter and celebrate the 1,000,056th birthday of art and the opening of the anyWare installation.

At exactly 3:10 pm a special guest will connect to NAISA remotely and collaborate with those at NAISA to play the anyWare sculpture. Listening in to the interaction will be a Satellite radio audience in Europe as part of the Euroradio Ars Acustica special broadcast of Art's Birthday parties from around the world.

anyWare is an Internet of Things distributed sculpture comprised of two identical objects and one virtual online portal that telematically connect different locations in the world and enable distant physical communication. Structuring these interactions are a number of games and puzzles for people to play/solve, either individually or collaboratively. The objects transform in the experience of exploration (either with one person or potentially with many people) and in so doing reveal different levels of interactivity and aesthetic experience.

Listen online on NAISA Radio <https://naisa.ca/naisa-radio> and Euroradio Ars Acustica <https://arsacustica.wordpress.com>

The creation and production of anyWare would not be possible without the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council and The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

Jane Tingley is an artist, curator, and Assistant Professor at the University of Waterloo (CA). She is interested in how interactivity combined with art objects and installation can be used to explore contemporary experience. She received the Kenneth Finkelstein Prize in Sculpture and the first prize in the iNTERFACES – Interactive Art Competition in Porto (PT). She has participated in exhibitions and festivals in the Americas, Middle East, Asia, and Europe.

Cindy Poremba is a digital media researcher, gamemaker and curator. She is an Assistant Professor (Digital Entertainment) at OCAD University (Toronto, CA) and Co-Director of OCAD’s game:play Lab. Her work has been published in journals such as Eludamos, Loading and Games & Culture, as well as edited collections, art catalogs and magazines. She is currently on the board of directors of the Hand Eye Society, North America’s oldest videogame arts non-profit based in Toronto. Cindy also organizes non-traditional exhibitions as an independent curator, including Joue le jeu/Play Along (FR), and XYZ: Alternative Voices in Game Design and “New Arcade” events as a member of the kokoromi experimental videogame collective.

Marius Kintel is a professional software engineer who currently works at Thalmic Labs in Kitchener, Ontario. As an artist Marius works with non-traditional materials and repurposes things and technology in unusual ways. His personal projects include multiple creations in the computer art subculture known as the demoscene, building a company in Norway that developed Open Source 3D graphics software, developing self replicating machines in the REPRAP project, as well as he is the primary developer of openSCAD - a 3D modeling program designed for 3D printing.

Cross Canada by Train
By Andra McCartney
May 3, 2019, 7:00 pm
NAISA North Media Arts Centre, 106 Ottawa Ave, South River
General $10, Advanced Tickets.

A soundscape concert with two works by Andra McCartney that were both created from radio and soundscape recordings made during cross-Canada train trips fifteen years apart. The more recent trip passed through the wild fires in British Columbia last year and from that experience McCartney invites listeners to reflect on the impact of climate change.

Free Admission for Sound Camp Soundscape Workshop participants.

Photo Credit: Todd Parkington

Program:

I. Canada Train Radio 1 by Andra McCartney
Canada Train Radio 1 is from field recordings gathered on a train trip from Toronto to Vancouver, in March 2003, carrying a radio, listening for weather, finding how train and radio move together.

II. Canada Trainradio 2018 - waiting games and widespread smoke by Andra McCartney (featuring Narcy)
Canada Trainradio 2018 - waiting games and widespread smoke is created from recordings of train and radio gathered on a return trip from Toronto to Vancouver, in August 2018. The piece also features vocals and sound treatments from the artist Narcy.

The timing of the trip was affected by freight delays and coincided with the longest weather advisory in BC history: widespread smoke. The work was buoyed by several conversations. In particular, a conversation with Prof. Dylan Robinson (Queen's University Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Arts) about the "sub-frequency of colonial labour" (a quote from the Soundings curatorial score by Robinson), was an important influence on my approach. Thanks to Jan Desrosiers, Glenn Macdonald, Tapanga Koe, Yassin Al Salman, Dorothy Caldwell, Jess Graham, Laura Murray and the Queen's Fireside Conversation series audience for their conversations about work in progress.

Andra McCartney is a sound artist and writer (UK/Canada), interested in everyday sound, traffic, ambiences, and experiences. Recent work includes Bella voyage Rimouski to Blanc Sablon (Andrasound on soundcloud, 2017); Listening in the Bernheim Forest (Louisville KY Nov 2017, Musicworks 2018); Ah! Listening in Warkworth (Arts and Heritage centre of Warkworth ON, spring 2018).

Elektrik Bugs - Opening Performance
By Stephanie Castonguay
June 21 at 7 pm.
NAISA North Media Arts Centre, 106 Ottawa Ave, South River
Pay by Donation

For the opening of the Elektrik Bugs installation, Stephanie Castonguay will give a performance on the new sound and light installation created from electronic workshops with students at South River Public School. She will also give a talk about her past work and about how Electric Bugs was created. Elektrik Bugs is produced with the support of Perte de Signal and the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec.

Stephanie Castonguay - Fascinated by the origins of our current digital media, Stephanie Castonguay is an experimental artist who explores the materiality of our disrupted communications through DIY electronic devices and sound installations. Her work has been shown in Montreal (International Montreal/New Music festival, the International Digital Arts Biennial, Perte de Signal, Eastern Bloc, Fondation Molinari) and abroad, at Centre Fokal (HT), STEIM (NL), Tsonami (CL). She has performed her work at festivals such as Sight & Sound, PirateBlocRadio, Ibrida Pluri III, Printemps Numériques, Instruments Make Play (NL) and Festival Tsonami (CL). She is a member of Perte de Signal.

Junkestra
By Mark Sepic
July 27, 2019, 11:00 am to 3:00 pm
NAISA North Media Arts Centre, 106 Ottawa Ave, South River
FREE, Pay by donation

Discover new musical possibilities from objects that are typically considered trash. On July 27 join Mark Sepic and jam with him on the sculpture - Junkestra - made from locally discarded materials. The sculpture will be created collaboratively with children participating in the Near North Enviro-Education Centre's summer camp program.

Dual Abrasives
By Alan Bloor
August 31 at 7 pm.
NAISA North Media Arts Centre, 106 Ottawa Ave, South River
General $10, Advance Tickets Here

The performance, Dual Abrasives, will compare two (of many) sound projects of Alan Bloor: Knurl and Pholde. Both of these projects use the treated analog sounds of metals cultures from found objects. Knurl, began in 1994, as an idea to capture the very harsh and abrasive sounds of the welding shops in which Bloor worked. Pholde, which was initiated in 2002, has a more suspenseful, "ambient" sound. In this project, Bloor uses the natural resonances of the metal. This evening's performance will concentrate mainly on sounds from saw blades, which coincides with the exhibition hosted by NAISA of a work by Sonia Paço-Rocchia that also explores the sounds of saw blades.

Double-Tranchant @ NAISA
By Sonia Paço-Rocchia
Sep 27-29, 2019, 11 am to 3 pm, FREE
NAISA North Media Arts Centre, 106 Ottawa Ave, South River
FREE

Double-Tranchant @ NAISA is a drop-in live performance by Sonia Paço-Rocchia that will take place during Culture Days weekend using musical saws and other instruments inspired by objects that can cut. The performance is a commentary on the contrast between the brute, the sharp and the flexible, the fascinating.

Sonia Paço-Rocchia is a composer, sound installation artist, improviser, maker, creative coder, live electronics musician. Her work has been presented all over North America and Europe. Sonia Paço-Rocchia’s research is about sounds, timbres and forms. Talented improviser, she uses a myriad of sound-makers, invented instruments and sound automatons, voice and mostly bassoon, along with live electronics. Working on the form, most of her work have visual elements and are non-linear, choices given to the players, or, for installation work, interactivity shapes the compositions. - http://www.musinou.net

By Land and Water
By Geronimo Inutiq
November 15, 2019, 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm
White Water Gallery, 122 Main Street East, North Bay

"By Land and Water" is a live audiovisual performance by Geronimo Inutiq with ambient electronic music, and manipulated video footage. The performance will take place during the Downtown Gallery Hop at The White Water Gallery in North Bay. It is co-presented with the White Water Gallery and Near North Mobile Media Lab.

Taking us across northern Ontario roads and waterways, and following the road beyond into other provinces - video segments are slowed down, manipulated, and rearranged to form an abstract visual narrative, with the countryside as the main focus of reflection.

Ethereal melodies, drones, and other audio sources from computer and mini consumer keyboards are treated with effects pedals and sent through a multichannel sound system to create further means of contemplation on ideas of travel, nature, solitude - and connectedness to the environment and country we live with.

Photo: Robert Geoffrion

Geronimo Inutiq is an electronic music producer, performer, DJ, multi-media artist, and operator of the Indigene Audio independent tape label. Starting off as a hip hop producer in Quebec City with seminal Presha Pack crew in the mid-90s, Inutiq started further exploring electronic music production techniques through private research and at Concordia University. Known for his work as "madeskimo" - and helping innovate a fusion of Inuit throat-singing and drumming with electronic beats - Inutiq has also become recognized for doing video and visual art in the context of museum, galleries, and public exhibits. His work has been presented across Canada and internationally, including the Transmediale Festival in Berlin. Inutiq has remained socially involved - not just by representing Inuit peoples with his remixes and productions of Inuit traditional sounds and language that he performs - also through sharing his skills and experience in the context of workshops for indigenous community organizations. His work operating the Indigene Audio independent tape label continues to be a creative outlet for Inutiq and his friends from different areas around the world to continue producing independent music projects. Photo: Jocelyn Piirainen

The audio-visual works of Geronimo Inutiq
By Geronimo Inutiq
November 17, 2019, 2:00 pm
NAISA North Media Arts Centre, 106 Ottawa Ave, South River
Admission by Donation

By combining video jockeying with the practice of DJ-ing, archives and original material can be presented in an experimental cut-up approach.

Artist Geronimo Inutiq has brought his audio-visual works into performance spaces as well as museums and art galleries, and has seen this base of video remix evolve to documentary video and experimental film.

During this talk Geronimo Inutiq will facilitate discussion on different topics in relation to the ideas presented while showing his video works "dubyadubs," "these apples," "winter," "yeah come on," "type amerindiens," "edmonton waterways" and super8 film "Man Goes to Park."

With this he hopes to provide a time and place for contemplation of different voices and alternative cosmogonies of a shared space called earth.