Performances Presented in 2021

I. Piece for objects found in the street by Anne-F Jacques
These instructions suggest a way to perform and record an audio piece using found objects. You will need a recording device (digital recorder, phone, etc) and headphones. The completed piece can either be an audio or video file of 5 minutes maximum, and uploaded to a media sharing location (YouTube or Soundcloud). Share the link to your realization by email to outreach at naisa dot ca. You can also decide to keep it as a private experiment.

1. Go for a walk. Look around for abandoned or unclaimed objects. You may consider getting yourself a coffee. Bring back:
- a disposable coffee cup
- a dense heavy object
- a long, thin object
- another object of any shape or characteristic that interests you

2. Place the cardboard coffee cup over the microphone(s) of your recorder or phone, covering it/them if possible. You may use one of your hands to keep the cup in place, or find another way of securing it. Start recording.

3. Gently roll the dense object on the cup, attempting to have every face of the object be in contact with every face of the cup (not at the same time).

4. Remove the cup, replace it with the plastic lid secured over the mic. Insert the long thin object in the drinking hole of the lid and slide it in and out.

5. Remove the lid. Open the closest window. Do something with the last object (or do nothing with it).

6. Stop the recording.

7. Edit as necessary, and if you wish, share as instructed in the introduction.

I. Stereo Ribbons by Janet Rogers
Stereo Ribbons was inspired by the announcement that NASA had released a new batch of (space) sounds for public consumption. Reading in their descriptions that some of the sounds were described/labeled as stereo ribbons, I thought this was a lovely title and produced a beautiful visual to think of this sound ribbons floating through space - in their own time, taking their own shapes and traveling or not traveling to whatever destination pleased them.

II. tsi tkaronhya ke by Janet Rogers
tsi takaronhya ke - in the sky - is a sound narrative featuring digital compositions by Haida/Cree musician Kristi Lane Sinclair and Inuit DJ Geronimo Inutiq (formerly known as madeskimo) featuring Sylvia Cloutier produced by Mohawk sound and radio artist Janet Rogers. This sound journey expresses challenges within change and transitional phases. Within Indigenous spiritual teachings and origin stories the sky and or space is where human spirit joins the physical realms and where our spirits also return. Transition almost always includes elements of chaos and confusion before understanding and acceptance is achieved. tsi tkaronhya ke is the sound journey of spiritual transitioning.

III. Sky Woman Falling by Janet Rogers
Two original poems revisiting the Haudenosaunee Creation Story, Sky Woman, with self-produced sounds and original music by Liv Wade.

I. Un/box: What is to be done with all that remains? by Anna Friz
Solo performance for voice, radiophonic instruments, cottage-built electronics, and various boxes with their stuff.

II. Hava NAiSAnniversary by James Bailey
This is a transmission art performance for interfering radios (with added theremin) created for the 20th Anniversary of New Adventures in Sound Art (NAISA). There are two separate systems explored in the performance, one using the FM band, and the other using AM (which also incorporates the theremin).

The principle involved is based on the fact that two or more radios, when placed in close proximity, will interfere with each other when tuned in certain ways. One radio is tuned, preferably off-station, somewhere near the upper end of its range. The other nearby radio is tuned downward from that frequency until either a dead spot is reached (i.e. no sound comes from the first) or a whistling tone is heard that will vary according to movement of the other tuning dial. These effects seem to vary according to the quality of the radios involved, but most often the dead spot will occur on the FM band and a third radio is needed to cause an audible tone; with AM, only the tone is heard, though some background noise may be reduced. The theremin is also only effective in the AM range, as the oscillators necessary for its operation are nearest to that band; it is possible to alter the tones produced by the radios simply by “playing” the theremin, and no audio output from it is required.

As is often the case when working with radio frequencies, results are unpredictable and can vary as a result of various conditions. If things work out right, it can be possible to create quite pleasant and even “tuneful” sounds, if only briefly. Not sure that really happened in this particular performance (such things only seem to occur when practising), but I hope at least the potential comes through.

III. After Exile by Victoria Fenner
A piece for CBC Radio based on the poem "After Exile" by the late southwestern Ontario poet Raymond Knister (1899-1932). A conversation on a train returning to a small hometown village. Life, loss, memory. Poem by Raymond Knister, concept by Victoria Fenner, produced by Steve Wadhams for CBC's Living Out Loud. The role of Raymond Knister is played by Edward St. Moritz (Edward Moll).

IV. Writing on Water by Chris Brookes
Read this paragraph. You are navigating through the words by using the rules of grammar. Fine. Now forget grammatical coordinates. We'll try to construct a sound-language by using geographical coordinates instead. That word on the tip of your tongue? Perhaps it's hiding behind the sofa.

Writing on Water was performed by the Deep Wireless Ensemble, a multi-disciplinary collaboration of artists curated by NAISA with stage direction by Mark Cassidy. The performers in 2005 were Chris Brookes, Evalyn Parry, Anna Friz and Eric Leonardson. The video documentation is by Stefan Rose and edited by David Arthur.

I. Body Print - Listening to the City Shore by Zoe Gordon
This stereo audio piece is a self portrait that uses digital recording to show the changing state of body, emotions and consciousness. These happen during short but repeated visits to sit and listen to the shore in Thunder Bay.

II. Moth Transmissions by Keri Latimer
This work was originally created for a nature dance piece which explores the Underwing Moth (found all over North America inner mainland) and the Sand Verbana Moth (an endangered species found on Vancouver Island). One is being displaced by human activity and the other is plentiful but considered a pest. The soundscape is a digital exploration of imagined moth transmissions and the haunting sounds of disappearing habitats.

III. Surveillance Drone Hatchlings First Flight by Helena Krobath
What if birds really are space-age surveillance drones, covertly observing? What if reality is fiction? This composition senses the world in fringe theory terms. Although conspiracy theories can seem farcical, the act of accepting a distorted rather than ‘plausible’ explanation of reality is itself an act of profound meaning. This piece uses environmental field recording, home-made instruments, and digital audio processing to blend nature and simulacra, dragging each other -- and listeners -- into a speculative, destabilized paradigm.

IV. Waves of Fortitude by Lucille Kim
“Waves of Fortitude” is a desolate sound piece in which the artist searches for healing while losing connection with the ground under foot. Mechanical repetitions are heard from the beginning relating to how the digital world heavily intertwines or impedes the body as another form of nature.

I. Roserade by Véro Marengère
Inspired by new materialism, ecosophy and Haraway’s Chthulucene, the videomusic work "Roserade" evokes a relationship between a desk, a rosebush and a female human. Sometimes frenetic and sometimes contemplative, it proposes a world that deforms without ever completely destroying or building itself. In this entropy the human and nonhuman explore the feeling of being interdependent, in a reality shaped by digital and ecological transformations.

II. Bone and Air by Tansy Xiao
Bone and Air is an audience participatory visual and sound piece that explores the relationship between natural sounds and the human body. The piece was inspired by the idea of the juxtaposition of bone conduction (within the human body) and air conduction (receiving sounds via the ears). The audience members are invited to make certain sounds through the piece according to the graphic score as an ensemble to create a spontaneous heterophony that is unique each time.