Last month, Lenka Novakova and Otso Lahdeoja traveled to Santa Fe, New Mexico to install their work O V A L at the Currents 2014 Santa Fe International Arts Festival. O V A L was originally conceived in the matrabox and installed in the Hexagram Blackbox in late 2014.
O V A L is a large-scale installation combining glass, sound and light into a multimodal sculptural space. 10 glass sheets (190 x 60 cm) are hung from the ceiling, forming an oval shape (12m x 5m). 10 large sheets of glass are hanging in a dark room. The glass sheets vibrate and emit sound, forming a spatial polyphony of sonic objects. Video footage of the spectators themselves is projected on the glass sheets, creating a maze of self-portrait reflections and transparencies. The spectator is immersed into a chimerical space of sonic and visual illusions.
matralab artists Sandeep Bhagwati, Adam Basanta, Jen Reimer, Max Stein, Julian Stein, Navid Navab and Felix Del Tredici will travel to the University of Windsor to present their work collectively and individually.
Prof. Dr. Cornelius Pöpel, Lecturer in Sound for Media at Ansbach University of Applied Sciences will be guest researcher at matralab in late September/October 2013.
The research field he will be working on can be described with the words „human aspects in media“ and he is focusing on specific music related intermedia aspects and the impact new technologies have onto the objectives the technologies are built for. Questions that will be addressed are for example:
What qualities do the constraints coming with media technology have and how can humans benefit from those?
How does the broad usage of computing systems and their need of abstraction and formalisation influence human aspects in musical and media based communication?
In contrast to the huge amount of new possibilities new media technology offers for the arts, what new limitations can a broader usage of this technology bring and how could art help to identify and overcome limitations of conceiving and creating art and probably as well: our daily life?
Besides describing the questions, their impact and possibe answers as written text, Dr. Pöpel will work on sound-based reflections with respect to the research topics. He is seeking to get in touch with researchers, artist with similar interests in order to dicuss experiences, opinions and future work.
Furthermore he is looking for researchers/lectures that are interested to come as guest lecturers to Ansbach University and to teach in workshops in the field of multimedia and communication.
Dr Gascia Ouzounian, Lecturer in the School of Creative Arts at Queen’s University Belfast, was a Guest Researcher at Matralab in August 2013. During her time at Matralab Gascia met with collaborators forOptophono, a label for interactive music and sound art she founded in 2013. She designed the Web sitewww.recomposingthecity.org, which documents the work of a research group she co-directs with architect Dr Sarah Lappin at Queen’s. Finally, Gascia took advantage of the unique library at Matralab to complete the first chapter for a book on the poetics and politics of space in experimental music and sound art after 1950. She presented this chapter at NYU’s Music and Audio Research Lab (MARL) following her visit to Matralab.
Gascia is grateful to Professor Sandeep Bhagwati and Jen Reimer for their support of her visit. She hopes to return to Montréal in 2014 to launch her projects Long For This World, an interactive composition created in collaboration with Matralab researcher Julian Stein and composer Christopher Haworth, and EDEN EDEN EDEN, a 6.5-hour recording engineered by Matralab’s Jen Reimer.
O V A L : sound – glass – video installation by Otso Lähdeoja & Lenka Novakova
O V AL is a collaborative audiovisual installation by two Matralab-related researchers; Otso Lähdeoja and Lenka Novakova. 10 sheets of glass are hanging from the ceiling in an oval shape, vibrating and emitting sound. Video is projected on them, creating reflections and transparencies. The installation creates an immersive sonic and visual space which playfully misleads aural and visual perception.
Oval exhibition: Hexagram black box, fri 13.09.2103 & sat 14.09.2013
Several of Sandeep Bhagwati’s essays, both written in 2011, have now appeared in recent books. His essay “Imagining the Other’s Voice. On Composing Across Vocal Traditions“, has appeared in “Vocal Music and Contemporary Identities” ed. by F. Lau and Chr. Utz (Routledge, London/New York) http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415502245/and his essay “Bhava and Rasa: Creative Misunderstandings and Musical Universals” has appeared in the book” Actualité des Universaux musicaux/ Topicality of Musical Universals” ed. by J.-L. Leroy (Editions des Archives Contemporaines http://www.archivescontemporaines.com/)
On Nov 12 and 13, Sandeep Bhagwati will be a keynote speaker and panelist at the World New Music Days in Vienna symposion: “Intercultural Modernity and Contemporary Music – a Paradox?
