matralab, Concordia University

February 01, 2015

On March 6 and 7, 2015, matralab will be hosting a workshop and colloquium titled “UPHONIAS – Sounds and Future Environments” in collaboration with the Montréal Nouvelles Musiques Festival. Artists and theorists are invited to imagine an environmental sound art project — a presently unrealized or even unrealizable project that is their personal “uphonia.” The focus of the colloquium is to discuss utopian dream projects combining sound, technology and our surroundings, where we allow ourselves to blithely ignore financial and logistical constrains. Have you ever dreamed about such an uphonian project?

matralab is currently accepting posters that will become the visual and conceptual centre-piece of the one-day workshop and colloquium. During the event, invited sound artists, curators, composers, and academics will comment, compare, and collectively build a discussion around your uphonian visions. A video documentation of the poster installation will also be produced, and all accepted posters will be displayed in a virtual gallery on the matralab website.

Please send us a high resolution pdf or scan of your “uphonia” text, image, sketch, manuscript, or score, formatted as a single page black and white poster. All selected posters will be printed as 3′ x 4′ posters. Should your poster be accepted for display, a CDN $50 registration fee will be asked of those affiliated with a university, institution or company. Independent artists may ask for the fee to be waived.

Submission deadline: February 1, 2015.
Notification of acceptance: February 15, 2015.
Send your submission and any questions to: matralab.research@gmail.com.

More about the workshop and colloquium:

Utopias always imply a critique of the way things are done here and now – and through presentations and responses, discussions and informal dialogue, the invited speakers and the audience are called upon to generate a critical discourse on the possibilities and problematics of any artistic practice that inserts sound into an environmental context. Among others, we strongly encourage questions such as:

“What does sonic design mean in environmental contexts?”
“What is the relationship between sounds placed in the environment and sounds of the environment?”
“What does the term ‘soundscape’ mean in the context of the anthropocene?”
“How can a soundscape illuminate the problematic relationship between nature and humankind?”
“What is the sonic or soundscape equivalent of environmental land art?”.

The entire day will be live-streamed, and archived on the matralab vimeo account.

For more information about the Montréal Nouvelles Musiques Festival, see http://www.festivalmnm.ca/en/2015/.