Flesh waves

One hears a sound. One listens to murmurs and chants. But can one feel those sounds? Perceive them differently?

The human skin is sensitive to touch, but for it perceives intensities and warmth, it can also be aroused by the vibrations of sound and light. Notes and sparks mark their stories on the body. The skin is a land to write on and the flesh is a river to enter.

Flesh waves is an augmented reality performance/installation exploring the relationships arising from the interaction between the body in movement and technologies of sound spatialization in real-time and lighting. Artists of this piece integrate technologies in their artistic research as a means to reach unpredictable sensory experiences, unknown territories:

Under a faint glow appears a three-dimensional human sculpture: five women, bodies intertwined, form a Collective Body. Transported by the chant of their own murmurs, they slowly carry one another into a continuous wave. Bodies and breaths entangle, the women are simultaneously five bodies and one same mass, five voices and one choir.

The Collective Body is a carnal one and a mediated one; from the different dynamics of movement emerges an organic electroacoustic soundscape. Lively traveling in space, the soundscape grazes the performer’s skin and resonates in their movements. Acting as the sixth performer of the piece, the sound also surrounds the spectators, integrating them in the live sound form. The audience is immersed in the flesh, confronted to the extremely intimate.

This research/creation project involves the development of a unique processing software allowing the organic real-time capture and spatialization of the performers’ voices in space. This research promises the creation of a performance/installation piece where the ritual meets the virtual, where technology deploys the feminine flesh in all its sensuality.

CREDITS

Project designers

Conception du projet

Ricardo Dal Farra

Isabelle Choinière
Audrey-Anne Bouchard

Sound design and music (composition; real-time performance)

Conception sonore et musique (composition; performance en temps réel)

Ricardo Dal Farra with

Karim Lakhdar (assistant)

Technological development

Développement technologique

Kevin McDonald and Karim Lakhdar

Jen Reimer & Max Stein were one of 10 artist groups selected to take part in Sound Development City, a sound expedition in Lisbon and Marseille from September 23-October 9, 2013. They will create a series of site-specific performances in resonant public and abandoned spaces.

http://sound-development-city.com/en/participants/projects-2013/

www.tunnelmusik.com

Jen Reimer and Lisa Gamble will spend August in Berlin, Germany on an artist residency where they will work on an immersive sound installation for 30 radio’s.

http://www.souterrain-berlin.de/

www.jenreimer.com

Michal Seta will participate in INTACT Project’s (http://www.intact01.net/es/) conference on artistic telepresence. The conference opens INTACT Project’s residency in the Medialab-Prado (http://medialab-prado.es/) in Madrid for their third phase of the Huésped project and will take place on July 19, 2013 at 7PM (Madrid time). Michal will present remote-controlled wind-chimes. Audio signal received over network creates wind that sets wind-chimes in action at a distant location. In this particular teleshared action a duo of musicians (clarinet and cello) located at the conference in Medialab-Prado’s auditorium will interact with wind-chimes located at Matralab’s black box. Processed sound of wind-chimes and video will be sent back to the audience in Madrid. More information about INTACT and the event can be found (in Spanish) at the following link:

http://blogs.elpais.com/arte-en-la-edad-silicio/2013/07/el-fuego-del-arte-se-enciende-a-distancia.html

Media-Laprado streams at the following link:

http://medialab-prado.es/article/streaming

Message from current Artist-in-residence Jane Tingley:

As you may or may not know I have been working on a sound installation with Michal Seta.  This has been a tremendous amount of work for me and I would love it if you would come by and see it J  The project is Re-Collect – it is a responsive sculptural sound installation that visually references neurons and synaptic connections within the brain, which is central component to how we form memories.  See below for a project description…

In the last three months I have been working on Re-Collect, which was originally prototyped at the MuseumsQuartier residency in Vienna Austria in 2010.  I have finally found an opportunity to build the final iteration with sound artist Michal Seta.  Currently we are doing residency at the matralab at Concordia University (EV 4-502) and we have set Re-Collect up in the matrabox for the first time!!!  We are now programming the behaviours and sound over the next month – ending August 12^th, 2013.

If you are available – we would love it if you could stop by to see the project – keep in mind – we are in the process of programming and we consider the sound to be a work-in-progress – however – the physical system exists.  We will work together on the project from now until July 10^th – and then Michal Seta will continue to program and create the sound for an additional month – that said – we have decided to show the project as it exists today.

Here is a video

Below are the work sessions that you are welcome to visit… (see below for a map)

Work sessions:::

Monday July 8^th – 5 – 7pm

Tuesday July 9^th – 12 – 4pm (please e-mail me if you are interested)

We will have an official 5 à7 – please stop by and have some wine (there will be a little – but you can also bring some)….

Wednesday July 10^th – 5 – 7

We will then work on the project for a month.  At the end of this programming session – we will have a final finissage – and invite people to come by the space to celebrate the end of a lot of work.  This final exhibition will be August 11^th in the evening.  More info later.

Project Description:

Re-collect is a work in progress in collaboration with sound artist Michal Seta. The work is installed at the matralab at Concordia University fromJune 23rd, 2013 – August 12th, 2013.

Re-Collect is a responsive installation that uses sculptural objects, live recordings and playback, to draw attention to the visitors’ physical presence and movement within the installation space. The visitor triggers sounds recordings, ambient light fluctuations and an evolving sound composition that is played back through the sculptural elements when moving throughout the room. The playback consists of a mixture of live and past sound recordings that together reveal the recorded memory of past visitors and exhibition locations. The sonic and visual spatialization of sound and light will amplify the viewing experience and direct attention to the viewer’s entanglement within the sculptural body and the fact that the space too carries with it a history.

The physical space of Re-Collect suggests the synaptic connections within the nervous system in particular the brain, which is central component to how we form memories. When visitors enter the gallery space they will see a room filled with 30 semi-transparent objects hanging from the ceiling, which are interconnected by data and power wiring – some contain sensors, microphones, and speakers, and all of them will contain three filaments of Fiber Optic cabling. In its entirety, Re-Collect forms a luminescent and sonic mass attentive to its environment, which uses sound as a metaphor for the electrical impulses moving through the brain and points to the moment that two entities meet – when memories form – entangle with the present – and shape experience.

Sandeep Bhagwati, matralab director, has recently received two honours in Munich, Germany:

At a ceremony on June 21, he was named Honorary Member of the aDevantgarde Festival for contemporary music in Munich, together with Moritz Eggert and Wilhelm Killmayer – the three founded the festival 25 years ago.

And on the same afternoon, he was appointed a member of the MIMA Arts Board, a circle of renowned artists counseling the emergent Munich Institute of Media Arts (a new media arts university that will start operating in 2014).

Goethe-Institut, 1626 boul. St-Laurent, Montréal
Friday, June 14, 2013

An installation by Chantale Laplante

Chantale Laplante’s sound installation Nothing Specific is set in the Goethe-Institut’s library, creating unexpected sonic encounters while inviting the public to come closer to the documents, to hold and consult them.Although we usually go to the library with a specific idea in mind, there are times when we wander about, scanning the shelves, not exactly knowing what there is to discover.The sound installation Nothing Specific explores these random encounters, when we suddenly access an unknown subject, where the document, a space of knowledge, is transformed into a small sonic space gradually opening up as we approach.

Technology and programming: Julian Stein

Weblink:
http://www.goethe.de/ins/ca/mon/ver/en11108577v.htm

Space Behind the Looking Glass (How can space be created, occupied and performed by ephemeral architecture, audio-visual technology and the body)

Thursday, April 11, 2013, 2 pm @ matrabox:

Lenka Novakova will present her research addressing questions of performative space, audio-visual technology and the body.

She will spin a yarn around questions concerning performative spaces, looking at ways in which Space (in its different context and concept) affects the form and dissemination of work developed by audio-visual tools inserted within ephemeral architectural structures to function (in its essence) as a container of a poetic landscape and a hybrid between an interactive installation and a choreographed performance.

She will also present her Project ‘In Between The Light and Darkness’ along with material and light demonstrations related to the project.