Sound Thinking: Conversations on Audio Art
Art of Noise has come a long way from avant-garde roots in the 20th century
The "art of noise" has come a long way from its avant-garde roots in the 20th century. Current sonic art encompasses a wide array of practices, from unaltered field recordings to re-edited pop songs, from installations in art galleries to radio specific broadcasts, and from film soundtracks to live performances.
The Surrey Art Gallery is hosting Sound Thinking: Conversations on Audio Art Curated by sound artist Jean Routhier and curatorial intern Joshua Bandy, the Sound Thinking symposium aims to develop the existing community of sound-based artists with a day of dialogue. The symposium will offer entertaining and educational exchanges with practicing artists who will share reflections on their different perspectives.
Following a brief reception at noon, Giorgio Magnanensi of Vancouver New Music will deliver the keynote address. Magnanensi is a renowned composer, musician, and conductor, whose innovative work in sound art has taken him all over the globe. The remainder of the afternoon is split between two roundtable discussions, with three guest panellists per discussion, as well as question and answer periods following each. Invited panellists will explore themes such as the politics of mash-up, and commonalities and differences between installation-based and performance-based presentations.
The first panel features Hildegard Westerkamp, Ken Gregory, and Kenneth Newby (Sessional Faculty). An original participant in the World Soundscape Project headed by R. Murray Schafer in the 1970s, Hildegard is a composer who focuses on listening, environmental sound and acoustic ecology. Winnipeg-based Ken Gregory has been working with DIY interface design, hardware hacking, audio, video, and computer programming for over 15 years. His creative performance and installation work has shown widely with venues across Canada and many international destinations. Influenced by his classical training, experience with improvised music as well as his studies in Java and Bali, Kenneth Newby is a media artist, composer-performer, educator, software designer, and audio producer. His interactive audio-visual installation One River (running) was recently exhibited at the Surrey Art Gallery.
In the second panel, Sean Horton, Trevor Chan, and Philippe Pasquier ponder the state of performance-based audio wizardry. Horton is a composer, DJ, and Curator of Seattle's annual Decibel Festival, one of the largest electronic music and media events in North America. Pasquier is an assistant professor in the School of Interactive Arts and Technology (SIAT) at Simon Fraser University. Recently he has been working on interaction and communication theories in artificial intelligence. Chan is a sound collagist based in Vancouver. He is a founding member of no luck club, an instrumental hip-hop band that combines turntable improvisation with sample-based rhythms.
Guests are invited to tour the current sound-based exhibitions at the Surrey Art Gallery. Janet Cardiff: Forty-Part Motet, on tour from the National Gallery of Canada, is a sublimely beautiful sound installation created by one of Canada's most significant contemporary artists. Open Sound: Audio Art Projects is a new program developed by the Surrey Art Gallery that supports the production and presentation of audio artforms as part of contemporary art practice, made possible with funding support from the Spirit of BC Arts Fund.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
12pm to 5pm
Admission to this event is free; donations are gratefully accepted.