BeatRoute Magazine Alberta print e-edition - February 2017

CITY
PARTICLE + WAVE
installs a new reality
A weekend of glitch and entire month of exhibition await.
What do you get when you combine light, sound, texture,
esthetics and philosophy into an immersive artistic
experience? The answer itself is a fascinating equation;
one that has been given life and room to breathe thanks to an
immersive three-day celebration of multimedia art known as
PARTICLE + WAVE.
“We started out in 2012, as sort of an experiment during
Alberta Culture Days, and our second one was in 2015, so we’re
trying to make it a biannual event,” says programming director
Vicki Chau, “EMMEDIA wanted to do a festival that focuses on
the realm of live audiovisual performances and more on projection
art and sound art. It kind of emerged around the same time
that Soundasaurus, the Multimedia Sound Arts Festival that was
put on by Tammy McGrath, at the EPCOR Centre (now known
as Arts Commons) was ending. When Tammy left, Soundasaurus
died away and there was a need for a sound-arts festival in the
city, so PARTICLE + WAVE picked that up; along with all of the
other aspects of media arts, as well as sound, to give the Calgary
community something that’s a little bit different.”
Offering a glimpse into the brave new world of multimedia
works and installations, PARTICLE + WAVE is the ideal point of
entry for those seeking to expand their knowledge of how digital
technologies are being manipulated to create provocative works
of art that challenge the limits of audio-visual presentation and
performance. On the other side of the brain, the festival has been
carefully curated so as to provide a frictionless transition between
environment and experience, thereby rendering even the most intimidatingly
complex examples both accessible and approachable.
“It’s interesting to be able to evolve a festival along with what
the artists are producing and to be able to find the venues around
the city, such as Festival Hall, that can facilitate their kind of
work,” says Chau. “Our partners have been fantastic in supporting
us in showcasing the kind of art that can’t be shown anywhere
else. Because PARTICLE + WAVE exists in a celebratory mode
it is the perfect vehicle for us to present to people who are not
already familiar with EMMEDIA or media arts. Everything we do,
by Christine Leonard
except for the Feature Night, is free. So, we want to entice the
public to come back to EMMEDIA and partake of the year-round
events that we have to offer beyond the festival, as well.”
While PARTICLE + WAVE’s biggest soirée takes place on February
2nd, group exhibition Digital Artifacts runs February 4 to March 4 at
U-Hall TRUCK, and Janus will run February 3 to 25 at EMMEDIA. Mapping
artificial intelligence from the inside out, Janus, produced by Toronto-based
multimedia pioneer and guest lecturer Tasman Richardson, is a
prime example of using modern software “hacks” to reanimate obsolete
computer systems. Richardson’s colourful and stimulating brand of technomancy
involves stimulating vintage Atari 2600 consoles to give birth
to their own original sounds and images. According to semiotic sampler
Richardson, running a device through its virtual death throes in order to
capture the “nowness” of the elusive binary life flashing before your eyes
is just the tip of the cybernetic iceberg.
“I call it fishing for the invisibles,” Richardson elaborates. “Normally,
in post-‘87 technologies, you’d get a blue screen that would censor (as
in censorship) and stop any unstable static or noise that happens when
you turn on your TV, just to make it more palatable. The problem is
that it also cancels out any beautiful, subtle, nuanced glitches that the
machines are building and generating. The glitches come straight from
the console itself, with no cartridge inside it, and you have to use power
failure and brown-outs to ween the machine off of its stabilizing power
in order to generate the glitches. So, there’s a real movement of trying to
harness those glitches and that’s called fishing for them.”
PARTICLE + WAVE’s main events take place February 2nd to 4th at
various venues in Calgary. Shows Digital Artifacts and Janus throughout
February at U-Hall TRUCK Contemporary Art in Calgary and EMME-
DIA respectively.
FORMS OF SOUND FESTIVAL
not yer grandpappy’s classical fest
by Alex Meyer
In the beginning of February, the University of concerts, the festival will host interactive sound
Calgary’s School of Creative and Performing Arts, installations featuring sound clips from U of C music
in conjunction with New Works Calgary, will be alumni along with what is being dubbed Soundscavenger:
hosting the Forms of Sound Festival: a collection
guests are invited, with the help of an app and
of international and local artists premiering and a pair of headphones, to wander around the Rosza
playing compositions for students, as well as the Hall and have small pieces play in your ears, dependent
public, across four nights at the Eckhardt-Gramatté
on where you are. In doing so, you can compose
Hall. The venue is an acoustic marvel, and a your own piece of music merely by walking through
sonic gem in Western Canada, designed to project different places.
the sound onstage into the audience with perfect The Forms of Sound Festival has brought together
clarity and resonance. BeatRoute sat down with a wide variety of local artists along with a series of
event organizer David Eagle and Calgary New guest composers from places like Toronto, Montreal
Works’ artistic director Laurie Radford for more and Berlin. “These pieces are meant to stretch our
info on a festival steeped in innovation, radical understanding of music and sound,” Eagle continued.
artistic expression, and connecting high art with “It is, in part, an exploration into sounds you just can’t
the wider community.
imagine coming out of instruments.”
“The field of new music is expanding and changing From January 31st to February 3rd, wildly innovative
so quickly,” Eagle says. “The Forms of Sound Festival is
musical journeys will be performed, often with
a way to bring some of the new activities to the larger inventive and interactive multimedia accompaniments.
will play alongside a live performance, were meant thews. Along with works from Max Murray, Annesley
public.”
to convey the rich multicultural history of Istanbul, Black, and German artists Benjamin Schweitzer,
The festival succeeds in this by hosting midday Original pieces will be performed by Land’s End which for many centuries has been the confluence of Stefan Streich, and Gordon Fitzell.
workshops with the artists themselves. These workshops,
Ensemble and U of C’s Wind Ensemble, and also ancient civilizations, ideas, and cultures.
Forms of Sound delivers on its titular promise,
which take place every day of the festival, allow include a five-channel, electro-acoustic performance The festival culminates on February 8th with showcasing multi-disciplinary acts more interested in
those curious about the artists’ techniques and ideas from David Berezan, compositions from Anna Pidgorna
Berlin’s prestigious ensemble mozaik. A brazenly what sound can be than what it used to be, has been,
can sit down and engage in dialogue in tandem with
& Analia Llugdar, and an operatic performance experimental septet of virtuoso musicians who cease-
and is. The most important criteria for performers
hearing some of the compositions in a more personal where the singer’s movements will trigger sounds that lessly push the limits of what music is, they pluck and and composers are that they be visionary, exploratory
setting. This culminates on February 7th, when play around the audience and complement the live strum and blow their instruments across new sonic and interested in the way music intersects. It ain’t yer
Berlin’s esteemed ensemble mozaik (lowercase and musicians on stage. It also includes a piece by Ilkim landscapes and evoke a wild spectrum of emotion. grandpappy’s classical fest.
misspelling intentional) ‘reads’ short compositions Tongur, who travelled to Istanbul to record pieces in ensemble mozaik will play six different works written
from students and provides feedback.
the acoustically rich archways and ancient architectural
by Canadian and German composers, including a Forms of Sound runs Feb. 1-8 at various venues in Cal-
In addition to the daily workshops and evening
wonders found there. These recordings, which world premiere by Canadian composer Michael Matgary,
with a focus on the U of C campus having access.
8 | FEBRUARY 2017 • BEATROUTE CITY
Just because their training is classical doesn’t mean what they showcase at Forms of Sound will be.