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 <strong>Alberta</strong> 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 <strong>February</strong> 2nd, group exhibition Digital Artifacts runs <strong>February</strong> 4 to March 4 at U-Hall TRUCK, and Janus will run <strong>February</strong> 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 <strong>February</strong> 2nd to 4th at various venues in Calgary. Shows Digital Artifacts and Janus throughout <strong>February</strong> 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 <strong>February</strong>, 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. <strong>BeatRoute</strong> 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 <strong>February</strong> 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 <strong>February</strong> 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 <strong>February</strong> 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 <strong>2017</strong> • BEATROUTE CITY Just because their training is classical doesn’t mean what they showcase at Forms of Sound will be.
ELECTRO-ACOUSTIC MUSIC TRANSISTOR CABARET CONTEMPORAIN / FRANCE FEBRUARY 22 – 25 . <strong>2017</strong> “MORE THAN A BAND OF GIFTED MUSICIANS, CABARET CONTEMPORAIN IS A FUSION OF POP MUSIC, EXPERIMENTAL SOUNDSCAPES, TECHNO, MINIMALIST ROCK, AND IMPROVISED JAZZ” – LE PARISIEN BUY YOUR TICKETS NOW! ONLINE: theatrejunction.com | PHONE: 403.205.2922 | 608 1 ST STREET SW // Calgary, AB FOLLOW US: TheatreJunction | #BEthejunction
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