well, kolkata was more hectic than i had imagined. all my well meant intentions to keep up blog posts failed in the light of puja dhakis, pollution, sweets, and arguments about shah rukh khan. there are worse ways to spend a month i think.
lots of video footage, lots of audio has been collected and will be processed over the winter, perhaps into something new.
in the meantime, you can check out the promo video for “when the gods came down to earth”, below. its pretty impressive, if i do say so myself—i did not get the chance to see it personally as i was in banff at the time. the music for this video is one of the later pieces—in all there is about 35 minutes of sound. further info on the project is available on the website.
the radio performance i did at the banff centre is now streaming online:
Shruti uses field recordings and video collected in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), India as a starting point for a audio performance that explores the urban landscape of this great metropolis, filtered through the eyes and ears of someone intimately connected to but ultimately outside of it. Part soundscape, part improvisation, Shruti uses a wide range of tools from the laptop to the harmonium to present an emotional and personal portrait of urban culture and personal experience.
things in banff are going well. time to look ahead a little bit.
sept 20 you’ll find me @ dundas square as part of the new music marathon. i will be part of darren copeland’s audio art curation/installation 3 sided square. the marathon runs from 2pm-10pm, and just about anyone who is anyone in the new music community will be there either performing or generally rocking out. you’ll hear everything from stockhausen to cage, to glass to original music from the toronto new music scene. info here and here.
i have been asked by the berlin/bochum dj trio the homewreckers to make a music video for their upcoming CD release, which drops october 10. the video will be done before xmas and you will be able to find it on youtube and other locations. check out their online spaces for more information.
i will be doing a live radio broadcast/performance next friday @ the banff centre. luckily, you can tune in online here: http://www.radio90.fm/
my performance begins at 6:15 alberta time (see here to help you calculate your local time for those of you tuning in via internet). i am as always very excited to perform this work, especially because i never know what it will be. expect to hear field recordings from kolkata, folk music, street sounds, a track or 2 from my CD quell, and perhaps some music i have been working on here. the banff centre has a long and illustrious association with radio art, and i am very pleased to be included on the list of great sound artists who have performed radio in the past.
perfect timing. while i am away @ the banff centre, the video installation when the gods came down to earth goes live sept 3. there is more information on the installation, created by filmmaker srinivas krishna, here.
it promises to be quite a startling and impressive installation. audio will play every 1/2 hour from around 8 am to 11pm.
specifically for the audio portion, thanks are in order to john gzowski, who will do the final soundcheck for me. also of course a big thank you to krishna for asking me to do it in the first place.
the installation is presented by the royal ontario museum’s institute for contemporary culture and the toronto international film festival’s future projections program.
just received word that skin will be programmed at cineworks’ group exhibition who will give up their distinctions? in vancouver in september 2008. at the moment we are trying to figure out what form the work will take, but it looks likely that it will be a looping projection with the audio track on headphones, which is my ideal format.
update: the sound will be piped into the space. skin will be looped and presented with another video by clint enns, prepare to qualify. latest info is that this exhibition will be part of SWARM 2008, a festival of artist run centres in vancouver. the festival and screenings will be september 5 and/or 6.
i have been selected for inclusion in the SAVAC group exhibition @ harbourfront centre, august 8-10. a new audio installation, shruti, using binaural recordings of the tanpura, field recordings from kolkata, and sound from the harbourfront site itself, will be created for this event, part of the south asia calling festival @ harbourfront.
the exhibition is free and will feature some great art from artists tackling the theme of “re-generation”.
i am at the unbelieveable sound symposium here in st john’s newfoundland. they brought me here to install my sound piece kolkata garden. we found a beautiful place near the “fluvarium”, in a clearing in a protected park. it was really perfect.
i am meeting all sorts of interesting artists from a variety of disciplines. check the website for some of them. if you ever have a chance to get out here, do it!!!
i’m at the deepwireless festival of radio art this weekend, as part of the performing quartet of myself, chantal dumas, andreas kahre, and kathleen kajioka. on tap are workshops and performances and live 12 speaker disseminations of radio pieces. i am particularly excited to see/hear tetsuo kogawa’s keynote speech and performance tomorrow morning. this festival is getting bigger and bigger, and the work of nadene and darren is really making this festival a major event in audio/radio art here in north america (and, dare i say it, internationally).
update sunday: attended tetsuo kogawa‘s lecture and performance at 9am this morning. i am completely blown away. it is rare that such a level of theoretical grounding and articulation accompanies such masterful artistic execution. or at least its rare that we get a glimpse of both sides. kudos to naisa (see link above) for a) programming kogawa san and b) creating a context for both of these sides of this amazing artist.
in other news, some media for my piece @ deepwireless can be found below.
just back from a hectic 20 hours in montreal, where the lippok | sinha duo performed as part of the canadian tenori on launch, presented by yamaha and mutek.
it was a really tremendous evening, with the amazing montreal crowd living up to all expectations of being some of the best audiences anywhere. montreal’s pheek opened the evening with an abstract set, very different from the techno he is known for. i am robot and proud gave a tremendous performance, with his particular brand of warm/cool whimsical music. the whimsical tip continued with nathan michel, who played a lot of his set in 15/16 time.
robert lippok and i then hit the stage. an added bonus was the live visuals provided by toshio iwai, the inventor of the tenori on, who asked (if you please) if it was ok to generate visuals connected to my percussion instruments when robert and i did a soundcheck earlier in the day. those of you familiar with our first concert would have been quite surprised at the energy and intensity of this set, ending with a huge “krautrock” (in robert’s words) free for all. we were surprised ourselves—the soundcheck was completely different than the actual performance. the visuals were another incredible and inspiring factor in the performance. robert and i are actively looking for more opportunities for this duo project. keep your eyes peeled.
toshio iwai gave a presentation on the development of the tenori, starting his talk with an homage to canadian experiemental filmmaker norman mclaren, who did a lot of work with sound and visuals in the 70’s. he was happy to mention him in canada, and gave props to our great national film board. he took us through his own work and explorations with sound and light, starting off with his favourite little music box and treating us to some really jawdropping clips of his earlier installations, as well as photos and clips of the tenori on in development and on the production line. yu nishibori, the engineer working with toshio, also joined him onstage, taking us through the design process and demonstrating the rather sophisticated interface—similar to much great music, the interaction of discrete simple elements results in the possibility of very complex music.
the night was closed off by sutekh, in a very intense noise based set, and the very friendly and genial pole, who rocked the house with his dub based sound.
props to the mutek crew for organizing such an amazing event. they made everything so smooth that it was easy to just show up and play. hooray for mutek! last but certainly not least, thanks to yamaha, yu nishibori and toshio iwai for agreeing with robert to bring me in the first place.
more photos soon @ my myspace page but for now here’s a teaser. (update: there are pix on flickr here)
