Symposium Schedule

October 26, 2019

Schedule of Events

Saturday, October 26, 2019

Morning Block - University Recital Hall, Level 5 Centre for the Arts Building (UCA)

8:30 - 8:50 am Registration Check-in / Coffee, Light Breakfast / Doors Open
8:50 - 9:00 am

Welcome Acknowledgements

9:00 - 10:00 am

Keynote Presentation | Leanne Elias
Visualizing Agriculture

  • Premiere screening of Visualizing Agriculture
  • Film and potential of interdisciplinary work discussion
  • Q&A with Leanne Elias & André Laroche
10:00 - 10:30 am

Michelle Sylvestre
Physicalizing Control, Disruption and the Body

Migueltzinta Solis
LandMarks: Site-Based Arts Pedagogy in Treaty 7 Territory

10:40 - 11:10 am Douglas MacArthur, Javid Sadr, Aaron Taylor
Screen Acting and Embodied Cognition

 

Exhibition Block & Open House - UCA Atrium and Hess Gallery, Level 6 Centre for the Arts building (UCA)

11:15 - 1:30 pm

Amber Morrison Fox & Matthew Fox - HEY! I'M AN ARTIST

Georgia Jeffery - The Landscape of Light

Austin Knibb - Lakes of Banff

Courtney McDermott - Recording Techniques in Music Information Retrieval​

Michelle Sylvestre - Physicalizing Control, Disruption and the Body

Jess Tollestrup & Dr. Brad Parker - Wind Songs - Experiments with Aeolian Harps

Kierian Turner - Is Binaural Spatialization the Future of Hip-Hop?

Agility Mini Makerspace

12:00 - 12:45 pm

Faculty of Fine Arts Tour (in collaboration with Open House)
2:00 - 2:45 pm Faculty of Fine Arts Tour (in collaboration with Open House)

 

Afternoon Block - University Recital Hall, Level 5 Centre for the Arts building (UCA)

2:00 - 2:30 pm

Amandine Pras
Digital Ethnography of DAW-based Studios in Bamako, Mali

2:40 - 3:10 pm Tyler Stewart
Silencing - The Politics of Sound
3:20 - 4:20 pm

Panel Discussion | Dana Cooley, Denton Fredrickson,
Mia van Leeuwen, D. Andrew Stewart
Moderator: Annie Martin
Objects Dream

 

Evening Reception & Program - Drama Studio (W420), Level 4 Centre for the Arts building (UCA)

4:30 pm Reception | Cash bar | Networking
5:00 - 8:00 pm Program
  Arlan Schultz
Navigating Sonic Landscapes: Realtime Immersive Audio
as an Expressive Element of Musical Composition
  Daniela Sirbu
Algorithmic Drawing and Animation
Memories of Winter
  Bryn Hewko, D. Andrew Stewart & Jordan Berg
Crawlspace

KEYNOTE PRESENTATION & FILM SCREENING
Visualizing Agriculture

In September 2016, the Southern Alberta Art Gallery and the Data Physicalization Lab at the University of Lethbridge invited six artists to participate in a residency, documentary film, and exhibition that asked them to respond to agricultural data developed by Dr. Jamie Larson and Dr. Andre Laroche from the Lethbridge Research and Development Centre: Agriculture and Agri-food Canada. The artwork that emerged from this investigation explores the potential that lies within scientific inquiry when strict standards for fact and method are allowed to be considered and probed through an expanded perspective. Through this inquiry, the work is allowed to effectively engage viewers by evoking feelings of wonder, curiosity, and consciousness about data and agricultural research, while creating a place for contemplation about the land and our inherent connection to it.

The keynote presentation will consist of the premiere screening of the documentary film that resulted from this collaboration, a discussion about the film and the potential of interdisciplinary work, and short Q&A with Leanne Elias and scientist Dr. Andre Laroche. Read more about the project and premiere on uNews.

MORNING BLOCK

Detail of wearable technology by Michelle Sylvestre
Physicalizing Control, Disruption and the Body

In this presentation, Michelle Sylvestre discusses the role that Data Physicalization and Digital Fabrication has in her practice including personal data tracking, and Visualizing Agriculture. She connects these to her explorations of embodied interaction and wearable art and technology in her research-creation dissertation which is examining the parallels and differences in contemporary pharma and contemporary technology in regards to control of the body.

 


 

Landmarks 2019 images
LandMarks: Site-Based Arts Pedagogy in Treaty 7 Territory

Originally conceived as a critical response to Canada 150, LandMarks has been a specialized biennial course offered by the University of Lethbridge since 2017. Structured similarly to an artist residency, this experimental course gives artists an opportunity to learn directly from Treaty 7 Territory elders and knowledge keepers, incorporating their teachings into site specific art works created on-site at Fort Whoop-Up in Indian Battle Park. This presentation will discuss how this project offers a unique learning experience and opportunity to overlap with other site-based works and Indigenous arts production research.


 

Screen Acting and Embodied Cognition

The Screen Acting and Embodied Cognition research group will be presenting an overview of their various projects to date. This research group draws on empirical studies in cognitive psychology, performance theory, and creative practice. Their work develops new means of apprehending the expressive coordination of screen actors' minds and bodies, as well as identifying how viewers accredit actors' performative accomplishments.

 

EXHIBITION BLOCK

Film still of HEY! I'M AN ARTIST, by Amber Morrison Fox with Matthew Fox
HEY! I'M AN ARTIST

This video explores the question: what does it mean to live on an island? How does it shape connections, personal growth, and available opportunities? Does the landscape isolate and suffocate, despite its inspirational beauty? 
 
 


 

The Landscape of Light

This display will be focusing on Georgia Jeffery's work as an assistant light designer and the work that goes into putting on a show from the initial concepts to what actually ends up onstage.


 

Lakes of Banff photography series, installation view. Image courtesy of Austin Knibb
Lakes of Banff

This photo series was taken over one summer with multiple trips in different weather conditions. Today, most of the content that we consume is vertical (i.e. on smartphones) and this series plays with the vertical aspect ratio. These vertical photos were taken with the idea in mind that they would go together in a series horizontally to create a panorama of different view of Banff, thus creating the classic "landscape" orientation that we typically associate when photographing landscapes.


 

Recording Techniques in Music Information Retrieval​

Participants will be able to learn about and explore audio compression and music information retrieval systems. The interactive tabletop display showcases the compression aspects of my research. Participants will be able to experiment with a compressor plugin. Attendees will also be able to compare different ratios of kick and snare drum audio samples. 


 

Physicalizing Control, Disruption and the Body

An installation of a wearable technology art piece that investigates the parallels and differences of contemporary pharmaceuticals and contemporary technology in regards to control of our bodies. The responsive elements explore soft circuitry techniques to create an interactive wearable object invoking an embodied interaction that communicates the everyday experiences of medicalized individuals to other individuals. 


 

Brad Parker and Jess Tollestrup, Wind Songs - Experiments with Aeolian Harps, 2019
Wind Songs - Experiments with Aeolian Harps

This project is inspired by the Henry Cowell piano piece Aeolian Harp, and involves building an Aeolian harp from scratch using pieces of an old piano. The Aeolian Harp is an instrument played by the wind. Named after Aeolus, the Greek God of the wind, it is unique in that it plays only harmonic frequencies. The project aims to create music naturally through Lethbridge’s landscape - through the height of the hill it is situated on, the gusts of the wind, and through the effects that temperature and humidity have on the strings.  


 

Screenprint of binaural. Image courtesy of Kierian Turner
Is Binaural Spatialization the Future of Hip-Hop?

Modern hip-hop is typically associated with samples and MIDI, and not so much with creative source spatialization, since the energy-driving elements are usually located in the center of a stereo image. To evaluate the impact of certain element placements behind, above, or below the listener on the listening experience, we experimented beyond standard mixing practices by spatializing the beats and vocals of two hip-hop tracks in different ways. Subsequently 16 hip-hop musicians, producers, and enthusiasts, and three audio engineers compared a stereo and a binaural version of these two tracks in a perceptual experiment. Results showed that hiphop listeners expect a few elements, including the vocals, to be mixed conventionally in order to create a cohesive mix, and to minimize distractions. 

AFTERNOON BLOCK

Still capture from Emmanuelle Olivier's video of Ken Lagare (arranger/engineer) and General Ballody (reggae singer). Image courtesy of Amandine Pras
Digital ethnography of DAW-based studios in Bamako, Mali

Despite the near absence of audio education in Bamako due to economic challenges in Mali, arrangers/engineers master the recording studio as a compositional tool to produce popular music. Pras presents the analysis of a seven-hour Reggae Mandingue production, whose process was entirely documented from recording to mastering with two video cameras, computer screen captures, and a high-fidelity stereo microphone placed just behind the ears of the arranger/engineer, giving viewers access to the uniqueness of the track as the result of collaborative work using digital audio tools, beyond the aethetic expectations of the musical genre.


 

Silencing - The Politics of Sound

The focus of Tyler Stewart's presentation is to examine how sound has been used by those in power to intimidate and silence groups they would seek to dominate, and how artists have used sound as a form of resistance to assert themselves against these imbalances of power. He will use the conference themes of ​Languages, Landscapes, Algorithms​ as a lens to show the potential of sound-based art to create new meanings and understandings, and consider sound in relation to political, environmental and cultural issues.


 

PANEL DISCUSSION
Objects Dream

The panel members interrogate the philosophical, psychoanalytical, and artistic intersections derived from the material objects that form our everyday landscapes. During this round-table talk, they are interested in leading a conversation that crosses over artistic disciplines, engaging other scholar-artists who are curious about the lives and dreams of objects.

EVENING RECEPTION & PROGRAM

Augmenting real-time acoustic performances using new algorithms for audio. Arlan Schultz. spatialization.
Navigating Sonic Landscapes: Realtime Immersive Audio as an Expressive Element of Musical Composition

This presentation demonstrates how new algorithms for real-time immersive audio (audio spatialization) can be used to enhance and augment real-time acoustic performances, and includes a live demonstration of the concepts under discussion. The implementation of these algorithms has implications for compositional design and aesthetic choices. The presentation will include a live demonstration of the concepts under discussion and examine how compositional architectures may take advantage of these powerful resources. 


 

Selections from “Memories of Winter” series. Still images captured from live animation by Daniela Sirbu
Presentation - Algorithmic Drawing and Animation
Live Performance - Memories of Winter

Algorithmic animation is analysed as a natural development from traditional animation and more general forms of digital and procedural animation. The formal language and expressive means of algorithmic animation are demonstrated through samples of live animation developed in interaction with an artificial life system developed by the artist.  

 


 

film still from Crawlspace for virtual reality headsets by Bryn Hewko
Crawlspace

Crawlspace is a 360° film for virtual reality headsets by Bryn Hewko. Two brothers journey to the back of the seemingly endless crawl space underneath their family home, discovering lost relics, forgotten memories, and an unexpected planetary vastness. For this screening, audience members are encouraged to create their own viewing experience with their tablets, while one lucky member of the public will be outfitted with the Oculus Rift. This film showing also features a new sound and musical accompaniment – live coded and on digital musical instruments, performed live by D. Andrew Stewart and Jordan Berg.