22nd annual Sound Travels Festival of Sound Art underway

COVID-19 isn’t stopping New Adventures in Sound Art from hosting the 22nd annual Sound Travels Festival of Sound Art.

It’s underway through September 21st at the North Media Arts Centre in South River.

Officials say installations have shifted from indoors to outdoors, concerts and workshops are being hosted over web-conferencing platforms and an online compilation album is being produced.

Along with outdoor installations and online sessions, there’s a Community Soundscape collection for World Listening Day on July 18th.

For more information, check out soundtravels.ca

SOUND TRAVELS INSTALLATION EXHIBITS
https://naisa.ca/festivals/sound-travels/installations/

Octet by Matthew Rogalsky
June 25 – August 17, 2020, Thursday to Monday, @ 11am – 3pm
106 Ottawa Ave., South River, ON

Octet is an outdoor sound installation with eight SM58 vocal microphones – wired in reverse to become tiny loudspeakers – and eight modified archival birdsong recordings by William WH Gunn (1951, with permission of the Macaulay Library of Environmental Sound, Cornell University). This sound installation, which re-purposes common stage vocal microphones as tiny loudspeakers – eight of them hanging from the widespread branches of a tree – is part of ongoing research with Laura J. Cameron into the life and work of William W.H. Gunn, early Canadian environmental sound recordist. The piece, situated in a tree, plays with the culture of “soloist” birdsong recording (isolating one bird from its surrounding “noise” as much as possible), the notion of birds as performers, the “reversibility principle” of microphones and loudspeakers, and Gunn’s encouragement of birdsong identification and appreciation through his lectures and the “Sounds of Nature” LP series he produced from the 1950s into the 1970s.

New Sound Installation (Title TBA) by Bentley Jarvis
July 30 – September 21, 2020, Thursday to Monday, 11am – 3pm
106 Ottawa Ave., South River, ON

Bentley Jarvis is creating a new sound installation that will transform the sounds of traffic passing by the NAISA North Media Arts Centre on Highway 124 in South River. This sound sculpture will emphasize resonant frequencies audible in the vehicle engines and will use max software to make a program that listens to the traffic, ponders for awhile, and then responds by playing an improvised passage through various improvised resonant structures.

Porch Radio
Ongoing to September 21, 11am-3pm
106 Ottawa Ave, South River, ON

Those in the South River area can enjoy NAISA Radio without internet, without computers, and in the open fresh air. Porch Radio opened on May 21st, and is an outdoor listening space on the porch at 106 Ottawa Ave. with seating for up to 4 people (in order to accommodate social distancing).

Audio Bench / bring your own headphones
June 25 – September 21, 2020, Thursday to Monday, 11am – 3pm
106 Ottawa Ave, South River, ON

Works from NAISA’s first online Sound Travels compilation will be available for listening at our picnic tables outdoors. A headphone extension will be provided for you to plug in and listen while you enjoy a take out beverage from the café at NAISA.

COLLECTIVE LISTENING REFLECTION MEETUP SERIES

Community Sound Collection 
Meetups June 27, July 6, and July 18
Admission fee of $10 is optional but registration is required
https://naisa.ca/purchase-tickets/
New Adventures in Sound Art will host a series of online meetups that will encourage reflection, facilitate soundscape recording and share and exchange perspectives on listening. The initiative will be facilitated by Canadian composer-sound artist Tina Pearson, who will suggest a listening score for participants to consider in recording within their home environments. The resulting curated sound map will be available for listening on aporee.org on World Listening Day (July 18) and will continue indefinitely.  World Listening Day is an annual global event produced this year on the theme The Collective Field. The theme for World Listening Day 2020 is from Katherine Krause of Wild Sanctuary.

Listening Reflections Meetup with Tina Pearson
June 27 @ 2 (EDT or UTC-4)
Pre-registration required

Online guided listening session and information Q&A for those wishing to participate in the World Listening Day Collective Listening Reflection initiative. Discussion of working with listening scores for participants to consider in recording within their local environments.

Listening Reflections Soundscape Recording with Darren Copeland
July 6 @ 2 and 7 pm (EDT or UTC-4)
Pre-registration required

An Online Workshop facilitated by Darren Copeland for those who wish to receive guidance on recording in the field. Learn how to record your soundscape using various inexpensive devices.

Collective Listening Reflection Meetup
July 18 @ 7 pm (EDT or UTC-4)
Pre-registration required

NAISA will host an Online Gathering to listen to the recordings made for the radio aporee sound map as part of this meetup series and to reflect on changes in listening through these remarkable times.

SOUND TRAVELS ONLINE COMPILATION #1 & PERFORMANCES

Sound Travels Online Compilation #1
Launches June 25, 2020, https://naisa.ca/media-archive/compactdiscs/

This first edition of the Sound Travels Online Compilation of electroacoustic sound art produced for the Sound Travels Festival of Sound Art features fixed media works and live performance recordings on the theme of Transformation. A common thread throughout this collection is the use of the transformation of sounds through digital means to not only bend and change conceptions of reality, but to also blur distinctions for the listener between musical listening and imaginary planes of existence.

Recent Transformations
2 Online Performances, August 15 and Sept 11 @ 7 pm (EDT or UTC-4)
Admission fee of $10 is optional but registration is required
https://naisa.ca/purchase-tickets/

NAISA Artistic Director Darren Copeland presents a spatialization performance decoded to binaural stereo for online headphone listening. He will perform selections of works from the Sound Travels compilation album with the artists on hand to discuss their works with the audience between the presentation of each work.