audio art Tag

Review: Canadian Art

26.10.2018 , News, Reviews

Amber Berson wrote a thoughtful review on the occasion of Eastern Bloc’s 10th anniversary exhibition Amplification that features discussion and images of my first internet-artwork https://laughingweb.space

This exhibition meant a lot to me as an artist that has been supported by Eastern Bloc over the years not only by the fact that they have exhibited me and involved me in many projects…but also I have been enriched an supported by their fantastic programming.  I salute Eastern Bloc and wish them all the best in their next 10 years!

To read the article, click here.

LAUGHING WEB DOT SPACE

13.10.2018 , Gallery Artwork, Portfolio

Installation detail of laughingweb.space (2018) by Erin Gee.
Exhibition at Eastern Bloc, Montreal. Photo by Anna Iarovaia.

2018

An interactive website and virtual laugh-in for survivors of sexual violence.

The URL: https://laughingweb.space

This website enables survivors to record and listen to the sounds of their laughter, and through the magic of the internet, laugh together. Visitors of any gender that self-identify as survivors are invited to use the website’s interface to record their laughter and join in: no questions asked. Visitors can also listen to previously recorded laughter on loop.

Why laughter? Laughter is infectious, and borne of the air we still breathe. We laugh in joy. We laugh in bitterness. We laugh awkwardly. We laugh in relief. We laugh in anxiety. We laugh because it is helpful for laugh. We laugh because it might help someone else. Laughing is good for our health: soothing stress, strengthening the immune system, and easing pain. Through laughter, we proclaim ourselves as more complex than the traumatic memories that we live with. Our voices echo, and will reverberate in the homes, public places, and headphones of whoever visits.

Dedicated to Cheryl L’hirondelle

This project was commissioned by Eastern Bloc (Montreal) on the occasion of their 10th anniversary exhibition. For this exhibition, Eastern Bloc invited the exhibiting media artists to present work while thinking of linkages to Canadian media artists that inspired them when they were young. I’m extremely honored and grateful for the conversations that Cheryl L’hirondelle shared with me while I was developing this project.

When I was just beginning to dabble in media art in art school, the net-based artworks of Cheryl L’hirondelle demonstrated to me the power of combining art with sound and songwriting, community building, and other gestures of solidarity, on the internet. Exposure to her work was meaningful to me – I was looking for examples of other women using their voices with technology. Skawennati is another great artist that was creating participative web works in the late 90s and early 2000s – you can check out her cyberpowwow here.

Credits

Graphic Design – Laura Lalonde
Backend Programming – Sofian Audry, Conan Lai, Ismail Negm
Frontend Programming- Koumbit

Special thank you to Kai-Cheng Thom, who with wisdom, grace, and passion guided me through many stages of this work’s development.

Exhibition History

October 3 -23, 2018 – Eastern Bloc, Montreal. Curated by Eliane Ellbogen

February 16, 2019 –The Feminist Art Project @ CAA Conference – Trianon Ballroom, Hilton NYC.

February 2019 – Her Environment @ Yards Gallery, Chicago. Curated by Chelsea Welch and Iryne Roh.

June 26 to August 11, 2019. SESI Arte Galeria, FILE festival, São Paulo, Brazil.

October 4-5, 2019. Video Presentation and exhibition at Sound::Gender::Feminism::Activism symposium, Tokyo. Click here to watch my video presentation

Links

Laughing Web Dot Space

Press

Fields, Noa/h. (2019). “Dangling Wires: Artists Examine Relationship with Technology in Entanglements.” Scapi Magazine (Chicago). https://scapimag.com/2019/02/05/dangling-wires-artists-examine-relationship-with-technology-in-entanglements/

Fournier, Lauren (2018). “Our Collective Nervous System.” Canadian Art. https://canadianart.ca/interviews/our-collective-nervous-system/

Berson, Amber (2018). “Amplification” Canadian Art. REVIEWS / OCTOBER 23, 2018. https://canadianart.ca/reviews/amplification/

Gallery

Exhibition at Eastern Bloc, Montreal. Photos by Anna Iarovaia.

to the sooe

11.10.2018 , Gallery Artwork, Physical Media, Portfolio, Robotics/AI/XR/Quantum, Sound Art

to the sooe (2018)
Sofian Audry and Erin Gee. Photography: Alexandre Saunier

2018

A 3D printed sound object that houses a human voice murmuring the words of a neural network trained by a deceased author.

to the sooe (SLS 3D printed object, electronics, laser-etched acrylic, audio, 2018) is the second piece in a body of work Erin Gee made in collaboration with artist Sofian Audry that explores the material and authorial agencies of a deceased author, a LSTM algorithm, and an ASMR performer.

The work in this series transmits the aesthetics of an AI “voice” that speaks through outputted text through the sounds of Gee’s softly spoken human vocals, using a human body as a relatively low-tech filter for processes of machine automation.  Other works in this series include of the soone (2018), and Machine Unlearning (2018-2019)

to the sooe is a sound object that features a binaural recording of Erin Gee’s voice as she re-articulates the murmurs of a machine learning algorithm learning to speak. Through this work, the artists re-embody the cognitive processes and creative voices of three agents (a deceased author, a deep learning neural net, and an ASMR performer) into a tangible device. These human and nonhuman agencies are materialized in the object through speaking and writing: a disembodied human voice, words etched onto a mirrored, acrylic surface, as well as code written into the device’s silicon memory.

The algorithmic process used in this work is a deep recurrent neural network agent known as “long short term memory” (LSTM). The algorithm “reads” Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights character by character, familiarizing itself with the syntactical universe of the text. As it reads and re-reads the book, it attempts to mimic Brontë’s style within the constraints of its own artificial “body”, hence finding its own alien voice.

The reading of this AI-generated text by a human speaker allows the listener to experience simultaneously the neural network agent’s linguistic journey as well as the augmentation of this speech through vocalization techniques adapted from Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR). ASMR involves the use of acoustic “triggers” such as gentle whispering, fingers scratching or tapping, in an attempt to induce tingling sensations and pleasurable auditory-tactile synaesthesia in the user. Through these autonomous physiological experiences, the artists hope to reveal the autonomous nature of the listener’s own body, implying the listener as an already-cyborgian aspect of the hybrid system in place.

Credits

Sofian Audry – neural network programming and training

Erin Gee – vocal performer, audio recording and editing, electronics

Grégory Perrin – 3D printing design and laser etching

Exhibition history

Taking Care – Hexagram Campus Exhibition @ Ars Electronica, Linz Sept 5-11 2018. Curated by Ana Kerekes.

Printemps Numérique – McCord Museum Montreal, May 29-June 3 2019. Curated by Erandy Vergara.

To the Sooe – MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina January 26-April 26, 2020. Curated by Tak Pham.

Sounds

to the sooe (2018)

Gallery

Machine Unlearning @ META MARATHON Düsseldorf

04.05.2018 , News, Performances

I will be performing (and live streaming) a new audio performance work that features myself in a live ASMR re-performance of deep learning text.  The work will be accessed through a streaming YouTube link via the distributed screens of audience member’s smartphones and laptops for a half hour via headphones in a quiet environment where blankets and sleeping are invited as part of the work.  This performance will take place as part of META MARATHON at NRW Forum, Düsseldorf, Germany on May 26, 2018.

NEW TECHNOLOGY FESTIVAL META MARATHON AT THE NRW-FORUM DÜSSELDORF

42 hours of non-stop talks, performances, film screenings, concerts, exhibitions, and workshops on the subject of Artificial Intelligence: the META Marathon is a new technology festival taking place from 25th to 27th May 2018 at the NRW Forum Düsseldorf. The participants design the festival themselves, switch roles between expert and amateur as well as experiment with the new format—including on-site accommodation. The Festival Director is the futurist and entrepreneur Christopher Peterka.

An innovative technology festival and a digital happening: META is an invitation to participants to collaborate in an open process and collectively develop new ideas on digital modernity and Artificial Intelligence. In doing so, META breaks away from the series of digital conferences and exhibitions that talk about phenomena more than being part of them.

META follows from the assumption that the changes made by digital technologies are so radical that they require new kinds of research and understanding. The participants are invited to work together in a 42-hour marathon packed with stimulating events—in workshops, labs, and talks with sometimes radical exploratory methods—and have the opportunity to spend the night at the NRW Forum.

Those wishing to participate must apply in advance at https://www.metamarathon.net/. The cost of taking part is 42€, which includes food and a sleeping place, and there is space for a total of 400 curious pioneers. Some of those who have already registered are creatives and thinkers from the realms of research, teaching, economics, art and culture, including artist and composer Erin Gee, professor and curator Joasia Krysa, artist and professor Hans Bernhard (Uebermorgen. com), Professor Chris Geiger, nyris founder Anna Lukasson-Herzig, and many more.

What will language look like in the future and how will we use it? How is digital media changing communication? What are the most important skills when machines and Artificial Intelligence are capable of performing human work? How do we perceive and communicate with each other in a world determined by the flow of information and data? Based on the historical agenda of the Macy Conferences, META addresses the issues of memory and storage, language, communication, and learning and perception. The Macy Conferences were ten interdisciplinary conferences that took place between 1946 and 1953 in the United States. It was a hitherto unprecedented open experimental arrangement in which scientists of various disciplines such as neurophysiology, mathematics, psychology, and sociology worked out the basics of cybernetics and cognitive science.

With its novel format, META would like to go beyond the concept of a conference and be a discursive space in which digital modernity and its radical social changes can be explored and described in a festival setting. Contributors should bring their own questions and theories and be prepared to let themes develop on the spot as well as engage in open dialogue between people, disciplines, and machines. The outcome is open and applications will be accepted immediately.

To find more detailed information about the program and to apply visit: https://www.metamarathon.net/

META Marathon
25-27.5.2018

Starts: 25.5, 21:59
Ends: 27.5, 9.30

NRW-Forum Düsseldorf | Ehrenhof 2 | 40479 Düsseldorf

Press Contakt | Irit Bahle | Phone: +49 (0)211-89266-81 | [email protected]

For more information, or to register for the event, visit the META MARATHON website

Algorithms that Matter @ IEM Graz

02.03.2018 , News, Research

I’ve been selected to be a featured artist in residence at the Institut für Elektronische Musik und Akustik (IEM) in Graz, Austria, participating in the Algorithms that Matter Residency from April-June 2018.

From the ALMAT website:

“Algorithms that Matter is an artistic research project by Hanns Holger Rutz and David Pirrò.  It aims at understanding the increasing influence of algorithms, translating them into aesthetic positions in sound, building a new perspective on algorithm agency by subjecting the realm of algorithms to experimentation.

Almat is grounded in the idea that algorithms are agents that co-determine the boundary between an artistic machine or “apparatus” and the object produced through this machine. The central question is: How do algorithmic processes emerge and structure the praxis of experimental computer music? The hypothesis is that these processes, instead of being separated from the composer—as generators and transformers of infinite shapes—exhibit a specific force that retroacts and changes the very praxis of composition and performance.”

 

I will use this opportunity to extend my reach into exciting new forms of embodied algorithmicity, developing new techniques for combining physiological markers of emotion with algorithmic agencies.

To learn more about the research and proceedings of this residency, check out scans of my sketchbook, and transcriptions of conversations between myself and the other residents/researchers at IEM, click here to access our open exposition on the Research Catalogue online platform.

 

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country.

Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien. L’an dernier, le Conseil a investi 153 millions de dollars pour mettre de l’art dans la vie des Canadiennes et des Canadiens de tout le pays.

Her Environment Chicago

08.01.2018 , Exhibitions, News

I am previewing a new work I made in collaboration with Sofian Audry, tentatively titled DeepASMR at Her Environment in Chicago in a few days.

Without giving away too much, I’ve been working with Sofian on how AI can be processed, embodied, and felt as a personal relationship through gentle whispers and vocalizations. The work exists as a sound recording for the moment.

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

Murmurs and Palpitations is a show about ritualized processes of healing and understanding. The show confronts the politics of navigating emotional responses within an environment of virtuality by directly remediating our lived experiences. The pieces in this show pose the question of the dynamic between intimate and immersive media and the ontological self, as experienced through multiple senses and ritualistic gestures. Interpreting Murmurs and Palpitations as sensory and experiential – living electronics – listening to the pulses and vibrations of the works, as they change rhythm through the practice of their language, their breath, the sound and smells of their environment.

Her Environment is an expanded new media art series highlighting feminine spectrum artists. Our focus is on broadening the understanding of how New Media practices can be used in multiple forms of art making, from video to installation and performance. Our aim is to show pieces that challenge how new media can be used, and the male dominated culture that surrounds it.

/
murmuring of screens, of bodies
living electronics, low, soft voices
breathing && quivering
chattering
palpitating
actions
actions
actions
incoming messages && touches
exercise in the form of repetitive motions
healing

Curated by
Chelsea Welch & Iryne Roh
w/ Allie Shyer & Nina Berman

~~~~~~~
Video Games:
Paloma Dawkins – Gardenarium (Canada)
Tahutahu Studios – Idearum (Madrid, Spain)

Installations:
Hannah Newman – Sky Water (Portland, OR)
Samantha Fickel – Touch Screen (Illinois, US)
Rena Anakwe – Living Narratives [iter.03] (Brooklyn, NY)
Madeeha Lamoreaux – Obtained | Retained [Blood Battery] (Chicago, IL)

Videos:
Hiba Ali – Con-tai-ner (Chicago, IL)
Hifsa Farooq – Two Fans (Lahore, Pakistan)
Yaloo Pop – Workout Routine 2018 (Seoul, Korea/Chicago, IL)

Sound:
Erin Gee and Sofian Audry – Deep ASMR (Montreal, Canada)

Performance:
Mitsu Salmon -Formosan Wood (Chicago, IL)

~~~~~~~~~
01/10/2018 ~ 01/27/2018
MURMURS AND PALPITATIONS is open for viewing from January 10th through the 27th!

William Basinski @ Pop Montreal

27.08.2017 , Artist Talks, Interviews, News

September 15th, 2017 – 17h POP Box (3450 St Urbain, Montreal)

In the context of this year’s Pop Montreal Festival Symposium, I have been invited to engage in a public conversation with avant-garde composer William Basinski .

Click here for more information on the Pop Symposium, taking place September 14-17, 2017.

Creator of the widely acclaimed album set Disintegration Loops (2002), Basinski is an intuitive composer of ambient electronic music who works work magnetic tape loops to access dreamlike acoustic spaces.  He once described himself as investing incredible amounts of meditative energy towards improvisation and locating the “timeless, amniotic bubble” of sound one could float within. A bubble is an apt metaphor for these sounds: expansive, swirling voids that physically emanate from thin slips of magnetic tape.

Among other topics, I’m looking forward to this opportunity to speak with Basinski about the physicality of sound, both in the sound producing bodies (the magnetic devices he charms into circles and feedback-song) and the receptive media bodies (us leaky humans).

Take a listen below to Basinski’s soundcloud account in order to experience his processes in tape loop and delay systems, found sounds, feedback, and shortwave radio static.