Montréal Tag

Poster for Akousma 2021

Akousma Montreal

27.09.2021 , News, Performances

I am thrilled to present the world premiere of my ASMRtronica work We as Waves (2020) as part of the 30th anniversary Akousma Festival in Montreal, Canada.  The programming features an exciting collection of composers that I am happy to be presenting my work alongside.

For more information on the full week of programming and/or to purchase tickets for the festival, click here.

Mélanie Frisoli / Frédéric Auger / Roger-Tellier Craig

Hugo Tremblay / Rouzbeh Shadpey / Erin Gee

– 14 octobre 2021 – USINE C // 7pm

ABOUT AKOUSMA –

Composers Jean-François Denis, Gilles Gobeil, and Robert Normandeau founded Akousma in Montréal in 1991 as a concert production company that showcases works by electroacoustic artists and collectives in Montréal. These works are presented via an immersive sound system, and they take several forms: acousmatic (tape music), mixed (tape and instruments), live (live electronics), video music, or music integrated into other art forms such as dance, performance, or installation.

We as Waves

14.08.2021 , Digital Media, Music Composition, Performance, Portfolio

We as Waves (2021)
Premiere performance at Akousma Festival, Montreal.
Photography by Caroline Campeau.

2020

ASMRtronica is an ongoing project developed in the artist’s home-studio during the novel coronavirus pandemic: a manifestation of a desire for intimacy in sound, when touch was not possible. This is a style of music applied to several works as Gee develops her own vocabularies of psychosomatic performance.

Through ASMRtronica, Gee brings to life a combination of electroacoustic music and the sounds of Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR) videos: clicks, whispers, soft spoken voice, taps, and hand gestures inspired by hypnosis, tactility, intimacy, and verbal suggestion. Through ongoing development of this genre, she explores the sonic limits of the sensorial propositions of ASMR, journeying into embodied and unconscious feedback loops in sound.

Credits

We as Waves (2020)
Released August 2021 by Erin Gee.
Music composition and performance by Erin Gee. Text by Jena McLean. Videography by Michel de Silva.

To the Farther (2020)
Released September 8, 2020 by Erin Gee.
Music composition and art by Erin Gee.

We as Waves

We as Waves (2020) is a collaboration between myself and queer playwright Jena McLean. The text in this work is inspired by an essay by feminist theorist of electronic music Tara Rodgers. What does it mean to enter into an affective relationship of touch with sound? The work embodies a dark narrative of sonic becoming aided by hypnosis and physiological relationship to sound and voice, closed by the the following quotes from queer theologist Catherine Keller:

“As the wave rolls into realization, it may with an uncomfortable passion
fold its relations into the future: the relations, the waves of our possibility,
comprise the real potentiality from which we emerge…”

“We are drops of an oceanic impersonality. We arch like waves,
like porpoises.”

We as Waves (2020)

To the Farther

In September 2020 I launched To the Farther as part of MUTEK Montreal’s online exhibition Distant Arcades. It is first a series of music that explore the limits of tactile whispers, proximity, and hypnotic language through ASMR and electronic sound.

To the Farther is the title of the first iteration: A fresh take on texture, form, and the plasticity of reality under digital transformations, also is a “remix” of my ASMR recordings made in Machine Unlearning (2020).

To the Farther (2020)

Audio PlaceboPlaza

Audio Placebo Plaza

22.06.2021 , Digital Media, Embodied Media/Performance/Scores, Gallery Artwork, Music Composition, Portfolio, Sound Art

Poster for Audio Placebo Plaza: Montreal Edition (2021)

2021 / 2022

In June 2021 the trio transformed a former perfume shop in the St Hubert Plaza of Montreal into a pop up radio station, sensory room, therapist office, and audio production studio, uniting these spaces through the aesthetics of a sandwich shop or cafe to offer customizable audio placebo “specials” and “combos” to the public.

Founded upon principles of feminism, socialism, and audio production excellence, Audio Placebo Plaza invites everyday people to take appointments with artists to discuss how an audio placebo could help improve their lives. These appointments are entirely focused on the individual and are in themselves part of the process. Common topics of discussion included increasing productivity, self-esteem, self-care, social interactivity, brain hacking, mitigating insomnia, and pain management, but also one’s aural preferences, sensitivities, and curiosities. Intake sessions were conducted in a blended telematic/in-person structure to determine one’s familiarity and comfort levels with a variety of psychosomatic audio techniques including but not limited to soundscapes, binaural beats, simulated social interactions, positive affirmations, drone, participatory vocalization, ASMR, guided meditation and deep listening.

After the consultation is complete, team members met to discuss each participant’s case to fulfill their “prescription,” and also to divide the labor amongst the three creators. The collaborations are non-hierarchical, adaptive, and simultaneous: one might be working on up to four projects at a time, or trade tasks depending on one’s backlog of labor. Labor is divided into recording sounds, conducting intake sessions, writing scripts, performing spoken or sung content, writing music, editing and audio mixing, cleaning and maintaining the shared spares, and communicating with visitors or walk-ins.

Audio Placebo Plaza Radio broadcast was facilitated through a pirate radio transmitter as well as an internet radio station. We broadcast completed placebos, shared technical advice and performance practices during informal critiques, work sessions in progress through the DAW, and sometimes informal chats with visitors. Intake sessions were also broadcasted (with the consent of visitors).

Through Audio Placebo Place, we explore and develop methods for sound and music that propose emotional labor, listening, collaboration and “music as repair” (see Suzanne Cusick, 2008) as key elements that shape the sonic-social encounter between artists and the public.

Can placebos help?
Does sound have the power to process complex emotions?
Can music give you what you need?
Is this even music?

The Montreal edition of Audio Placebo Plaza has been archived by Andy Stuhl at Wave Farm (NY, USA)
https://wavefarm.org/radio/archive/works/kdtgwn

We created a commemorative booklet for Audio Placebo Plaza: Montreal edition with writing by Budhaditya Chattopadhyay
https://audioplaceboplaza.com/Publication

Credits

Audio Placebo Plaza is a community sound art project conceived by Julia E Dyck, Erin Gee and Vivian Li .

Graphic design by Sultana Bambino.

Gallery

Audio Placebo Plaza Montreal Poster

In November 2022 Audio Placebo Plaza traveled to Karachi Pakistan as part of the Karachi Biennale.

Audio Placebo Plaza (APP) is a female and non-gender conforming collective of artists (Julia E. Dyck, Erin Gee, Vivian Li) focused on the expansion of intersectional feminist methods of care, emotional labor, collaboration, and community in sound art. APP considers “placebo” as a complex, open-ended, and optimistic conceptual framework for work that embraces irony, play, and co-performativity in psychosomatic sound art. Through performance and interactivity, APP engages with community members to discuss these topics, creating original audio artworks based on conversations in our healing space. We offer everyday people customized positive messages, audio creations, healing frequencies, binaural beats, and ASMR, responding to the needs of our community through a practice of radical sonic care. We promise our fullest intention.
https://audioplaceboplaza.com/

You can listen to the albums from the Montreal edition and the Karachi edition here:
https://audioplaceboplaza.bandcamp.com/

Audio Placebo Plaza – Pillow Talk Radio
https://www.instagram.com/p/CucUFrboaoU/?img_index=1

 

Press

https://www.thenews.com.pk/magazine/you/1014017-visionary-women

https://mmnews.tv/here-are-artworks-you-must-visit-at-karachi-biennale-2022/

https://www.dawn.com/news/1717389/3rd-karachi-biennale-promises-interesting-display-of-artistic-talent

https://www.thenews.com.pk/magazine/us/1008137-karachi-biennale-2022-where-art-meets-technology

https://www.arabnews.pk/node/2191651/lifestyle

https://thekarachicollective.com/on-coevolution-and-the-spaces-we-build-for-ourselves-dialog-on-kb22/?fbclid=IwAR2IVRyA719mOdAwV4wHo2RIma45pJugdHywE9JAvD7wAc6hffvRx03g1ww

Credits

Audio Placebo Plaza is a community sound art project conceived by Julia E Dyck, Erin Gee and Vivian Li .

Graphic design by Sultana Bambino.

Gallery

Audio Placebo Plaza Karachi

Audio Placebo Plaza – Montreal

28.05.2021 , Exhibitions, News, Performances

/Undefine Radio presents a series of radio interventions under the theme of “Bodies in Resonance / Corps Résonants”.

Co-curated by Martín Rodríguez and Emmanuel Madan, this series enlists three successive artist groups to make performances, installations, and engage with the public through the storefront at 6835 Rue Saint-Hubert from June 4 to 22 in Partnership with Suoni per il Popolo and CKUT.

June 11-17: Audio Placebo Plaza

 

Sound artists Erin Gee and Julia E Dyck transform a former perfume shop vitrine into a DIY audio placebo and online radio centre. For one week only they offer everyday people customized positive messages, audio creations, healing frequencies, binaural beats, and ASMR. They are responding to the needs of the community through a practice of radical sonic care.

Can placebos help?
Does sound have the power to process complex emotions?
Can music give you what you need?
Is this even music?

CHECK OUT OUR PIRATE RADIO and INTERNET STREAM —-> undefine.fm

Decolonizing the Senses, Roundtable: Montreal

06.05.2021 , Artist Talks, News

Decolonizing the Senses, Roundtable

Organizer: Florencia Marchetti, CISSC, Concordia University, Canada

This roundtable brings together an interdisciplinary team of Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists and scholars who have been exploring ways of decentering Western notions about the body and the senses through an intercultural research-creation lab since 2014. Through talking and making, thinking, reading and researching, team members have shared and learned about each other’s practices, bringing to the table a diverse range of epistemological and ontological doubts and premises. In this roundtable, we will revisit the project’s trajectory, from our early conversations and interferences to the production of three portable sensory environments and the video re-mediations produced to share the works under the new social regulations imposed by pandemic living.

Discussion topics will include:

– Listening Relationalities

– New Media Art and Indigenous Ontologies

– Creative-Knowledge Flow and Protocols (from Place/Land through Non-Human Ontologies into Artworks)

Panelists:

Jennifer Biddle, National Institute for Experimental Art, University of New South Wales, UK,
David Garneau, Visual Arts, University of Regina, Canada

Erin Gee, Music Composition, Universite de Montreal, Canada
David Howes, Centre for Sensory Studies, Concordia University, Canada
Suzanne Kite, Concordia University, Canada,
Chris Salter, Design Art, Concordia University, Canada,
r e a Saunders, Independent artist, Australia

image of MUTEK 2020 Distant Arcades interface

Distant Arcades: MUTEK Montreal

04.09.2020 , Exhibitions, News

This exhibition premieres my newest project: “To the Farther” (2020) is a song that combines the aesthetics of ASMR with electronic music. This is part of my ongoing project to produce an ASMRtronica album.  My participation in this exhibition as part of the 2020 Amplify D.A.I. cohort – AMPLIFY D.A.I is an initiative of the British Council in partnership with MUTEK Montréal, MUTEK Buenos Aires and Somerset House Studios in the UK. The programme is supported by Canada Council for the Arts and Fundación Williams.

Distant Arcades

A VIRTUAL EXHIBITION
OF DIGITAL ARTWORKS

September 8-20, 2020

virtual.mutek.org

Featuring work by Aaron Bradbury UK Alex McLeod CA Debby Friday CA Depart AT Dpt. CA/QC Erin Gee CA/QC Frances Adair Mckenzie CA/QC GLOR1A UK Heather Lander UK Isabella Salas MX/QC Jawa El Khash CA Kathryn Hamilton & Deniz Tortum TR/NL/US Kathy Hinde UK Krzysztof Garbaczewski PL Lila Tirando a Violeta AR/UY Lucas LaRochelle CA/QC Quantum Foam UK Raphaël Néron CA/QC Refik Anadol TR/US Sahar Homami IR/QC Scott Benesiinaabandan CA/QC Shelley Barry ZA Sol Rezza AR Tatiana Heuman AR/DE Vicky Clarke UK

“An arcade is an architectural structure of arches and passageways, a place to walk through and to meet, and it is also reminiscent of the video gaming arcades of the 1980s. During these past months in confinement, as we were all homebound, sitting endlessly in front of our screens, we built complex gathering networks through the myriad platforms available to us. Drawing from a new experience of a distance that brings us closer, this exhibition brings together 26 artworks from Québec, Canada and around the world created with a wide range of technologies, from volumetric capture to 16 mm film, 3D animation and neural networks. Presented alongside each other in this digital arcade, they are a testament to how art has the agency to transform unforeseen circumstances into moments of encounter, activism and knowledge-sharing.”

Darling Foundry Montreal

03.07.2020 , News, Performances

Erin Gee and Jen Kutler Presence (2020) with Xuan Ye, What lets lethargy dream produces lethargy’s surplus value (2020)

August 13, 2020 – online performances for Darling Foundry, Montreal 

I have been invited to participate in a project by curator Laurie Cotton-Pigeon called Allegorical Circuits for Human Software, a cyberfeminist exploration of Marshall McLuhan’s writing on technology that includes performances and virtual interventions spanning several months from JUNE 11, 2020 – AUGUST 20, 2020 (5 PM TO 10 PM)

I’m very happy to be sharing the performance evening with Xuan Ye, a great Canadian artist working across code, sound, and performance. The programming also includes:

MÉGANE VOGHELL

AVALON

NADÈGE GREBMEIER FORGET

ANNA EYLER & NICOLAS LAPOINTE                           

XUAN YE

 

ERIN GEE & JEN KUTLER

FABIENNE AUDÉOUD

ILEANA HERNANDEZ

NINA VROEMEN & ERIN HILL

EMMA-KATE GUIMOND

 

Cotton-Pigeon writes of our work:

“The notion of mediated connectivity is also present in the performative work of artists Erin Gee and Jen Kutler. As the two artists live in two different places (Gee is based in Canada and Kutler in the United States), they developed a system of sensorial connection without ever meeting in person, which has allowed them to overcome the constraints associated with geographical distance and concretize the “virtuality” of the Internet. Interested in the unconscious and autonomous nature of bodily sensations and their associated emotions, the artists simulate touch by combining an ASMR relaxation technique with the use of DIY devices (Touch Simulation Units) that work similarly to transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS).”

 

Allegorical Circuits for Human Software has been conceived in dialogue with the collective exhibition FEEDBACK, Marshall McLuhan and the Arts, which will be presented in summer 2021 at Fonderie Darling.

 

 

Pop Montreal

09.09.2019 , Artist Talks, News, Research

I will be part of a panel of artists as part of the Pop Montreal Symposium to discuss ASMR from artistic/scientific perspectives, come out to see me talking about my number one passion right now, also featuring…

Philippe Battikha holds a BFA in Integrative Music Studies and an MFA in Studio Arts (Interme-dia Concentration) from Concordia University. He is the co-founder of the Samizdat Records (SZR) label, based in Montreal and Brooklyn.

Jann Tomaro (Detroit/Montreal) is a doctoral student, researcher, and mental health practitioner who facilitates //practice//, a series using psychoacoustic properties of noise and sound to guide group meditations.

Click here for the facebook link to the event

Details!

What’s That Noise? ASMR For The Uninitiated
28 SEPT, 12 H 30, Piccolo Rialto

Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR) is the static-like, tingling experience that people experience as a sensory response to auditory stimulus. ASMR has become a movement of its own in recent years, with the development of entire online communities of creators composing audio specifically tailored to produce pleasurable and relaxing effects for their audiences. So what’s the science behind ASMR? And where does it fit in the long tradition of “Brain Music,” from binaural beats to Muzak, through noise, musique concrète, and experimental sound art?

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C’est quoi ce bruit? L’ASMR pour les néophytes
Le 28 sept à 12 h 30 Piccolo Rialto

La réponse autonome sensorielle méridienne (ou ASMR pour Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response) est une réponse sensorielle au stimulus auditif qui se manifeste sous forme de pico-tement ou d’électricité statique. L’ASMR est devenu un véritable mouvement en soi au cours des dernières années à travers le développement de communautés digitales de créateur·rice·s qui créent des pièces élaborées afin de susciter un effet plaisant et relaxant pour l’auditeur·rice. Quelle est la science derrière l’ASMR? Et quelle est sa place dans la longue tradition de « mu-sique cérébrale », allant des sons binauraux à la Muzak et passant du bruit à la musique concrète et à l’art sonore expérimental?

Erin Gee est une artiste qui travaille dans la composition chorale, les interfaces de données bio-métriques, la robotique et l’ASMR, explorant la culture numérique à travers les métaphores des voix humaines dans des corps électroniques. Dans sa pratique, Gee s’inspire des approches fé-ministes et posthumanistes qui remettent en question les concepts traditionnels de la conscience humaine.

Philippe Battikha est titulaire d’un baccalauréat en Études des musiques intégratives et d’une maîtrise en Studio Arts (concentration Intermedia) de l’Université Concordia. Il a bénéficié de nombreuses bourses et distinctions, dont le programme d’accompagnement et de mentorat du MAI (Montréal, arts interculturels). Il est co-fondateur de l’étiquette Samizdat Records (SZR), ba-sée à Montréal et à Brooklyn. De 2008 à 2012, il a été membre fondateur du projet d’artistes L’Envers à Montréal.

 

 

Elektra Festival Montreal

05.05.2019 , Exhibitions, News

Project H.E.A.R.T. (Holographic Empathy Attack Robotics Team) (2017), my popstar/militainment VR game mashup with an affective control interface made in collaboration with Alex M Lee, is going to be featured at the upcoming Elektra festival XX in Montreal!  Look for it this June!

 

Exhibition opening: June 7, 6pm-9pm

Exhibition Dates: June 7-15, 2019

Perte de Signal 5445 Avenue de Gaspé local #107, Montréal, QC H2T 3B2, Canada

 

Click here to check out the full programming of Elektra Festival 2019