I recently spoke with Lauren Fournier at Canadian Art Magazine about trauma, healing, internet-based artworks, technology and the body as it relates my interactive website https://laughingweb.space
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.
Installation detail of laughingweb.space (2018) by Erin Gee.
Exhibition at Eastern Bloc, Montreal. Photo by Anna Iarovaia.
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.
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.
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.
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
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 /
Immerse(d): Music x Health x Technology – Montreal Edition
A global event series dedicated to the positive impact of sound and music.
Participants get intimate contact with artists, scientists and practitioners working with the physical and therapeutic aspects of sound. Following a day exploring studios, installations and discussions, the event concludes with world-class audio-visual performances.
Sound is energy. Music is universal. Bass is foundational.
$10 – Day Pass 15h-20h
$20 – Evening Performances 20h -23h
$25 – Day/Night Passport 15h – 23h
Limited space available.
https://www.projectimmersed.org/montreal
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❚ Panels & Conversation ❚
15h00 | The body-interface: Perception through biology, psychology and cultural formation
Suzanne Kite | Initiative for Indigenous Futures, Concordia University | CA
Erin Gee | Perte de Signal | CA
Taymoore Balbaa | Ryerson University | SUBPAC | CA
Moderated by Zoë De Luca | McGill University | CA
Eastern Bloc
7240 Clark, Montreal
October 3-26, 2018
GALLERY HOURS
“Amplification”, in its figurative and literal sense, is the act of making something more marked or enhanced, on the one hand, and the process of increasing the amplitude of an electrical signal, on the other. Amplification of both artists’ careers and art practices is what Eastern Bloc strives towards in its programming. It is what prompted the centre to curate a retrospective exhibit featuring the work of artists with whom we have closely collaborated over the past ten years, who are not so emerging anymore, but who inspire us to continue amplifying the work of younger, more emerging artists.
The artists exhibited in “Amplification” form an important part of the digital arts landscape in Canada. Many of them exhibited in group or solo shows for the first time at Eastern Bloc, while others were presented by the centre at a formative stage in their career. They have all, over the past decade, developed a strong bond with the centre and have contributed to strengthening and “amplifying” the community of Canadian and international digital artists.
Erin Gee created work inspired by Cheryl L’hirondelle; Darsha Hewitt by Doug Back; Sofian Audry by Monty Cantsin?; Craig Fahner and Matthew Waddell by Catherine Richards; Adam Basanta by Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller; Jennifer Chan by Emily Vey Duke and Cooper Battersby; Sabrina Ratté and Roger Tellier-Craig by Jean-Pierre Boyer; and Erin Sexton by Michael Snow. Eleven emerging and mid-career artists have, as such, created a body of work that represents a “living archive” of Eastern Bloc. The work exhibited in Amplification delves into and revises the history of New Media art in Canada, as seen through the perspective of a new generation of Canadian artists. Amplification is Eastern Bloc’s contribution to the past, present, and future of digital arts in Montreal and in Canada.
MUTEK_IMG
Forum on current practices in digital creation
Chatter about AI and machine learning is ubiquitous, but are we mindful of how much automation shapes our experience of the world? Services like Uber offer convenience, but their ‘disruption’ throws labour and legislation paradigms into turmoil. Against this backdrop of techno-solutionism and anxiety, algorithms have become a key subject of artistic investigation — and creators have been exploring automation through robotics for decades. Starting with ‘the artist’s toolkit’ and working outwards to bigger culture machinations, this session will identify both possibilities and peril.
Tim Maughan (CA)
Erin Gee (CA)
My soft spoken whispering sound art of the soone (2018) made in collaboration with Sofian Audry will be featured as part of the XXFiles Radio Show’s programming for Nuit Blanche 2018, Riding the Wave: a pirate radio festival, broadcasting live from a little studio on Van Horne/Waverly at 104.3FM in Montreal at 6am on March 4th. Wish I could be there to turn on a real radio to hear it.
Click here for the official website
The XX Files is the aural-satellite to Montreal-based feminist media arts space Studio XX. This intersectional feminist media collective works to explore all aspects of our techno-world from the perspective of women living it.
The show was started by Deborah VanSlet and Kathy Kennedy in 1996 on CKUT 90.3 FM and continues to features diverse, compelling feminist perspectives about art, technology and society. The XX Files represents a feminist statement about our relationship to the digital world through traditional media as both a feminist public and a social space that allows feminist icons and marginalized narratives to have their voices heard.
The current team is composed of Julia Dyck and Amanda Harvey. The collective continues to host the weekly CKUT show alongside two monthly internet radio shows, one on Montreal’s N10.AS as well as one on France’s CAMP. The collective also presents live audio-visual performances and DJ sets.
In the summer of 2017, The XX Files completed a residency at Studio XX where they produced a triptych of audio documentaries, devised a live A/V performance, and built FM radios. In March of 2018, they are curating and presenting a shortwave pirate radio festival for Nuit Blanche à Montréal.
March 3 – 4, 7:00pm – 7:00am
Broadcasting live from Earth II, 134 Van Horne, Studio 212
Open to the public until 2AM
Live streaming
https://studioxx.org/en/pirate-radio-festival-xxfiles/
Frequency
104.3FM (Van Horne/ Waverley)
KIDZLAB September 28-29 2017
Perte de Signal is happy to announce the launch of its first edition of KidZlab, a 4-day digital arts festival for young creators: “Un laboratoire d’innovation pour l’imaginaire.”
For this first edition of KidZlab, I presented a workshop entitled “Strange Theremin” – teaching teams of young people to work in groups to assemble a circuit that allows them to manipulate musical tones with their skin conductance. This new musical instrument allows students to explore touch, sweat, and emotional engagement as a potential musical material.
Here’s what my young students had to say:
The event also featured very interesting workshops by artists:
Eric Cariat (BE) – Stephanie Castonguay – Maxime Damecour – Erin Gee – Alice Jarry – Roby Provost-Blanchard – Alexandre Quessy
at Perte de Signal 5445 De Gaspé – Espace 107 (RDC) Montréal.
With thanks to:
Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec
Wallonie-Bruxelles International
KIKK Festival 2017
Les Journées de la culture
Le Fab Lab du PEC
For more information (in French):
https://perte-de-signal.org/kidzlab-festival-dart-numerique-pour-le-jeune-public/
KidZlab Laboratoire d’innovation pour l’imaginaire from PERTE DE SIGNAL on Vimeo.
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.
BioSolo 2016
Photography: Wren Noble
The improvisation is very sparing, the goal is to exploit interesting rhythmic moments between heavy breath-song and the heartbeat, all the while exploring limits of respiratory activity and seeing what effect it has on my physiology.
BioSolo was first performed at No Hay Banda series in Montreal at La Sala Rossa, organized by Daniel Àñez and Noam Bierstone.