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Subaqueous Spring

Bain St-Michel, Montréal, 2011

Catalyst//L. Alexis Emelianoff
This installation-concert makes use of  melting ice, boiling water and electromagnetic fields as primary sound sources. Turbulence of both substance and energy is essential to organic life, and contributes to a sort of microcosmic weather pattern within the Bain St-Michel.

With water-based electronics, glassware, sonic wok, thermal sensors, magnetic turntable machine.

​"A vast surrounding ocean of energy there behind, ready to break into active operation when the medium was at hand for it" -Rufus Jones, 1920

                                                            pre-show video by Sha Xin Wei--->

 

The Bain St-Michel is a former public bathhouse in Montréal, now generously loaned by the Ville de Montréal for public events. It gave us an opportunity to build a first version of a multi-channel flat-panel sound system, and thereby explore a non-standard, asymmetrical, acoustic arrangement that wonderfully animated the distances and darknesses of the empty pool.

In April 2011, we held a series of concerts and events celebrating the seasonal shift from darkness to light.

 

 


photo: L. Alexis Emelianoff

Auricular Tendencies//Claire Kenway
A sonified subversion of the traditional game of hide + seek, played in total darkness. Instead of searching for a clever place to hide, the objective is to contribute to an improvised orchestra of voices in order to perplex the seeker, who is blindfolded and therefore forced to rely on sonic cues in order to locate those who hide…


<--- Material Probes//Florian Grond
A performance that is conceived for the Bain Saint-Michel and explores the sonic space of water. The probes are recorded  through microphones in close contact to water in its liquid, solid and gaseous states. It is an immersive and polyphonic sound space through which the listener experiences the forces at work during phase transition.

                                                                           Das Ohr//Florian Grond --->


Left: Adrian Freed, John McCallum, and Andy Schmeder of CNMAT testing placement of the flat-panel sound system. It uses hi-wave voice coil transducers; the system consists of four wood panels, two metal thundersheets,  one glass panel, and a subwoofer. Center, Florian Grond probing Material Probes; right, the BSM at night

Tea Infusion and talk with Sha Xin Wei and Kathleen Golde, on Quickening in Alchemy
Partake of James Joyce's thunderclap words, the transmutation of base metals, the breaking of ice floes, the shift from equilibrium to disequilibrium, and qualitative changes and transformations such as the preparation of tea leaves.

a collaboration with the Topological Media Lab
Contributors: L. Alexis Emelianoff, Sha Xin Wei, Adrian Freed, Florian Grond, Claire Kenway, Kathleen Golde
Made possible by Hexagram-Concordia with support from The City of Montréal, the Topological Media Lab, and Concordia University

Documentation by David 'Jhave' Johnston, Zohar Kfir, and Tyr Umbach
Thanks also to Martin Loiselle, Chris Hidalgo, George Mouggias, Jeremy Dabrowski, Katerina Lagasse, Olivier Dufault and Alison Beck

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