The Emotion Organ by Amanda Steggell — Curated by Michelle Teran :: June 12 – July 10, 2010 :: Opening Reception: June 17; 7:00 - 9:00 pm (Live Performances by Eve Egoyan, Gordon Monahan, Martin Arnold and Toddler Body) :: Women’s Art Resource Centre (WARC), 401 Richmond St. Suite #122, Toronto, ON. Presented in conjunction with the Independent Media Arts Conference and Festival: ON.Fire .

Why would anyone want to merely bang out music, when you could have euphoria? Why be satisfied with an ordinary spinet when you could have The Emotion Organ? Developed over a rigorous three-year period in a small studio in Norway, Amanda Steggell’s The Emotion Organ is a synaesthetic, simulacrum machine that takes its public on a phenomenological journey through the physical senses. With the organ, you can hear colors and smell sounds. Continue reading

Mixed Relations / Technesexual - Mixed Reality Live Audio Performancesand Workshops with Elle Mehrmand and Micha Cardenas :: October 2th, 4th, 15-17th, 2009 :: different locations (see below):: contact: Micha Cardenas, Azdel Slade in SL, azdelslade 4+ gmail d()+ com

Micha Cardenas and Elle Mehrmand will be doing a performance called Technesexual that uses DIY biometric sensors that were made by hand to create live audio which will be heard in real space and virtual space at the same time. It is a Mixed Reality performance exploring relationality between people and between people and technology. Continue reading

“If relational aesthetics and open source were always commercial, can the musical score provide a way of thinking through different relationships between creativity and code? The return to improvisation in ‘livecoding’ draws parallels with experimental practices developed by maverick musicians, programmers and educators from Sun Ra, The Art Ensemble of Chicago and the Scratch Orchestra to Seymour Papert. Simon Yuill argues that these ‘distributive practices’ are worth extending today.

In recent years the foregrounding of ‘collaboration’ in artistic practice has acquired an aura of inherent benevolence and emancipation, as though the very act of working with others in itself ensures some form of resistance or alternative to conventions of cultural production, and confers positive moral value. Continue reading