handheldfall 2011

board of directorsPRESIDENT LON A. PARKER • VICE PRESIDENT TBAdirectors Lydia karpenko • Sigrid Mahr • Andrea mann • Lia rogers • cori stent • Brad struble

staffDIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS Peter Curtis Morgan emadmin@emmedia.caProgramS & Outreach Coordinator Vicki Chau programming@emmedia.caProduction Coordinator KYLE WHITEHEAD production@emmedia.ca

production committeeHEAD OF COMMITTEE Eric beckerNOEL BÉGIN • Philip bowen • Ramin Eshrashi-YazdI • Carl spencer • Adam tindalE

programming committeeHEAD OF COMMITTEE LIA ROGERSNOel BÉGIN • Joshua fraser • Jennifer McVeigh • GRANT POIER

HANDHELD Media Arts MAGAZINE IS DESIGNED AND COMPILED BY Vicki chauEDITOR Jennifer McVeighPRINTED IN CANADA BY burntdog communicationsCover Photo By Vicki chau • "bin 15" by Mark lowe

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EMMEDIA News

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ResonatingintheCommunity

EMMEDIA PROGRAMMING

KristevaandNoise • by Andrea Williamson

Bin15 • by Shawn Dicey

EMMEDIA PROduction access program

ResonantFrequencies • by Kyle Whitehead

ProductionAccess2012-Callforproposals

Mashup:IntroducingLinguisticsbyRLTrask&BillMayblin,andnotestakenbythepoetinEmmedia’sBasicProductionClasstaughtbyPhil

FoundPoem:FromHandheldMediaArtsMagazine,apublicationofEmmediaWinter/Spring2011Edition

• Poems by Laurie Fuhr

EMMEDIA IS SUPPORTED THROUGH ASSISTANCE FROM THE CANADA COUNCIL FOR THE ARTS, THE ALBERTA FOUNDATION FOR THE ARTS, CALGARY ARTS DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY, THE NATIONAL FILM BOARD OF CANADA, WEBCORE LABS, PRIVATE AND CORPORATE DONATIONS, OUR MEMBERS, ARTISTS and PRODUCERS, VOLUNTEERS, AND THE CALGARY COMMUNITY.

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Esi Edugyan, who was EMMEDIA's Research/Administration Assistant during the summer of 1997, is gaining international acclaim for her novel, Half-Blood Blues. The book, which intertwines the histories of Jazz and the black experience in Nazi Germany, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, one of the world’s most prestigious awards for English-language fiction. It has also been nominated for several major Canadian literary awards, including The Scotiabank Giller Prize, The Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction and The Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize.

Vicki Chau, EMMEDIA's Programs and Outreach Coordinator, organized &ampersand 3: A Collaborative Art Exhibition, which was held at the new satellite Gallery of Untitled Art Society in September. This was the third edition of the collaboration-based show to be conceived and organized by Chau. The exhibition included EMMEDIA members Marbella Anne Carlos, Jessica McCarrel, Tomas Jonsson, Alisha Weng, Phil Bowen and Peter Curtis Morgan.

In October, Kyle Whitehead, EMMEDIA's Production Coordinator, will show his installation Circles of Confusion at Studio 16 1/2, as part of the Antimatter Festival in Victoria, British Columbia.

Circles of Confusion is a generative image and sound based installation, composed of dual Super 8 film-loop projections integrated with dual optically sensitive sine-wave oscillators.

Our former Artist in Residence, Sharon Stevens, was the recipient of the Elephant Artist Relief Award in October. EAR recognized Stevens for her activism and commitment to the community in various areas. Stevens also curated Connective: A Screening of Feminist Video Art by Canadian Women at EMMEDIA in October, to celebrate Women's History month and acknowledge the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day.

Longtime EMMEDIA member Xstine Cook's work Spirit of the Bluebird was screened at both the Calgary International Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival. The project was also screened as part of the Connective program.

Prairie Tales 13, which premiered at the Alberta Media Arts Alliance Society Conference in Hinton, Alberta in June, featured works by a number of EMMEDIA members; Xstine Cook (Suckathumb), Aran Wilinson-Blanc (The Head), and Stefanie Wong (What Remains).

Sharon Stevens and Kevin Kanashiro accept the EAR award at the SWARM Fundraiser.

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In May, EMMEDIA partnered with Fairytales Presentation Society and the Calgary Police Service Diversity Unit on a new program that supported and inspired youth to create public service announcements to promote safe and diverse learning environments, free from homophobia and bullying. The projects were screened at the Fairytales Film Festival and program participants got to meet Dan Savage, creator of the “It Gets Better” campaign, as part of a special presentation at Vertigo Theatre.

EM was an exhibitor at the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo in June. Our booth promoted independent video and new media practices, and EM staff gave a presentation about making video in Calgary.

Once again, EM programming was featured at the Calgary Folk Music Festival. BIN 15, a project by Mark Lowe, was installed at the festival site From July 21-24. This modified grain bin, filled with tools and instruments of all description, attracted visitors of all ages, as well as festival musicians and an array of local sound and Noise artists.

In August, EMMEDIA hosted the creation of video zines as part of the Fuse Young Culture Festival at Shaw Millennium Park. Members of the public were asked to make a short video about what arts and culture means to them.

In September, former EManimenteur Shelley Ouellet's Johnston Falls helped launched the fall programming season at Stride Gallery in Calgary. The installation is based on a promotional image of the popular tourist destination and was constructed using more than 8000 plastic craft beads.

Keith Murray showed his installation Neon Gods at PAVED Arts (Saskatoon) in September. His work was part of the exhibition PsycheDADA, co-curated by Tod Emel from AKA Gallery and David LaRiviere from PAVED Arts.

Former EMMEDIA Artist in Residence Sandra Vida recently traveled to Ireland

and France. In Ireland, she participated in a residency in with Irish artist Pauline Cummins at Annaghmakerrig, County Monahan. A video exhibition and performance featuring both artists is planned for May 2012 in Paris.

Finally, EMMEDIA members have been featured in the Alberta Media Arts Alliance Society and EPCOR Centre's Gallery of Alberta Media Arts screens during the last few months. Congratulations to Kari McQueen, Sharon Stevens, Sandra Vida and Kyle Whitehead.

Resonating in the community

Participants of the Anti-Homophobic PSA Competition stand on stage at the Youth Gala.

One of the most distinctive and thought-provoking experiences of art you can find these days isn’t an “art” event per se. Slotted closer to music, it has also been called “music as a form of torture”, and the “non-entertainment genre” of music. This is why it gets the name Noise, or the oxymoronic “noise music.” It is both more minimal than the most reticent conceptual art piece, and just as full, lush and overwhelming as a painting by Anselm Kiefer.

Going to a Discord event at Emmedia, you are given ear plugs to wear during 20 minute sets of too-loud-for-the-human-ear drones and cracks, while you sit still and attentive as if it were a performance of a piano concerto - an experience both too little and too much at the same time. Most uninitiated don’t quite know how to take in the experience, so they sit quietly and listen while others punch and kick at invisible things.

The community of Noise-goers is a devoted tribe; the same people turn up for almost every show. Newcomers looking for the

fringes of experimental music or a place for counter-culture sentiments tag along. Despite the presence of first-timers, there are seldom any skeptics or uninterested listeners. Each show involves varying levels of aural pain, but the audience is absorbed: they become self-aware bodies at the mercy of a sound that’s felt under the skin and touches the invisible, unreachable parts.

Beyond the physical, there is an intellectual engagement with the performances, a deep focus and quiet intensity shared by audience and performers. This comes partly from the challenging nature of Noise, defined by some as that which we find undesirable, because of its extreme pitches, volumes, chaos, atonality and periods of stasis. Kat Dornian, founder and editor of Calgary’s Noise zine Feedback, says Noise is what we consider aggressive and complex, “you can’t have it on in the background because it requires attention.”

Some listeners form a tight circle on the stage, waving their bodies next to the performer. Their attentiveness to the experience is undeniably a response to

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Kristeva and NoiseBy Andrea williamson

the revealing of, and confrontation with, the unmediated intention and presence of the performer. Noise artist Josh Fraser of Suicide Bomber says, “It is my intention to go within myself to demonstrate emotions which cannot be articulated through speech, or other art forms.” When performing, Fraser composes himself with solemn gravity, until his entire body tightens from the emotional force behind a deafening scream. He continues, “I aim for the deepest part of myself, and I can only hope that it is transferable.”

What comes across is pure emotion, or what Ryan O’Neill (Earhate) calls, “the purest form of music.”

When the performers turn to language and words, they are used as vehicles for emotions and sound. Dornian observes,

“Sometimes it’s a metaphorical use of words, sometimes its nonsense.” Speaking about O’Neill’s use of language, she explains,

“He’s doing it to offend. He’s being over-the-top to show (society’s) insensitivity to offensive, incorrect names. It’s ref lecting society in a satirical, overblown way.” Meaning in language is broken down in order to represent disorder and everything that is wrong, illogical and unacceptable. This realm of the unacceptable is the space Noise artists occupy.

Along with the breakdown of linear, rational meaning comes the empowerment of the senses and physical meaning - sound and physical environment. Noise artists describe what they produce as as gravelly, rocky, shitty and dirty. With its emphasis on visceral engagement through vibrations felt in your body, Noise, according to musician Jason Willett “scrubs and scrapes an area out of (you) like Drano… It’s a cleansing agent for the soul.”

The audience’s fondness for this type of auditory assault could be misconstrued as masochistic, but it’s more than that. The Noise genre for some is a project of searching for a “language” beyond language, or a form of representation and communication for the wordless realms of the body and emotion.

In Black Sun: Depression and Melancholia, psychoanalyst and semiotician Julia Kristeva talks about poetry and art as a means of therapy to “speak the loss”. The loss refers to loss of the mother, or the maternal semiotic domain of bodily drives and rhythms, anterior to the symbolic domain of language.

The way in which the use of poetic language frees the melancholic subject of their depression is by re-enacting a state of mourning for the lost object through

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signification, or the arbitrary signs of language. This turn to language achieves a distancing effect from the mourning, while gaining a symbolic hold of it.

What gives poetic language this ability is precisely its shaky ground of meaning, or polyvalence of meaning, which allows the speaker to slip in her own meaning - the true meaning of the lost Thing.

Making or performing Noise is a form of the poetic language Kristeva proposes as a “counter-depressant”. The controlling of sound and frequency is a symbolic system, as are the bloated or drawn-out

“words” screamed into distortion pedals and feedback loops. Both the voice and the manipulation of sound information give the performer a representational mechanism or sublimatory hold over their loss.

While these words and sounds may communicate directly, they are also signs that are arbitrary enough to let in the most private, internal meanings. One Noise artist who works under the moniker “GOD” says that Noise can be any “way of improvising with a vocabulary that’s personal to you, that doesn’t exist without you.” In the

turning to signs, or the symbolic domain of language, whether it is a grammatical system or an auditory one, the artist is also opening up their mourning to others.

The scream is an aspect of the voice that is a part of us, but threatens us. It is a raging, angered, horrific and human sound that society wants to separate from view, from hearing. Bringing the abject into a community of listeners draws individuals out of their personal mourning. Perhaps this is why Fraser says, “I have found a voice: a cathartic mode of expression that is immediate and all encompassing.” It’s a way to talk with others about things that cannot be talked about.

Andrea Williamson is a Calgary-based visual artist and writer, who graduated in 2007 from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University, majoring in both Fine Arts and Media Arts. Her current practice involves print media, drawing and watercolor painting. Her concentration on media images and newspaper photographs is based on an ethics of empathy and difference. Through her ref lections on people and stories from the news, she wishes to express a social environment where understanding of difference is celebrated and boundaries questioned.

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BE a PArt of calgary's first critical writing collective:

ARTiCAL is a group of writers at various stages in their careers who are dedicated to increasing critical dialogue about the arts in Calgary. Our city has a thriving arts community, but there is very little dialogue between audiences and artists about the work that is being programmed and created here, and there is even less dialogue about Calgary's arts scene on a national level. This collective aims to increase the amount of talking we do about art in our city and raise our profile on a local and national level.

The collective consists of a shifting group of writers that meet on a monthly basis. The meetings allow writers to talk about their work, receive peer review and also learn from mentors about how to strengthen their writing and how to pitch their work to editors. The end goal of this project is to stimulate the local writing community

by encouraging ongoing publication initiatives. Our strategy is to build ties between publications and writers so that more critical writing about art gets seen by the public.

The agenda of the ARTiCAL collective is driven by its participants. The writers discuss what would help them cultivate and publish their writing and the group works towards providing the required support.

If you are interested in critical writing, or already writing but looking for a community with which to discuss opportunities and/or your writing, please contact Melanie Wilmink at the Calgary Society of Independent filmmakers at programming@csif.org or Tammy McGrath at EPCOR CENTRE for the Performing Arts at tmcgrath@epcorcentre.org.

ARTiCAL

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An unusual sight for downtown Calgary, Mark Lowe’s BIN 15 was a metal grain silo that stood at the Calgary Folk Music Festival one weekend in July 2011. Reassembled after a westward journey from the artist’s home province of Saskatchewan, it sat between the merchandise tent and the children’s playground. Both instrument and performance space, BIN 15 also occupied a significant conceptual position within the festival’s lineup.

Folk is a wide-sweeping musical term. The Calgary Folk Festival encapsulates this idea by presenting artists from around the world, working in nearly every conceivable genre of music. Though Noise or improvised music is a difficult sell to most festival-goers, the object of this enormous summertime gathering of music lovers is to promote exposure to new people and ways of thinking.

BIN 15 played host to a score of improvisers over the course of the festival, bringing artists from Calgary’s noise/improv community to the bin to perform, as well as more orchestrated daily sessions by Lowe, along with bandmates Steve Leidal and Brodie Mohninger.

The most intriguing guest in this collaborative environment is undoubtedly the bin itself. Approximately fifteen feet in height, the structure’s scale is confused by a small hatch near the bottom that serves as

the only entrance to the galvanized metal teepee. This forces participants to crouch as they step into the cavernous interior of found objects and instruments. Inside, the curved, ribbed walls and conical roof confine the space without right angles or corners. In contrast, a steel cube built of the identical volume would not have the same reactive and absorptive character, and the reverb saturation of sound would likely be unbearable. Though the silo was designed to hold and protect grain, re-imagined here as an integral vessel to be played from within using tools, found objects, body parts and other instruments, it has found a potent new purpose.

Standing outside during Larry McDowell’s set of undulating electronic rhythms

By SHAWN DICEY

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and feedback, the experience of his performance was filtered through the great participator of the bin. Touching it with hands and face evoked a tangible energy no conventional speaker could produce. The sounds the artist created were captured by its metallic skin and converted into a multi-sensual experience that catered to the jagged signals as synchronously as the harsh winter winds of the prairies.

On the second day of the festival, a heavy and unrelenting rain pounded the island, prompting swift shelter-seeking by all attendees. Fortunately, the silo became one such refuge, allowing a true exploration of the performative capabilities of the metal bin alone, in an impromptu setting.

The special solo performance by blasting sheets of rain demonstrated the underlying brilliance of character the bin naturally possesses, producing f lowing drones with intricate patterns and varying tempos. Ref lecting the sound waves travelling through the metal, whether produced by sticks in the hands of performers, or

a precipitous onslaught from above, the silo became a two-way limiter, forcing distinction between inside and out. One could have been isolated in a shock storm on the open prairie as easily as in BIN 15, with skyscrapers mere blocks away.

From the outside, the bin’s iconic form was a reference to its iconic place in agricultural heritage. Inside however, one was compelled to compare and contrast the lives of grain seeds, drumsticks, and drops of rain. With a nod to the f luxus composers, Lowe successfully brought a piece of his home to Calgary’s Folk Fest, and created a space to ponder the existential roots of Noise and improvisational music.

Shawn Dicey is a musician, artist and Calgarian, working with musical instruments, gear (recording, computer/electronics, light producing), found objects, historical information, paint, pens, words, and surroundings. Exploration, research and development guide Shawn’s artistic practice while he seeks self-improvement and broadened understandings.

(L-R) Joshua Fraser, Larry McDowell, and Peter Redecopp perform in Bin 15.

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1 Volunteers help build Bin 15 by Mark Lowe for the Calgary Folk Music Festival 2 Adam Tindale performing in Bin 15 3 Kyle Whitehead, Peter Morgan and Steve Leidal take a break in the beer garden at the Calgary Folk Music Festival 4 Willy Le Maitre and Vicki Chau pose at the opening reception of Chiral Eyes 5 The EMMEDIA tent at the Calgary Folk Music Festival 6 Chris Dadge performs in Bin 15 7 Brodie Mohninger, Steve Leidal and Mark Lowe take cover from the rain after performing in Bin 15

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8 Phil Bowen, Vicki Chau, Laurie Fuhr and Kyle Whitehead hang out at the opening reception of Chiral Eyes 9 Joel Farris and Roger Scrimshaw help build Bin 15 10 Brad Hawkins and Mark Lowe soaking up the sunshine in front of Bin 15 11 Vicki Chau introduces OIL a program of short videos curated by Daniel Dugas 12 Joel Farris and Vicki Chau hang out at the EMMEDIA booth during the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo 13 Reverend Peyton of Reverand Peyton's Big Damn Band join Mark Lowe for a jam, while Peter Redecopp gets ready for the Discord performance in Bin 15 14 Our new Resonance pins for the 2011/2012 programming year

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By Kyle Whitehead

During one of his early experiments, scientist and inventor Nikola Tesla discovered that a very low frequency, around 8Hz, radiated after powerful electromagnetic events such as lightning storms. Later, in the 1950s, scientists deduced that the resonance frequency of the Earth itself is approximately 8Hz, or more exactly 7.83Hz. Moreover, the resonance frequency of the human brain and all other organic matter is also 8Hz. In other words, 8Hz is the frequency that penetrates and unites the Earth with all living organisms. 8Hz, or 8 cycles per second, is an alpha wave frequency. This frequency exists in the relaxed-awake state, such as meditation, or immediately before falling asleep and waking up, where consciousness converges simultaneously with subconsciousness. The frequency range of 8-12Hz is also where lucid dreaming takes place. 8Hz is inaudible, but it is felt; 8 beats per second may be superimposed in countless rhythmic and harmonic applications. Electromagnetism, interconnectivity and the forces of attraction and repulsion offer an infinite field of exploration.

Resonant Frequencies, a showcase of new media works produced as part of the 2011

Production Access Program, screened on September 16th, 2011 at Calgary’s historic Plaza Theatre. Resonance as a theme persists in all of the works produced, from Aran Wilkinson-Blanc's sculptures created from video recordings that map asynchronous sine-wave distortions, which resonate with their living counterparts, to Rosanna Terracciano's flamenco-inspired video that visually mirrors the resonating rhythmic structure of her dance practice. Resonance with our surroundings is the focus Laura Wayne’s exploration of the ways physical environment mirrors and resonates with the construction of individual identity, and of Jennifer Akkermans’ conscious and inventive decision to create the world she wants to see in the world around her.When exploring the theme of resonance, absence can be as powerful as presence, and dissonance can often offer clues that help us to perceive or conceptualize difficult or contradictory ideas. With this thought in mind, strange connections between the works begin to appear. Cycles of the earth, sun, moon, and stars are interwoven with geometric patterns, rhythmic distortions, mirror images and repetitive body movements in Teresa Tam's video. These patterns reflect an

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ephemeral quality; an attempt to wrestle order from chaos and to understand the mechanisms that dictate the only universal constant: change. Motivated by a similar desire, but employing an entirely different approach, Bogdan Cheta's work in progress explores both physical and mental detritus, positing that a repulsive act can resonate within our subconscious, influencing our actions and perceptions. Just as an object, or lack thereof, can help us internalize these perceptions and experience this realization along with the artist.

I would argue that these “resonant frequencies” were and are most certainly influenced, either consciously or subconsciously, by the global resonant frequency of 8Hz, which connects and entrains all things, including our own circadian rhythms. I am confident that all of these works will continue to resonate, not only with one another other, but also within the practices of each artist, as well as the historical trajectory of EMMEDIA and the greater context of media arts as a whole.

Kyle Whitehead is EMMEDIA's Production Coordinator and facilitated this year's Production Access program. Along with Noel Bégin, the EManimenteur, he mentored participants through the creative and technical process of creating their work.

From the program of Resonant Frequencies:

THIS IS MY CITYLaura Wayne

This is My City traces the journey of a young woman through the construction zones of Calgary, Alberta, a place that erases and remakes itself at unparalleled speed. Exploring the relationship between identity and city-space, her story is evocative and heartfelt, prompting reflection on what it means to call a place home.

THE INSTITUTE OF MORPHOID RESEARCHJennifer Akkermans

The Institute of Morphoid Research is dedicated to the study and preservation of organisms falling within the phylum of Morphopodia. With the help of EMMEDIA, the IMR has produced a short documentary about the institute and some of the creatures it studies. For more information, please visit www.InstituteofMorphoidResearch.com.

HAIR GROWS THE WAY IT WANTSBogdan Cheta

Hair grows the way it wants is an unfinished project. It represents a safe space, and I am unsure if it is meant to be seen, or understood. The video loosely locates a working space where the art-object might find itself, amidst the cacophonous

Still from Between this Time and Forever by Teresa Tam

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geometries that describe contemporary art at the end of the 21st century. Quite possibly, this space is one of decay and collapsible endings, but in equal measure there is this beauty, like a ship lost at sea with a narrow path to safety. I also think that film, as language, has a lot to do with sculpture. Because it is three-dimensional and depicts reality, sculpture must have a certain relation to reality. It’s important for me to use real-life stuff as a kind of yardstick or benchmark to relate to what I do.

BETWEEN THIS TIME AND FOREVERTeresa Tam

Between this Time and Forever is the wandering journey of one person trying to understand life and her circumstance. The video explores the divergence of the conscious and subconscious mind, where mundane reality meets hidden thoughts and desires. The cyclical nature of the work derives from the simplest of things

- from daily routines to the complexity of the ever-evolving universe, where we are forever trapped in our own repetitions. Dialectical in nature, our lives present a continual struggle to search for knowledge and experience beyond our immediate comprehension. Despite these struggles we continue on with our lives, forever dreaming of something higher and perpetuating this cycle, over and over again.

EMPAZAR, IN PIECES (TO START, IN PIECES)Rosanna Terracciano

For this project, Rosanna drew on her experiences as a dancer and choreographer and embarked on her first project in the medium of video. Empezar, in Pieces (to start, in pieces), which explores elements of dance on film, or videodance. In flamenco music, the rhythm, or compás, can eventually take on a certain resonant quality for a flamenco dancer or musician, and becomes a sort of heartbeat or meter for the music being played or the movement being danced. As with any rhythm, this compás stays with you and resonates within your body in different ways, whether you are directly involved as a mover or musician, or indirectly as a viewer or listener. This video explores different ways in which this compás can resonate with the viewer, and specifically, how it can resonate visually.

STRUCTURED LIGHTAran Wilkinson-Blanc

Structured Light is a video and sculptural installation that explores the ways we interact with, and are affected by, differences in dimension and presentations. It investigates the transformation of the three-dimensional world to a two-dimensional one and back again. Both of these worlds affect, move and respond to people and technology can and does play in the process. This work represents the reversal of the image and its collapse into a two-dimensional representation, by building that image up into a physical reality.

Structured Light by Aran Wilkinson-Blanc

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EmmediaProduction access programs

ARTIST IN RESIDENCE (A.i.R)

EMMEDIA’s Artist-in-Residence Program (A.i.R.) supports national and local artists in producing work by providing access to facilities, materials and the support of producer members where required. Preference is given to established artists in their field, who have completed video/audio projects and whose proposed projects can be realized within the time and services allotted. Applications that propose to document an event are not considered, nor are proposals that are considered commercial or discriminatory. The duration of local A.i.R. residencies is one year starting on May 1. During the residency they must facilitate a two-day workshop and present their finished project as an EMMEDIA programming event.

SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM

The EMMEDIA Production Access Scholarship Program is open to emerging artists/producers undertaking their first productions in audio, video or new media. The Scholarship Recipients receive extensive training in all of EMMEDIA’s production and post-production equipment, as well as creative and artistic development, enabling them to create engaging and sophisticated first productions. The duration of this program is four months from May 1 - Sept 1, 2012.

BARS ‘N’ TONE PROGRAM

The Bars ‘n’ Tones Program is intended to support artists who have previously produced work and wish to continue their creative and technical development. The focus of the Bars ‘n’ Tone Program is on refining and enhancing existing skills. The duration of this program is four months from May 1 - Sept 1 , 2012.

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: MARCH 31, 2012

Every year EMMEDIA supports artists in the community through our Production Access Programs. Support includes access to workshops, production equipment, post-production facilities, and professional mentorship through the production process of a media artwork. We encourage innovative and challenging work from a variety of artists working in various genres. Our support to media artists extends beyond those working in video to encompass diverse forms of time-based art including installation, documentary, narrative, animation, performance, new media, audio, and web-based projects.

For more information about the program and how to apply, please visit our website at www.emmedia.ca or contact the Production Coordinator at:

production@emmedia.ca 403.263.2838

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The structure of our language determines the way we see the world.

In lens and sensor size, bigger is better.

Constructing a generative grammar therefore requires us to frame our rules explicitly.

On the prosumer level, XLR inputs mean good.

Text is the primary unit of analysis in systemic linguistics.

To release, f lip the yellow lever on back.

Those fabled primitive languages of 200 words supplemented by grunts do not exist.

Colour has temperature. The camera needs to be told what white is.

We call this ancestral language Proto-Germanic.

Unbalanced white can make orange.

Hence, similarities among these languages are to be expected for non-biological reasons.

Key light is primary. Fill light fills in shadows, and back light separates the subject from background.

The comprehension of those who suffer disordered language is largely intact.

Don’t use thin extension cables: they melt!

Many critics argue that retreat into ever greater abstractness is futile and self-defeating.

A circuit carries 1650 watts. Do the math and make sure you have enough power.

We are now trying to find less sexist ways of speaking and writing:

Not a bulb but a lamp.

Mash up: Introducing Linguistics by RL Trask & Bill Mayblin, and notes taken by the poet in Emmedia’s Basic Production Class taught by Phil

poem assembled by Laurie Fuhr

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Neurolinguistics has made considerable advances, but complex new problems have arisen.

Synthetic gloves can wound you.

Some people lose verbs but retain nouns, even when the verb and the noun are the same word.

Lights get hard far away; soft when close.

There are sufferers who can speak but not read, read but not write, or write but not read, even what they’ve just written.

When dealing with windows, turn tungsten into daylight w/ CTB blue gels.

Did language emerge gradually or suddenly? We don’t know.

Cross processing punches and weirds colours, as in the Mel Gibson Payback bleach bypass

until one day the last missing connection fell into place, and language burst forth from almost nothing into full-blown-existence.

It is profound to attempt to preserve the living.

So, a different choice of metaphor produces different senses for the same words.

A round ref lector, broken into, makes a good hula hoop.

Speaking freed our hands while allowing us to continue paying close attention to one another.

Marshmallows may be roasted over high Calvin.

And this is only a sample of prodigious linguistic abilities.

With battery belt strung over his shoulder, any crew member becomes Rocky.

Some theories of grammar are too powerful and are able to handle phenomena that never occur in human languages.

A bad director is best tied up with gaffer tape, which won’t usually leave a mark.

For Ancient Greeks, the future was behind while the past was in front; they stood still and time overtook them.

Using wireless mics, don’t change the frequency - you could be interrupted by CB radios.

We perceive it in the geometrical terms provided so naturally by our language.

Use 1/60th shutter speed to avoid the smearing of moving things.

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In Chinese, there is no tense-marking at all: nothing corresponding to the difference between see and saw.

Red is the hardest colour to replicate in standard definition.

Two hundred yeards ago, the only possible form was My house is painting.

The higher your F-stops, the deeper your depth of field.

A small number of meaningless phonemes can be combined into meaningful sequences, such as words.

ND is the grey that cuts down the amount of light.

What could we do if we didn’t have duality? Our languages could only have a hundred different words.

Gamma is the relationship between black, white, and mids.

These constant changes are the ire of linguistic conservatives; furious letters get written to newspapers complaining about usages the writers did not grow up with.

Leave your Zebra set to 80 percent.

Found Poem: From Handheld Media Arts Magazine, a publication of EmmediaWinter/Spring 2011 Edition

poem COMPOSED by Laurie Fuhr

In Calgary, Alberta, where Kyle spends most of his time in the dark, he hasn’t really kissed any babies, but some diapers have needed changing. It continues to be an exciting and wonderful challenge.

If a video is shot in the forest, you are ready for a map that delves into personal terrain.

You read in the hopes of a small transformation: suspicious activity in food production, the (protective) skin of prairie skies. Oil, almost magic when transformed into toys, shampoo, credit cards, lipsticks, persuades and delights.

Somehow, Lon has a handful of saved seeds. He has created the loudest silent video you will ever see. The soundtrack is sparse banjo and white noise, making the dialog sound far away: what he thought was his savior is not.

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While Edgar Farmer sits in his cell, compression camps offer artists and independents freedom; the post-Duchamp artist naturally will no longer be interested in continuing art formalism but in questioning nature. Take umbrage with agri-business.

Sporting their festive sweaters, authors linger on a scene to unpack its poetry. While it seems a daunting step, they would like to apologize for the error found in the first edition where the reader should feel convinced by their initial claim.

The learning curve was pretty steep, the CEO being unable and unwilling to pronounce his receptionist’s name, which was Wednesday Lupypciw. How can the individual contribute to the emergence of solutions? The video does not resolve.

In Member News, a multichannel soundscape installation in the form of a chocolate fountain created at the School for Young Shamans will be screened by Dorkbot at the George Pompidou Centre in the Gulf of New Mexico now known as Bin 15.

Under the splat of fuzzy white noise, an unconscious luddite not out of place in the conference room, I hope I nurtured and inspired, combining all of the above into a unique blend bending nature and laws to a corporate end.

Laurie Fuhr is Managing Editor of filling Station, a non-profit literary and arts magazine supporting emerging writers through publishing and outreach in Calgary. She is also a writer of non-traditional poetry and a songwriter called birdheat. Thanks to an AFA project grant, filling Station members were able to study Basic Video Production and Final Cut Pro editing at Emmedia in order to get more events content onto the internet. Check out their progress periodically on their YouTube page, fillingStationMag. The poem(s) published here were composed and read by the poet in the Emmedia lobby as part of the People’s Poetry Festival’s contribution to the First Thursdays September 1st 2011 Artwalk with Art.

Laurie Fuhr performs her work at EMMEDIA, as part of the People's Poetry Festival.

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Upcoming proposals deadlines:Anthology of Critical Texts (GRAIN) – November 15, 2011HANDHELD Media Arts Magazine (Spring 2012) – March 1, 2012

We are always seeking new writers, either emerging or established, for EMMEDIA publications and essays to accompany programming exhibitions or events. We are interested in writing that addresses emergent media arts practices and places them in a critical context.

We accept unsolicited proposals for exhibition reviews, book reviews, feature articles and interviews that are relevant to EMMEDIA and/or the media arts community. Before submitting, please visit our website to familiarize yourself with the type of content EMMEDIA publishes.

Your writing could appear in any of our publications, which currently include the bi-annual Handheld Media Arts Magazine, and an annual anthology of critical texts based on the programming theme of the year. EMMEDIA is committed to paying each of its contributors a fee, dependent on the publication.

For more information on Handheld Magazine or our annual anthology of critical texts, please visit our website at www.emmedia.ca

All submissions should include:

a. Proposal – be as specific as possible about topics, artists, works, exhibitions, and/or event to be covered.ORb. Completed submission – minimum 500 words in a word document that is MAC compatible.PLUS

- A resume/cv including a list of published works when applicable.- 2 examples of your writing.- A short biography explaining your artistic background and interests.

Please mail submissions to:

c/o Vicki Chau, Programs & Outreach CoordinatorEMMEDIA Gallery & Production Society#203, 351 – 11 Ave. SWCalgary, AB T2R 0C7

or email to:

programming@emmedia.cawith subject line: EMMEDIA writer application

Call for Writers:EMMEDIA Publications

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A story about artists creating an electronic media access and production centre: a place to make art and community.

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