EXHIBITS
mrghosty) is an artist, curator and researcher at Concordia University’s Technoculture, Art and Games Research Centre. His work focuses intersections between DIY technology cultures, digital games, and new media art practices. The eXperimental Improv Ensemble (XIE) is an interdisciplinary performance group of the University of Manitoba Desautels Faculty of Music. Zach Bales is a Winnipeg based composer and recent graduate of the University of Manitoba. He is currently focused on the use of real time sound transformation in live electronics.
Impossible Architectures: Glitch, Decay and Structure in Digital Worlds March 27-29 and April 2-3, 2015 - Urban Shaman Gallery We invite you to bend, break, and explore a collection of digital environments, whose organizing structures are derived from dismantling the underlying stabilities of digital architectures. Featuring works by: Kent Sheely, Luis Hernandez, Data Tragedy, Jack Squires, Sergei Mohov, and Notendo. // Curated by mrghosty aka Skot Deeming and co-presented by Vector Festival 2015.
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Pop-up Performances by Christopher Willes
| FREE EVENTS
Brooklyn-based game art duo that use video game technology to build immersive, electroacoustic performance spaces, combining virtual and real instruments in live performance and installation. Heidi Ouellette is a Winnipeg-based curator, creator and enthusiastic instigator. Jennifer Bachynsky is an undergraduate composition student convinced that it is possible to reconcile the electronic and the metaphysical. Kerey Harper is a Winnipeg-based electronic musician who grew up on the small reserve of St. Teheresa Point. Kerey’s music is currently circulated in countries such as Germany, Japan, and the USA. Luke Nickel is PhD Student/artist/organizer obsessed with obliterating the written score. He creates artwork that exists in memory, and drinks gin to aid the process. Maxime CorbeilPerron is a Montreal-based composer who divides his time between experimental film, electroacoustic composition, new music, and the local underground scene. Myriam Bleau is a composer and performer based on Montreal. She creates audiovisual systems that go beyond the screen, between musical performance and digital arts. Patrick Saint-Denis conceives interactive installations designed primarily for concert settings. His audio-sensitive inventions take on various forms, ranging from video installation to large-scale robotized machinery. Plumes Ensemble is a hybrid pop/classical chamber group from Montreal, centred around singer Veronica Charnley (of Plumes). They play original pop songs reimagined for the recital hall. As a conceptual and installation artist, Rich Jeanson’s work is focused on textures and rhythms. He is interested in interdisciplinary work with a focus on simple design. Sarah Jo Kirsch: Seeking euphony // In-human sonority // Since eighty-three. Boosh. Skot Deeming (aka
OUTREACH
ARTISTS
Architek Percussion is a Montreal-based quartet specializing in the performance of experimental, minimalist, multidisciplinary, and electroacoustic chamber music. Founded in 2012, the quartet is equally comfortable in performing classic repertoire and exploring new terrain through premieres. Barb Flemington is a visual artist, educator and advocate for the arts. She lives and works in her country studio near Brandon, Manitoba and has received awards from the Brandon Arts Council, the Manitoba Arts Council and the Canada Council in support of her work. Across the intersections of music, performance, and the visual/audible arts Christopher Willes’ work playfully negotiates established modalities of listening. He completed his MFA at Bard College (NY) in music/sound. Eliot Britton: Putting the electro in electroacoustic since 1999. Britton’s works revel in extreme juxtapositions, from rampaging rhythmic intensity to delicate micro-montage. Eliot continues to seek human robot performers, but happily settles for fleshy collaborators. Fjóla Evans is an Icelandic-Canadian composer and cellist currently living in Brooklyn. Inspired by historical marginalia and folk stories, she strives to create music sounding like organic-digital-dirt. Fredrik Gran is a Swedish composer currently residing in Montreal. He writes orchestral, instrumental and vocal chamber music as well as electroacoustic and live electronic music. Gabriel Dharmoo’s artistic practice encompasses composition, extended voice improvisation and ethnomusicological research. He explores the interplay between tradition and novelty. Gordon Fitzell is a Canadian composer, performer and media artist. He directs the eXperimental Improv Ensemble (XIE) and co-directs the Winnipeg new music series GroundSwell. foci + loci is a
Fredrik Gran: SCOPE IN Sunday, March 29, 2015, 1:00pm - ace art gallery Scope In critically examines current trends, aesthetics and practical aspects of found objects as new musical interfaces. The workshop covers the transformation of common and rare objects through the use of contact microphones, transducers actuators and live electronics. Participants are encouraged to bring objects and discuss/unlock their sonic potential.
Cluster Festival Panel Discussion Tuesday, March 31, 2015, 7:30pm - McNally Robinson Booksellers Featuring Myriam Bleau, Gabriel Dharmoo, Fjóla Evans , Fredrik Gran and Tamara Yadao, moderated by Eliot Britton.
March 31–April 3, 2015 - Various Locations Christopher Willes presents a series of pop-up performances throughout the last days of the festival which reimagine the loudspeaker. Audience-members are whisked away and presented with private one-to-one performances and covert public moments which explore sound as it resonates through materials and bodies.
S T R E N G T H I N N U M B E R S
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Specimens Gardens by Barb Flemington April 2 & 3, 2015 - ace art gallery [Flux Gallery] Born out of family history, matured in lengthy periods of contemplation, and released into a studio described as an “out-ofthe-box Wunderkammer”, Specimens Gardens presents objects altered by time, process, and emotion.
Installation by Rich Jeanson March 27-29, April 2-3, 2015 - Urban Shaman Gallery [Marvin Francis Media Gallery] Presented as a part of the ACI Mentorship Program 2014/15
March 27-April 3, 2015 ace art gallery & Urban Shaman Gallery 290 McDermot Ave, 2nd floor
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Cluster 2015 marks two extraordinary new collaborations: the first with Toronto’s Vector Festival 2015 in co-presenting the Impossible Architectures video game art exhibit (guest curated by mrghosty aka Skot Deeming), and the second with former Winnipegger Eliot Britton becoming Cluster’s third co-Director.
“Cluster continually forces me to confront assumptions about art, and to reconsider what is feasible regarding community and collaboration. Every year I am genuinely surprised and this is a rare and special thing.” —Eliot Britton This year will be no different.
All concerts at ace art gallery / Urban Shaman Gallery 290 McDermot Ave. (2nd fl oor)
Interfaces are shared points, boundaries, or continuums where multiple systems or individuals meet and interact. Cluster has taken this to heart, investigating the intersections between communities, humans, bodies, avatars, systems, psychologies, histories, models, musics, instruments, surfaces, and textures — to name a few. In short, INTERFACE
is a celebration of everything Cluster has been about since year one: optimistically forging a new path forward through joyous exploration of endless possibility. Eliot Britton, Luke Nickel & Heidi Ouellette, co-Directors
TICKETS Single Events: $15 / $10 Student Festival Pass: $50 / $30 Student
clusterfestival.com
Buy your tickets now: Online clusterfestival.com/tickets Visit
McNally Robinson Booksellers Grant Park Mall, (204) 475-048
Call
(204) 223-9939
CLUSTER 2016: SURFACE
PLUMES
FRI March 27, 2015 Doors/Show: 7:30/8:00pm
Cluster 6 opens with two acts that flirt with, hop across, and ultimately breach the boundaries of countless musical genres. Cellist and composer Fjóla Evans presents a solo set of ambient experimental sound based on field-study of Icelandic folk songs and a vocal intoning of epic poetry called Rímur. Plumes Ensemble , a hybrid pop/classical group originating from Montreal, performs a set of mostly original songs with detours into the oeuvres of Bartok and Berio. Expect extended techniques, gleaming electronics, and complex layers of minimal melodies. Plumes is co-presented with núna(now)
SELF
SAT March 28, 2015 Doors/Show: 7:30/8:00pm
…amplified, visualized, digitized, reified, problematized, analyzed, dualized… Winnipeg’s darling chanteuse Sarah Jo Kirsch sings a new composition by Zach Bales while being sonically and visually transformed into a digital avatar. New York duo foci + loci bring video games off the couch and onto the stage, leading an army of technology-bearing improvisers (including the XIE ) in an epic showdown between the real and the imagined. Gabriel Dharmoo , a Montreal composer, singer, and improviser presents his Anthropologies Imaginaires showcasing the virtuosity, versatility and strangeness of the human voice. This significant 45-minute work pits the real world Dharmoo against a projected mockumentary of experts while he sings in countless virtuosic voices from imagined cultures and folklores.
PLAY
THR April 2, 2015 Doors/Show/Play: 7:30/8:00/9:30pm
Part concert, part electronic playground: PLAY allows you to hear artists working with unique electronic instruments and then try them out yourself in a friendly, casual atmosphere. Concert: Solo electronic set by Winnipeg whiz Kerey Harper // Sweden’s Fredrik Gran mixes the Reactable with Montreal’s Architek Percussion // Myriam Bleau spins her beautiful hand-made turn-table-tops in Soft Revolvers // foci + loci uses video game map editors as virtual stages to create playable immersive soundscapes // Ghostly, a short video by Montreal’s Maxime Corbeil-Perron Playtime: Take your turn at the Reactable (made famous by Björk on her Volta tour), give Myriam Bleau’s Soft Revolvers a spin, jam with foci + loci (or just play video games for a while in the Impossible Architectures exhibit next door), and explore Maxime Corbeil-Perron’s video Ghostly in a new interactive version: House .
METATRON
FRI April 3, 2015 Doors/Show: 7:30/8:00pm
Metatron is a technological tour de force that rampages through the audible past. From 1920 to 2015, each movement explores a significant period in the progression of consumer music technology. Architek Percussion returns to Cluster in a virtuosic feature-length concert, finishing the 2015 festival not with a whimper, but a bang! Featuring: Antiprism - Jennifer Bachynsky (Precursor Residency) Residual Productivity - Fredrik Gran Please rate the success of this call - Fjóla Evans (winner of GroundSwell’s 2014 Emerging Composers Competition) Tempo Deluxe - Myriam Bleau City? - a film by Patrick Saint-Denis Metatron - Eliot Britton Metatron is co-presented by GroundSwell