WIRELESS IMAGINATION
DOUGLAS KAHN IN BRISBANE

November 7th and 8th, 2009, FREE ENTRY
State Library of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia,

NOISE ELECTROMAGNETISM GEOPHYSICS DADA CINEMA PERFORMANCE

Image data taken from TRACE (Transition Region and Coronal Explorer) NASA space telescope

A whole world of sound that’s “out there”

High-profile American theorist Douglas Kahn is set to unleash his unique mix of ideas about sound, art and the cosmos on Brisbane audiences. Kahn’s cutting-edge work explores the collision between art and technology in sonic practice by placing in the context of modern and postmodern experiment. As the art world marks the 100th anniversary of the Futurist Manifesto, Kahn’s celebrated research into the Futurists, noise, machines, music and electromagnetism resonates with a special significance.

Throughout October and November 2009 Kahn is touring Australia in association with the Australian Network for Art & Technology’s Embracing Sound program to promote the November 09 Sound Art issue of Art Monthly Australia, which he guest-edited. Douglas will share his insights into the relationships between astronomy, cosmology, science, technology, radical aesthetics and the natural noises made by electricity and other elemental energies in our atmosphere.

For the Brisbane leg of this tour, QUT, The State Library of Queensland and OtherFilm have partnered to bring Douglas Kahn to the city for a high-calibre 2-day festival experience, Wireless Imagination. The event will feature informative talks, eye- and ear-opening film screenings, and exhilarating live performances by leading sound artists from around Australia, all addressing the creative themes running throughout Kahn’s fascinating and eagerly sought-after scholarly work. We hope you can join us for this exclusive, evolving multimedia experience.

Douglas Kahn press - sarah@anat.org.au
other press – joel@otherfilm.org

THE CINEMA OF TURBULENT TRANSMISSIONS
Saturday 7th Nov 5PM-7PM FREE
SLQ Auditorium 2

Black Rain (Semiconductor, UK 2009) screening in THE CINEMA OF TURBULENT TRANSMISSIONS

Douglas Kahn introduces and discusses solar noise and electrical turbulence illustrating his ideas with some recent and historical film favourites including;

His Favorite Wife Improved or, The Virtue Of Bad Reception
Ken Jacobs (2008, USA, video, 3mins)
“We keep a dish on our roof, not for luck: to pull in TV signals. Whenever a thunderstorm hits, reception whacks up. Lightning can really make a broadcast sizzle. The following is exactly as recorded one stormy New York day in February 2008.” (Ken Jacobs)
www.starspangledtodeath.com/
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Altisonans
Karl-Birger Blomdahl (1966, Sweden, video, 10mins)
With permission from Swedish Broadcasting Corporation
Pioneering Swedish experimental composer Karl-Birger Blomdahl made this television program entirely of radiation signals and collage imagery after meeting Polish geocosmophysicist Ludwig Wikliszka, who introduced him to sounds sent back to earth by various satellites.
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Observando El Cielo
Jeanne Liotta (2007, USA, 16mm, 9mins.)
Seven years of celestial field recordings gathered from the chaos of the cosmos and inscribed onto 16mm film from various locations upon this turning tripod Earth. This work is neither a metaphor nor a symbol, but is feeling towards a fact in the midst of perception, which time flows through. Natural VLF radio recordings of the magnetosphere in action allow the universe to speak for itself. (Top Ten Films of 2007! Chrissie Iles for ARTFORUM, Best of 2007! Ed Halter for the VILLAGE VOICE)
www.jeanneliotta.net/
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A selection of short videos by Thomas Ashcraft
Electro-receptor extraordinaire Thomas Ashcraft harnesses the subtle pulses of the universe's micro-energies to create bewitching short films and music. "At extremely low frequencies, lightning crackles above me, the power grid buzzes around me, and my footsteps shoot out sparks as they strike the Earth......." (Thomas Ashcraft)
www.heliotown.com
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Brilliant Noise, Magnetic Movie , Black Rain & The Sound of Microclimates Semiconductor (UK)
Semiconductor make works which reveal our physical world in flux; cities in motion, shifting landscapes and systems in chaos. Since 1999, Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt have used digital animation to transcend the constraints of time, scale and natural forces; they explore the world beyond human experience, questioning our very existence.
www.semiconductorfilms.com

DOUGLAS KAHN IN THE REDBOX
Sunday 8th Nov 5PM-7PM FREE
SLQ RED BOX

Join us for this intimate and lucid presentation and discussion by internationally renowned sound-art theorist Douglas Kahn in SLQ’s beautiful ‘Red Box’, a floor-to-ceiling windowed room jutting out over the Brisbane River.

Places strictly limited. RSVP – sally@otherfilm.org

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Performance / Installation / Event / Opening

MENTAL ORCHESTRATIONS; NEW NOISE-MACHINES
Saturday 7th and Sunday 8th Nov 7PM-9PM FREE
SLQ Queensland Terrace

A two evening evolving happening in celebration of Art Monthly Australia’s (AMA) November issue, edited by Douglas Kahn and Sarah Last, focussing on sound art and noise.

Responding to Futurist visionary Luigi Russolo’s radical noise-machines, the intonarumori, on the 100th anniversary of the Futurist Manifesto, a selection of contemporary Australian sound artists transform the SLQ terrace into a Mental Orchestra of machines-for-making-noise.

Conceived by noise-sculpture visionary Rod Cooper, the Vessel Project fuses sound, electronics, light, mechanics and projection in the form of a long metallic boat filled with enclosed sound chambers and covered in strings, springs, bowing mechanisms, tongs, rods and tubing. Multiple artists perform at simultaneously while ‘fellow travellers’ attach their creations to the ain stainless steel hull. The vessel’s mast is a harp and a screen-sail…

Rod Cooper (Melbourne)
build to play
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With instruments, interventions and noise-sculpture by artists from throughout Australia;

Dylan Martorell (Melb)


Dale Chapman (Melb)


Christopher L G Hill & Alex Vivian (GUGG) (Melbourne)
Our Voices are our noise making machines, they gurgle and cackle in GUGGity. The shapes our mouths fall into may be new or old, the combinations are endless, two trolls playing b-ball and lemmings, siping on the syrup.


Alex Cuffe (Bris)
...the pursuit of invention and innovation through using sonic feedback and found materials. When this is achieved you own your creation like no other.


Dale Gorfinkel (Melb)


Anthony Magen (Melb)


Michael Prior (Melb)


Ross Manning (Bris)


Botborg (Bris)


Sally Golding (Bris)


Joel Stern (Bris)

Michael Donnelly (Kyogle)


Chloe Cogle (Bris)


N4rgh1l3 (Bris)

Andrew McLellan and Timothy Tate (Bris)
Debris from our industry of technological determination - be them found in the pierced sky or on the scarred earth - excrete the background noise we crave once we have found our ability to break the saturation. With sonic microscopy, we are able to foreground what we hear in the stool and garden; background noise like background radiation; peripheral noise that with corporeal mediation produces tones to our perverse desire and disgust.


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Douglas Kahn press - sarah@anat.org.au
other press – joel@otherfilm.org