Early this month I had the privilege of interviewing Nancy Tobin, an established sound artist and sound designer in Montréal.
During the last twenty years, her designs for dance and theatre productions have been part of the Festival de théâtre Transamériques, the World Stage Festival, the Festival d’Avignon, the Edinburgh International Festival and the Berliner Festwochen. Over the years, she has developed a specialization in vocal amplification for theatre and incorporates unusual audio speakers to transform the aural qualities of her compositions. Nancy Tobin is currently finishing DelayToys-Berceuses, a thematic composition, centered on memory, play, silence and contemplation.**
[Art Threat] As a kid, you were drawn to radios and musical instruments. Tell me about that. Did you feel you had a special connection to sounds waves?
[Nancy Tobin] No. I never felt a special connection, at least not consciously, but recently I have come to realize that knowledge is not always a conscious act… we understand a lot through the body and so it’s at that level that my relationship to sound begins and from where true artistic creation stems.
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NMP - Trespassing | Transgression
Where can you find manifestos, critical journalism, art, interviews, poems, academic articles, porn and hours of lezzie podcasts? On NMP, of course.
If you haven’t already done so, you should go check out NMP at http://nomorepotlucks.org/. You can order your print copy or subscribe to get full access to audio and video. A free PDF of each issue is also available here.
In number 1 (“birth”) you’ll find incredible works by Line Chamberland, Dianah Smith, Waawaate Fobister, Stu Marvel, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Catherine Opie, Julie Doucet, Bruce LaBruce, Nicholas Little, Nikol Mikus, Allyson Mitchell, Trish Salah, Elisha Lim, Mathilde Géromin and Mary K. Bryson.
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52 Pick-Up is a series of videos made by anyone who is up for the challenge of making one video a week for 52 weeks straight. And it’s an alternative to YouTube if you’re just looking to watch.
52 Pick-Up
McLeod, the project’s curator, says “52 Pick-Up is a video production challenge. Equivalent to drawing a sketch-a day or writing a page-a-day, it’s an exercise in endurance to get the juices flowing with a quick deadline that can be used as an excuse for both brilliance and failure. 52 Pick-Up is meant to stimulate and challenge, excite and ignite viewers and participants alike about video, different ways of working, diverse points of view, and having bragging rights and the goods to go with having made one video a week for an entire year.”
You can start whenever you want and all the rules are on the site. It’s simple really.
Artists currently sweatin’ the challenge are Dayna McLeod–the founder of 52 Pick-Up–Alexis O’Hara, Nikki Forrest, Val Desjardins, Jackie Gallant, Alain Goulem, Mél Hogan , Meredith Fowk, and Skidmore.
So the question is, why not join?
Photo by Nicole Belle
On November 4, 2008, the date of the United States Election that anticipated the victory of Barack Obama, Marie-Claire MacPhee interviewed Catherine Opie. Opie’s mid-life retrospective, “Catherine Opie: American Photographer” opened at the Guggenheim Museum in New York on September 26, 2008 and runs until January 7, 2009. For more information about the exhibition see: www.guggenheim.org.
I’ll start out by asking you how things are looking in the US today?
Well, we’ll see. It was really amazing. I live in a predominantly African American neighbourhood. I’ve been here for 6 years, and I’ve never seen a line at the polls, but today we had to wait an hour and a half to vote. I think that it’s true that we’re going to see an unprecedented number of voters out, and that’s really exciting. Click to continue »
[AT] Can you talk a bit about the story of Cynthia Plaster Caster, the inspiration for your project?
[PG] I saw a documentary made about her practice of casting rock and roller cock. When she started she was a art school student and rock and roll groupie who united those two interests in a project which gave her access to the people she admired. I identified with this aspect as my own projects and collaborations, free dance lessons, tit pin, burdensum, came out of an interest in connecting with a direct public. I was turned on by the strategy.
[AT] How did you select the people you casted?
[PG] I think of this as a coming out project, not as a personal declaration but as a way to connect with a history and cultural legacy. My kind of queerness is less defined by sexual preference or gender expression. I identify with what Judith Halberstam describes as a queer temporality. The ways in which queers live, work and make meaning outside of a hetero-normative model. The subjects for the series are heroes on how to live, love and succeed on your own terms
[AT] Did you travel out to meet with each of the participants?
[PG] Mostly yes. I was able to meet up with GB Jones, Savoy Howe, Shawna Dempsey and Lorri Millan in Toronto.
JD Samson in New York.
Eileen Myles in Montreal.
Cathy Opie, Cheryl Dunye, Jack Halberstam and Phranc in Los Angeles.
Harmony Hammond in New Mexico.
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A few weeks ago, a friend of mine emailed me a link to Elisha Lim’s drawings on socal-networking-site MySpace, the preferred site for up and coming musicians. Singer, songwriter and visual artist, Elisha's MySpace page is filled with stories…
The drawings are original in their simplicity, offering snippets of butch-encounters, which come across much like entries from the artist’s personal diary. 100 Butches is probably circulating from one queer email account to another, and in my opinion, has yet to garner the kind of attention it truly deserves…
I had the opportunity to ask Elisha a few questions about her project.
Art Threat: So, where are you located these days? What are you up to?
Elisha Lim: I'm performing drag shows in London, bringing gay home to my family, and experimenting with sustainable unemployment.
AT: Where did this amazing idea of drawing butches come from?
EL: To be honest it was commercial. I noticed that Diva was accepting comic submissions and a catalogue of “100 Butches” seemed like a saleable product. But its wide appeal is inspiring me to a more worthy agenda…
AT: Who decides who is a butch?
EL: My friends shout in unison: The Individual Decides! But…actually “100 Butches” hasn't truly been about butches, I've just been drawing who I'm attracted to. People I'm attracted to as lovers, friends or role models, are often described as butches. So I often take whoever I find sexy and try to jam them into the panels. I hope it helps stretch definitions/ lets me ramble about my crushes.
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This December, I attended Jackie Gallant’s performance and discussion at GIV (Groupe intervention vidéo, in Montréal, Canada). Gallant’s “drumming” is nothing short of hypnotic, soothing and brilliant. I had the opportunity to interview her in light of her innovative sound work, curious about her inspirations, motivations, and how it all came together technologically. Gallant’s set-up was, her, surrounded by various drumming pads and mixers, pedals and wires—but the sounds were unmistakably affective.
Art Threat: Hi Jackie! So, how would you describe what you do? How would you describe your sound?
Jackie Gallant: With this project I am triggering samples using an electronic drum pad to create sound pieces. Basically I find samples, manipulate them using keyboards and computer software and then map the sounds into drum pads so that they can be ‘played’ much like a traditional drum kit. I then improvise using the processed samples. The source material comes from a variety of places, digging into old records or sounds that I’ve created, but there always seems to be an inherent rhythm in most of the samples and I guess there is always a hint of the rock or punk background that I have. I find that no matter what source material I use there always seems to be a driving, hypnotic rhythm that becomes more layered and more intense and then breaks down and builds back up again. I like slowly layering rhythmic samples until there is almost a solid block of sound with interweaving rhythms and textures.
AT: I’d like for you to explain to me how you compose music based on samples. Where do you get the samples, how do you create them, what kind of samples you are looking for, and what sample-based music is all about.
“All that sounds that mean something to me can be pulled apart or repeated or effected.”
JG: Well the whole idea of taking samples and decontextualizing them for me is based on the incredible excitement of being able to pick bits of music or sound that you like and manipulating them to make something new. I can remember when I first discovered the world of sampling and all of its possibilities. It was just as exciting to me as when it became possible to do home recording with a cassette 4-track.
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