The Black Bag Media Collective
in collaboration with the Sound Symposium
present:
TECHNO DREAM AND NIGHTMARE CHOIR
a Feisty, participatory Community Art intervention about networked technology.
OPEN INVITATION
from the Black Bag Media Collective and artist in residence Tina Pearson
Send us your Dreams (Send us your Fears)
“Techno Dream and Nightmare Choir” is a Feisty participatory Community Art intervention challenging beliefs about networked technology and its impact on … well, everything.
Inspired by the international Complaints Choir movement, the “Techno Dream and Nightmare Choir” invites everyone to participate. You can join the project by sending us messages about your fears and dreams about networked technology; by coming to live sessions at the Black Bag Media Collective Studio; by participating online via Second Life, Skype, email, Facebook, Twitter and LiveStream; and/or by coming to our live performance on Friday July 20th at 8 PM at the LSPU Hall Second Space.
In ancient times, communities regularly gathered together to make collective songs ward off fears, entice beneficial outcomes and to generally make sense of life and its changes through ritual and creative play. We invite you to gather with us to renew that practice in these a-changing networked times. Tell us your fears and dreams, what makes you happy or sad, about today’s networked technology and how it is embedded in your life.
We will create a set of hybrid Songs rooted in St John’s, inspired by contributions from far and wide … and perform them in a suitably hybrid and networked form.
Black Bag Media Collective’s artist in residence, Tina Pearson, along with BBMC founders Liz Solo, Mike Kean and Marcel Levandier are the hosts and facilitators of this investigation. True to the theme of the project, the Techno Dream and Nightmare song cycle will be made using a mix of readily available audio technologies – from human voices, rocks, sticks and acoustic instruments, to electronic instruments, digital instruments, iPhones, and virtual instruments. Participants and performers will be connected through readily available networked technologies – telephone, email, Skype, Second Life and streaming. Participation is open to anyone wanting to participate in St John’s or online. The performance will be co-ordinated at the Black Bag Media Collective studio in St John’s, Newfoundland and will culminate in a live event at the LSPU Hall Second Space on Friday July 20th at 8 PM.
HOW TO PARTICIPATE
FIND US AT THE SOUND SYMPOSIUM
Tina and BBMC members will be presenting workshops and performances as part of this year’s Sound Symposium – Saturday April 14th – Workshop with Tina Pearson, Liz Solo and the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse at 1 PM. Performance at 3:30 PM. Both events take place at the LSPU Hall. Talk to us!
SEND US YOUR FEARS AND YOUR DREAMS ANYTIME BEFORE JULY 18TH
In your communications, please let us know if you are interested in performing in person or online on July 20 at 8 PM local time in St John’s, Newfoundland. (See the questions below for ideas)
Points of contact:
Skype us: theblackbags
Twitter your ideas #bbmc
Email or Text us at theblackbags@gmail.com
Leave a message on our landline at 709.722.9915
Post a message on our Facebook Wall:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Black-BagsBBMC/126894367370399
JOIN US IN THE BBMC STUDIO
Join us for Daily workshops/interactions – all are welcome at the BBMC Studio
Anytime between 3 – 7 PM Local Time
July 16 – 19
177 Water Street, 2nd Floor
COME TO THE HYBRID REALITY PERFORMANCE EVENT
8 pm Friday July 20
LSPU Hall Second Space
3 Victoria Street,
St. John’s Newfoundland
PWYC at the door.
ABOUT BBMC ARTIST IN RESIDENCE – TINA PEARSON
Tina Pearson has instigated and facilitated an eclectic range of art and community development processes. She directed the local and completely acoustic Victoria Complaints Choir as well as the global and hyper technical multi-disciplinary telematic Rotating Brains – Beating Heart collaboration. She has been a facilitator in cross cultural community development and family support projects and in addition to her solo work, regularly participates in collaborative art making and interventions on and offline with musicians, dancers, video and performance artists. She is a member of the global collective Avatar Orchestra Metaverse, the Victoria performance art group OPEN ACTION and the new music ensemble LaSaM.
About the Project Theme
Some of us can recall a time when the old dial up telephones and black and white tube television were the new thing, following radio, the automobile and printing press in giving us unprecedented access to each other and the world … while at the same time perhaps taking us more away from the people and places we were rooted to.
And others of us have been born into an age where constant connectivity through networked technology is the norm, our fingers dancing over the keyboards of networked devices that bring our thoughts and expressions instantaneously to our friends here and away, and to the world. Being connected has given new freedoms – help is only a call away.
The ideas and definitions of “community”, “relationship” and “friend” have been gradually shifting to mean something quite different than they did to our parents and grandparents, no matter which generation we belong to. And when you think about it, we are already hybrid beings, with brain matter altered by television and computer screens; corneas altered by eyeglasses; hearts, knees and eyes replaced by mechanical and computer-enhanced models; and relationships mediated by gravatars and avatars.
Through advances in audiovisual technologies, we can hear the sound of a mosquito rubbing its feet on a blade of grass and see inside a cell. Networked technology now lets doctors operate on us remotely. It lets us listen in to orcas echolocating in the Pacific or humpbacks calling in the Atlantic, or it lets us watch eagles birthing in forests all over the place, just by switching internet sites from our comfy chairs. And it allows us to mix it all together and send it to our friends if we want to.
What does all of this mean to you?
Let us know!
This project made possible thanks to the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts, Media Arts Section. http://www.canadacouncil.ca
