Tag: Yann Novak

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Los Angeles – 06.26.2010 – PRESENCE at the Torrance Art Museum

VOLUME is pleased to present Presence,  an afternoon of immersive sound, video, and durational performance work at the Torrance Art Museum on June 26, 12-5pm. Presence plays with the multiple meanings of the title to contextualize divergent practices by a unique selection of artists all working across a spectrum of time based media, whether it is video, sound, durational performance, or installation.

Artists include Jen Boyd (audio performance), Frank Bretschneider (screening), Jeff Cain & Mark Steger (collaborative video performance/installation), Heather Cassils & Kadet Kuhne (sound and durational performance), Richard Chartier (sound element), i8u & Cédrick Eymenier (audio/visual performance), Monique Jenkinson (video screening), Mem1 (audio/visual performance), A.B. Miner (film screening), Yann Novak (audio performance), Adam Overton (durational performance), Taisha Paggett (durational performance), Semiconductor (video screening), Sublamp (audio/visual performance).

The Torrance Art Museum is located at 3320 Civic Center Drive, Torrance, CA 90503. Call 310.618.6340 for more information.
Outdoors

Noon-5pm

The Hop-Frog Kollectiv
audio performance
Front Entrance

Noon-5pm
Monique Jenkinson
video sceening
Noon-5pm

A.B. Miner
film screening
Gallery One

Noon-5:00
Taisha Paggett
durational performance
Noon-12:45
Richard Chartier
sound dispersion
12:45-1:00
Semiconductor
video screening
1:00-1:20
Sublamp
audio/visual performance
1:30-1:50
Marc Manning
audio/visual performance
2:00-2:20
Jen Boyd
audio performance
2:30-2:50
Mem1
audio/visual performance
3:00-3:20
Yann Novak
audio performance
3:30-3:50
i8u & Cédrick Eymenier
audio/visual performance
4:00-4:20
Frank Bretschneider
video screening
4:30-4:40

Heather Cassils & Kadet Kuhne
collaborartive performance
Gallery Two

Noon-5pm

Jeff Cain & Mark Steger
video/performance installation
Roaming

Noon-5pm
Adam Overton
durational performance
Presence plays with its multiple meanings to contextualize divergent practices by a unique selection of artists all working across a spectrum of time based media, whether it is video, sound, durational performance, or installation. There will be a collection of gestures, words spoken, interplay of light and sound, moments of silence, focus, transgressions, layered meanings and experiences, noises, the sound of breathing and bodies performing tasks, a deeper awareness of the passage of time.

Presence is supported in part by the Canada Council for the Arts.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Jen Boyd is a sound artist living in Northern CA. She spends time recording her environment and arranges it into layered soundscapes. In these pieces, some sounds unfold naturally while others are processed. For several years Jen has used contact microphones to explore the textures and timbres in trees and her compositions give depth to these delicate sounds. Although her work mostly relies on ‘natural’ sounds she uses a wide variety of sources to paint sonic pictures for the listener. In future projects, Jen will explore the depths of natural sound and its presentation as art through live performance and installation. Jen strives to spark the interest in people of all ages to listen more closely to the environment they live in everyday.

Frank Bretschneider works as a musician, composer and video artist in Berlin. His work is known for precise sound placement, complex, interwoven rhythm structures and its minimal, flowing approach. Described as “abstract analogue pointillism”, “ambience for spaceports” or “hypnotic echochamber pulsebeat”, Bretschneider‘s subtle and detailed music is echoed by his visuals: perfect translated realizations of the qualities found in music within visual phenomena.

Jeff Cain is an artist who investigates cultural, technological, and natural phenomenon and creates interdisciplinary projects that intervene, remodel, and connects these systems. His work has been presented at the Getty Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Musee D’art Modern de Ville de Paris, Track 16, LA Freewaves, and many other Southern California venues. He is also the founder and inventor of RHZ Radio, which was nominated for the Prix Ars Electronica in 2005.

Heather Cassils is an artist, stunt person and a body builder who uses an exaggerated physique to intervene in various contexts in order to interrogate systems of power, control and gender. Often employing many of the same strategies used by FLUXUS and guerrilla theater, her method is multidisciplinary and crosses a spectrum of performance, film, drawing, video, photography and event planning. Cassils is a founding member of the Los Angeles based performance group the Toxic Titties.

Richard Chartier, sound and installation artist, is considered one of the key figures in the current of reductionist electronic sound art which has been termed both “microsound” and Neo-Modernist. Chartier’s minimalist digital work explores the inter-relationships between the spatial nature of sound, silence, focus, perception and the act of listening itself. Chartier’s sound works/installations have been presented in galleries and museums internationally including the 2002’s Whitney Biennial and he has performed his work live across Europe, Japan, Australia, and North America at digital art/electronic music festivals and exhibits.

The Hop-Frog Kollectiv is a Los Angeles/Long Beach based collective focused on experimental arts, political dissent and fever dream realization and are the curators of Thee Dung Mummy, experimental arts gatherings. The Kollectiv formed in 2003 as a medium for experimental artists and musicians to share, create and exhibit their work and has since become a hub of activity for Los Angeles, national and international emerging artists.  HFK has realized performances and exhibits across the US and Europe.  Their newest incarnation of Thee Dung Mummy (Dung Mummy’s Nomadic Transmissions) focuses on outdoor installations and live shows based in the Mojave Desert.   HFK is also known for their intensive drone rituals.

i8u (France Jobin) is a sound/installation/web artist residing in Montreal, Canada. i8u has created solo recordings for nvo (AT), ROOM40 (Australia), bake/staalplaat(Netherlands),as well as many collaborations notably with Goem, Martin Tétreault, David Kristian and recently the album ligne with Tomas Phillips, on the Japanese label, ATAK. i8u’s web work/installations have been shown at Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec, Toronto’s Images independent film festival at MIVEAM 06. The AIR Artist-In-\ Residence program in Krems Austria enabled her to create und transit, a sound\ installation set in the cloister of MinoritenKirche in Stein, Austria.

Monique Jenkinson is a multifaceted performing artist whose work places itself in the gaps between dance, theater, drag and performance art. She has created and performed locally and internationally at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the de Young Museum, and Trannyshack in San Francisco; the New Museum, Danspace Project, Howl Festival and the Stonewall in New York; the Met Theatre in Los Angeles; the Coachella Festival; Gay Pride in Reykjavik; Supperclub in Amsterdam; and Royal Vauxhall Tavern, Horsemeat Disco and SoHo Revue Bar in London.

Kadet Kuhne is a media artist whose work spans the audiovisual spectrum. With the goal of forming somatic experiences which can prompt visceral responses to sound and movement, Kadet openly exposes the use of technology in her practice by employing fragmented, jump-cut edits and amplifying evidence of sonic detritus. This glitch aesthetic, contrasted with layered ambient reflection, is intended to heighten tensions between motion and stasis: a balanced yet heightened “nervous system” to reflect our own. Trained in jazz guitar in her youth, Kadet became attached to the instinctive nature of improvisation, which led her to the California Institute of the Arts where she studied Composition and Integrated Media. Select exhibitions and performances include the Museum of Art Lucerne, LACMA, Musees de Strasbourg, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, REDCAT, Museum of Contemporary Art-LA, Not Still Art Festival, San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery, The LAB, Highways Performance Gallery and the New York Underground Film Festival.

Marc Manning is a artist and musician living and working in San Francisco. He has released music under the monikers legend of boggy creek, everything is fine, red weather tigers, and heavy lids. He has performed extensively on the east and west coasts over the past 10 years. Manning is a veteran of several Philadelphia atmospheric bands, the shoe gazer art rock of “the legend of boggy creek” and cave core rock of “everything is fine.” Likewise his visual art has been well exhibited on both coasts.

Mem1 seamlessly blends the sounds of cello and electronics to create a limitless palette of sonic possibilities. In their improvisation-based performances, Mark and Laura Cetilia’s use of custom hardware and software, in conjunction with a uniquely subtle approach to extended cello technique and realtime modular synthesis patching, results in the creation of a single voice rather than a duet between two individuals. Their music moves beyond melody, lyricism and traditional structural confines, revealing an organic evolution of sound that has been called “a perfect blend of harmony and cacophony” (Forced Exposure).

A.B. Miner is an artist, curator, and curatorial assistant at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. For the Hirshhorn he curated projects with Yoko Ono and Dan Graham and has worked with Smithsonian Artist Research Fellows Runa Islam and Henrique Oliveira. In March of 2010 Miner presented his solo painting show Naked at which Fly 08 was first shown. In spring 2009 he curated Domesticated: Men and the Domestic Interior at Transformer Gallery. In fall 2009 he was awarded a German travel fellowship from the Goethe Institut to spend one month in Berlin in 2010. As an artist he has exhibited extensively and received awards including the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities Young Artist Program Grant and two Artist’s Fellowship Awards. Miner holds an M.F.A. in painting and mixed media from Queens College, CUNY (2000) and a post-graduate certificate in museum studies from the George Washington University (2006).

Yann Novak is a sound artist, composer and designer based in Los Angeles. His compositions have been published by Dragon’s Eye Recordings, The Henry Art Gallery, Infrequency, smlEditions and White_Line Editions. His work utilizes different forms of digital documentation as a point of departure. Through the digital manipulation of these sound and image files, his works serve as a translation from documents of personal experiences into new compositions fueled by the original experience.

Adam Overton is a living composer of experimental music, performance artist, teacher of performance, sound art & multimedia, and a massage therapist based in Los Angeles.

Taisha Paggett is a Los Angeles based choreographer, dancer, teacher, and co-founder of the dance journal project, itch. Her work is inspired by various discourses on the body as an expressive tool and is interested in bridging the sensibility and discourses of both the visual and performing arts.

Semiconductor make moving images which reveal our physical world in flux: cities in motion, shifting landscapes, and systems in chaos. Since 1999, UK artists Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt have worked with digital animation in an attempt to transcend the constraints of time, scale, and natural forces and explore the world beyond everyday experience. Central to these works is the role of sound, as it creates, controls, and deciphers images, exploring resonance through the natural order of things.

Mark Steger is the co-founder and director of osseus labyrint, the preeminent experimental arts entity based in Los Angeles and has performed live in over 100 cities, conducted public workshops, made presentations and attended symposia and broadcast throughout the USA, Canada, Mexico, England, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Hungary, The Czech Republic, Slovakia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand and over the World Wide Web. Steger’s live performances are experiments that explore the history of the body and its relationship to what it creates. Mark has received numerous awards and grants including a Rockefeller Foundation Multi-Arts Production Grant, a California Arts Council Fellowship, the Durfee Artists Award and 1997 and 2001 Los Angeles Times year end “10 Best” performances lists.

Sublamp is Los Angeles based sound and video artist Ryan Connor. Raised by scientist parents living outside of various national parks in New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado, Ryan developed an early fascination with nature and science that influenced his later work as an artist. Primarily interested in pre-language experience, he uses textural sound and images to explore an intuitive and emotional response to sensory data. His work has been published by Serac (USA), Pehr (USA), SEM (France), Dragon’s Eye Recordings (USA), Friendly Virus (Portugal), Ahora Eterno (Argentina), and soon TRDMRK (USA) and Hibernate Recordings (UK).

ABOUT VOLUME

VOLUME functions as a catalyst for interdisciplinary new media work through exhibitions, performances, events, lectures, and publications. Concentrating on the nexus of music and visual arts practices ranging from the avant-garde to popular culture, VOLUME offers unique opportunities for artists to create and present hybrid works.

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Review – Untitled 10, The black album – by Textura

VA: Untitled 10 (The Black Album)
Untitled & After
The material on Untitled & After’s tenth release is rooted in techno but spreads its wings far beyond a strict minimal template. The inclusion of field recordings, ambient-dub textures, and a generally expansive approach gives the compilation a wide-screen character that extends its sights beyond the confines of the club. Two focal points emerge in virtually every case: the first a rhythm dimension; the second colourful ambient-electronic scene-painting. Untitled 10 (The Black Album) lists some stellar names as contributors, with Morgan Packard, Andrew Duke, Bizz Circuits, and Leyland Kirby amongst the better-known. Repeated exposure to the album brings into clear focus an interesting trajectory, as the material gradually distances itself from a rhythm-based approach until beats vanish entirely during the recording’s second half.
The album opener “Apple Pie” suggests Morgan Packard’s been soaking up the music of Robert Henke in recent times, a suspicion bolstered when a number of Monolake-like signifiers surface during its five-minute time in the spotlight: sleek and polished surfaces, atmospheric bass rumble, and a forward-thrusting minimal techno pulse. “Hovercraft,” a collaboration between Andrew Duke and i8u, rolls along with a breezy, lighter-than-air techno bump that conveys the movement of its titular transport, while an accompanying Chaircrusher remix infuses the original with a heavier industrial quality and cloaks it in a multi-layered cloud of hazy melodies and noxious atmosphere. Some tracks opt for a more purely ambient textural approach that excludes beats, as confirmed by lovely meditations by sublamp (“andamurmur”) and Robert Crouch and Yann Novak (“Santa Fe”). And sometimes there is truth in advertising, as “Big Air (Ambient Mix),” a cloudy collaborative piece by Jondi & Spesh with Brian Stillwater illustrates. Leyland Kirby takes the project out on a characteristically distinctive note when the stately “Ready To Go Down Together” evokes a mutant processional where fuzz-toned guitars serenade angelic choirs amidst billowing synthetic flourishes.
April 2010

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Album – Comp – Untitled 10 – Various Artists on Untitled & After (2010)

| CD | UntitledandAfter | compilation

Various artists – Untitled 10

03.23.2010
Tracks:

Morgan Packard – Apple Pie
Robert Crouch – 5th of July
Andrew Duke + i8u – Hovercraft
Andrew Duke + i8u – Hovercraft (Chaircrusher Remix)
Birdcage – When Dream and Day Unite
Bizz Circuits – mouvement aérien
sublamp – andamurmur
Jondi & Spesh with Brian Stillwater – Big Air (Ambient Mix)
Robert Crouch / Yann Novak – Santa Fe
Leyland Kirby – Ready To Go Down Together
Artwork by Marc Kate

About:

For its tenth release, Untitled & After issues a compilation of music that seeks solace in the outer reaches of electronic music. Akin to Kompakt’s Pop Ambient series, Untitled 10 (The Black Album) pulls away from the structures of techno into more expansive terrain.
Collected from artists as diverse as Bizz Circuits and Morgan Packard, from locations as distant as Sapporo, Los Angeles and Berlin, Untitled 10 (The Black Album) is a meditation on the tension between force and fragility. An extension of the beat driven roots of Untitled & After, this compilation revels in the paranoid spaciousness of dub, the personal documents of field recordings and the otherworldliness of soft synthesis. Here, ambient is not a genre, but a timeless, spaceless moment. Untitled 10 (The Black Album) attempts the impossible by documenting something so fleeting.

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Review – Flowers, (Dragons’ Eye Recordings) 2010 – by Tobias Fisher, tokafi

Flowers – Compilation ( on line DER) 2010

To some, this anniversary compilation may seem like something of a premature party. While most labels typically celebrate their fifth or tenth year in action, Dragon’s Eye have confidently decided that four are quite enough to count as a milestone. They may have a point, however. When Yann Novak took over the outfit from his father in 2005 after an extensive phase of hibernation, after all, he had nothing to show for it but a tiny back catalogue and a healthy dose of determination. The latter proved to be a key factor. Especially in the early phase, when the odd unfavorable review would trickle in and the exact stylistic direction for the project was still slightly opaque, less self-assured souls would have given up or given in.

Not Novak. Slowly but very surely, he gathered a circle of like-minded composers around him, established an immediately recognizable corporate design and kept churning out material as though there were no tomorrow. If print runs were sometimes bigger than what the market could absorbe, this was not misguided ambition but a statement of intent: Dragon’s Eye was not going to be just another boutique label happy to print a few friendly-looking copies for art’s sake. It was going to be a professionally run and widely respected company which could stand on its own two feet and inspire others instead of borrowing from stale third party ideas.

Three factors were decisive in this respect. For one, Novak has astutely understood that Sound Art has a promising future if it manages to return to the one relationship that has always served it well: The bond with the visual arts. It is by no means a coincidence that Morton Feldman and John Cage were heavily influenced by befriended painters. Nor is it a secret that Philip Glass and Steve Reich kick started their careers by performing their first pieces in museums. In several respects, the advancement of music in the late 20th century has been a constant attempt at equaling the compelling power of abstract arts. With their regular multimedial events and partnerships with art galleries, Dragon’s Eye have not only made a clever marketing decision, but also built a fertile basis for a fruitful dialogue across different disciplines.

Secondly, like few other record companies out there, the outfit has established its own family of artists. Wyndell Hunt, Marc Manning, Jamie Drouin and, of course, Novak himself were virtually unknown before 2005 and their profiles have organically grown in sync with the gradual rise of Dragon’s Eye. Unlike many of their colleagues, who enjoy collecting releases with different labels like trophies, they have also remained faithful to them for the better part of these four years. Admittedly, established underground heroes like Steve Peters were equally part of the program and recently, Novak has branched out into a couple of household names on the scene, with releases by Ian Hawgood and Celer among others. But these have been exceptions and always served to sharpen the outfit’s image and take it one step further. Today, Dragon’s Eye is not just known for its uncompromising stance, but also for a particular mindset which goes way beyond the usual questions of sonic aesthetics and genre-affiliations.

This remarkably coherent, yet multifaceted approach has been the third and possibly most important aspect. Over time, Dragon’s Eye have catered to Drones, Ambient, Dark Ambient, Installation Soundtracks, conceptual soundscapes, controlled noise and silent music at the edge of perception without a single choice ever seeming random. As the stylistic associations have grown, so has the sensation that the artist roster was guided by a shared approach, a common angle at composing and sound sculpting. Significantly, this angle is related to a notion of purity, of never using more elements than absolutely necessary. But even more essentially, it has to do with considering ideas as the driving force behind music. For Dragon’s Eye, terms like beauty, darkness or estrangement can never exist without context. They come into existence through amplification, exaggeration, projection and contrast, in short: As artifice. Novak’s „The Air blowing over us“ (on Dragon’s Eye sister-label Infrequency), as just one example among many, made this amply clear: What would have ended up as a corny depictation of „one of the hottest days Seattle experienced in 2008, as well as the first weekend Novak spent with his partner“, ended up a thoughtful meditation on change and a claustrophobic, slowly moving soundscape built on the noises of a fan in the apartment.

With this in mind, it should surprise no one, that „Flowers“ is anything but a mere presentation of references or a lazily assembled „Best Of“. Quite on the contrary, quite a few of the musicians „Dragon’s Eye“ have become associated with are missing from this collection, while a few new names have been added to the roster. Most incisively, the collection focuses almost obsessively on a genre Novak has held dear for years, but only recently discovered as a source of inspiration for his imprint’s cover designs: Microtonal Sound Art. And so this free-to-download sampler includes luminaries like Shinkei, i8u, Tomas Phillips as well as Pierre Gerard, who also runs the highly recommended et comme le feu netlabel – while excluding a couple of mainstays. Rather than playing it safe, Novak has therefore once again made use of the opportunity to push his project beyond its existing borders and opened up yet another musical pocket for him and his artist.

This is all the more apparent as „Flowers“ manages to naturally integrate this new cosmos into the label’s body of work. Shinkei’s „Wu (for Luigi)“ is an almost programmatic effort in this respect: Subtle and crystal-clear field recordings of water, conversations and scratching noises are contrasted with discretely metallic drones and fine sheets of crackle. Short episodes are separated from each other by soundings of a prayer bell – this is a space for concentrated listening, in which every single element is to be appreciated on its own terms and the careful placing of each microscopic click suggests a conscious narrative. Meanwhile, the work of Canada’s France Jobin (aka i8u) displays unexpected similarities with Novak’s own contribution „Shortwaves to Longwaves“: Both rely on a blend of ultrahigh and extremely low frequencies, a suspenseful delineation between a highly direct foreground and a deep, atmospheric backdrop as well as a controlled friction between surgically precise material and inexplicable emotional resonances. This holds true for the compilation as a whole, which takes a turn towards more ambient-oriented pieces in the finale. Celer’s „A Lifetime of Wasted Breaths“, an endearing sequence of warm, almost spiritual chords and Wyndel Hunt’s Power-drone „Rotation“ might seem misplaced here on paper, but both turn out to make complete sense, intensifying the silence inside the listener instead of insensitively rupturing it.

Again, it is the idea of contrasts which takes hold here. By juxtaposing seemingly uncombinable material, the album as a whole is elevated to a higher plane, where these differences no longer matter. If this is where Novak wants to take the label in the future, then we’re in for a hell of an 8th birthday party.

By Tobias Fischer
tokafi

Dragon’s Eye Recording

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flowers on DER (2010)

January 1.10

Various Artists | Flowers: Dragon’s Eye Fourth Anniversary
 de6006 | 56:32 | MP3 | Open Edition

DOWNLOAD NOW

1. Shinkei – Wu (for Luigi)
2. i8u – Gallowalking
3. Pierre Gerard – Lines/Lignes
4. Tomas Phillips – Tablature I
5. Yann Novak – Shortwaves to Longwaves
6. Celer – A Lifetime of Wasted Breaths
7. Wyndel Hunt – Rotation

Over the past 4 years, Dragon’s Eye Recordings has come to be a trusted resource where listeners can be exposed to emerging and mid-carrier artists in the field of contemporary electronic music and sound art. Named one of Textura’s ‘Top Ten Favorite Labels of 2009,’ Dragon’s Eye is kicking off 2010 with a free downloadable compilation.

Flowers are the traditional gift for a fourth anniversary and Flowers is Dragon’s Eye Recordings fourth anniversary compilation. On Flowers, Dragon’s Eye presents new and unreleased works by the upcoming 2010 roster of artists. The 2010 roster represents both newcomers and veterans of the label that are at the forefront of contemporary electronic music and sound art.

About The Artists

David Sani (Shinkei) was born in 1968 in the heart of Tuscany, Siena. In 2000 he started Microsuoni, mail-order and distribution of sound-art, focused mainly on minimalism in all its forms. After the encounter with composer Luigi Turra in 2008, they founded the Koyuki label, devoted to publish lowercase and minimal sound compositions in limited edition cds or digital downloads.

The debut of the label coincided with the first Shinkei cd release “Binaural Beats” a split with canadian artist Philip Lemieux. Other recent works are “Biostatics” for the Transparent Radiation series on Bremsstrahlung, “Hidamari|Metrics” a split release with FOURM, and the first collaboration with Turra, YU for the austrian NonVisualObjects label.

France Jobin aka i8u (b. 1958) is a sound / installation / web artist residing in Montreal, Canada. i8u’s audio art can be qualified as “sound-sculpture”. It reveals powerful, opaque and complex sound environments where analog and digital meet. Her installation/web art can be said to follow a parallel path, incorporating both musical and visual elements.

i8u has created solo recordings for ROOM40 (Australia), bake/staalplaat (Netherlands), as well as many collaborations notably with Goem, Martin Tétreault, David Kristian and recently the album “ligne” with Tomas Phillips, on the Japanese label, ATAK. She produced compilations tracks for ATAK (Japan), bremsstrahlung (USA), Mutek (Canada) and Extract,Portraits of Soundartists (book + 2 cd) on the label nonvisualobjects (Austria).

She has participated in various music and new technology festivals Canada, Europe and the United States such as such as Silophone (Montréal, 2000), Mutek (Montréal, 2001, 2004, 2005,2007, 2008, 2009), Le Festival de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville (2002), Ver Uit de Maat (Rotterdam, 2002), SEND + RECEIVE (Winnipeg, 2003, 2005), Les Digitales (Bruxelles, 2004 ), Club Transmediale (Berlin, 2004), V’elak (Vienna, 2008), Shut up and Listen (Vienna 2009) as well as a soundtrack by Bubblyfish and i8u for the movie Swordswoman of Huangjiang / Huangjiang Nuxia presented at the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade Theater Festival : Heroic Grace : The Chinese Martial Arts Film.

She collaborates with New York visual artist CHiKA, “Infinity”, an audio/video piece was performed live at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles and a screening was shown at the San Francisco Art Institute Lecture Hall, both events were curated by VOLUME. A façade projection also showcased this work at the MenschMeerMedien in Nordwolle, Germany. A recent new collaboration with artist and musician Cédrick Eymenier (France), has produced the work “event horizon”.

i8u’s web work/installations have been shown at Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, Toronto’s Images independent film festival at MIVEAM 06. The AIR Artist-In- Residence program in Krems Austria enabled her to create “und transit”, a sound installation set in the cloister of MinoritenKirche in Stein, Austria.

Her work continues to evolve as technologies enable her to create in new environments.

Pierre Gerard (b.1966)
High School of Art (1985-1989), studied in particular the drawing and the engraving on copper and zinc.
(1995) A great interest for contemporary art, initially making research in figurative painting.
(1998) Abstract research in sculpture with materials of daily life.
(2000) Interest in the video and furniture.
(2003) After long research, I am finally able to approach my desire to make music,
a new step towards work without palpable matter, firstly with objects and field recording.
Since (2006) I returned to my first research by using the instruments.
In october (2009), began a new research work on abstract painting.

Tomas Phillips (b. 1969) is a composer, novelist, and teacher whose sound work focuses on improvisational performance and minimalist through-composition. He began composing electronic music in the early 1990s, releasing limited edition cd-rs, most notably under the moniker Eto Ami (with Dean King), and has since created music for installations and collaborations in dance and theatre. Labels to release his music include Trente Oiseaux, Line, Non Visual Objects, and Koyuki. Tomas has taught in the disciplines of literature and fine arts at various universities in the US, Québec, and Finland. Having completed an interdisciplinary PhD at Concordia University in Montréal, he currently lives in the US, where he teaches literature at North Carolina State University.

Yann Novak (b. 1979 Madison, WI) is a sound artist, composer and designer based in Los Angeles. His compositions have been published by Dragon’s Eye Recordings (US), Dulcett Records (US), The Henry Art Gallery (US), Infrequency (CA), Mandorla (MX) and smlEditions (US). His work utilizes different forms of digital documentation as a point of departure. Through the digital manipulation of these sound and image files, his works serve as a translation from documents of personal experiences into new compositions fueled by the original experience.

Novak’s installations and performances have been presented internationally at prestigious events and venues including American Academy in Rome (Rome, Italy), Blim (Vancouver, BC), Decibel Festival (WA), Ersta Konsthall (Stokholm, Sweden), Fiske Planitarium (CO), Henry Art Gallery (WA), Hit Art Space (Gothenburg, Sweden), Kasini House (VT), Las Cienegas Project (CA), Lawrimore Project (WA), Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (CA), Mutek Festival (Montreal, QB), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (CA), Seattle Lesbian and Gay Film Festival (WA), Soundwalk (CA), Suyama Space (WA), TBA Festival (OR) and Western Bridge (WA).

As a result of these endeavors, Novak had been invited to numerous Residencies including Environmental Aesthetics Residency (WA), Espy Foundation Residency (WA), and Kasini House Studio A Residency (VT).

In 2005, Novak re-launched his father’s Dragon’s Eye Recordings imprint with a new focus on limited edition releases by emerging and mid-carrier sound artists, composers and producers. Since its re-launch, Dragon’s Eye Recordings has published over 25 releases and has received critical acclaim.

In recent years Novak has collaborated through select installation, performance and recorded work with Gretchen Bennett, Brittle Stars, Crispin Spaeth Dance Group, Jamie Drouin, Marc Manning, Brian Murphy, Alex Schweder and Tiny Vipers.

Celer is the sound, visual, literary, and artistic endeavor of the husband and wife duo of Will Long and Danielle Baquet-Long. Danielle was a teacher of special education and music therapy, a seasoned and published writer of poetry and prose, a painter, multi-instrumentalist, and vocalist, also recording as Chubby Wolf. She had an extensive background in Gender Studies, Education, Basque History, Photography, and Tibetan Studies, as well as having lived in India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and the United States. She passed away on July 8, 2009 of heart failure.

Will is a published writer of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry, having studied English, History, Creative Writing, Philosophy, and Literature, with a basic background in music. Will and Dani met each other in 2001, and remained close friends until 2006, when they became a couple. At this time they also began Celer, which had been up until this time a constant exchange of letters, music, and love. They were married in March of 2007.

In Will and Dani’s time together, they produced numerous custom, handmade self-releases, sound for installations and art exhibitions, as well as creating works for independent labels in North America, Japan, and Europe. Their intent was producing works that reflect the sincere nature and importance of love, the impermanence of life, and the spirit of togetherness, through a relative and absolute symposium of expression.

As of July 2009, all production of new works is ended. However, works completed before this time will continued to be published, as of which there are many, and will appear on many labels worldwide, as well as some to be self-published in the future. While an end to new production of works was not wished, it was necessary, as Celer was, and will always be Dani and Will.

Wyndel Hunt integrates melody and noise using electronics, acoustic instruments, field recordings, and the occasional piece of amplified trash. His recent work focuses on conceiving narrative, painting, and sculpture as analogues for structuring composition and shaping sound. Since 2005 he has presented his work in galleries, public spaces, and live venues alone and in collaboration with visual artists. He currently lives in Seattle.

About Dragon’s Eye Recordings

Dragon’s Eye Recordings is the imprint run by sound artist Yann Novak. Focusing on limited edition releases by emerging and mid-carrier sound artists, composers and producers, Dragon’s Eye’s goal is to foster personal and artistic relationships with its artists and to function as a meeting ground for its artists to further develop relationships with one another. The curation of the imprint by Novak is done primarily through real world relationships, with some virtual exceptions. By focusing on human interactions and talent, rather than style or genre, Dragon’s Eye’s catalogue has slowly become a melting pot of sounds, processes and practices.

Dragon’s Eye values interconnectedness and encourages it by offering its artists a chance to showcase their own visual concepts, commission artists they have worked with, or recruit Dragon’s Eye’s partners to help create the visual representations for their releases. Through these practices, Dragon’s Eye offers a more personal presentation of its artists for their audience and creates a catalogue that is diverse yet bonded through human collaboration.

Dragon’s Eye Recordings was originally founded by Paul Novak, (Yann Novak’s father), in 1989 as the audio/visual arm of Only Connect…Publications.  Paul was and still is a bread baker and avid record collector. Only Connect…Publications was his first venture to self-publish his bread recipes. Through his new publishing company, Paul designed his book on a Apple Plus computer, commissioned a friend and artist to create the painting for the cover, and recruited a musician to compose an original work to accompany bread making.  Due to his love and passion for both music and record collecting, Paul created Dragon’s Eye Recordings to compliment his publishing company. All of these pursuits had a strong impact on his son who would later relaunch the label in 2005 and try to stay true to these communal values endowed in the label.