Soundwalk through 5 ecosystems

This is the first entry of what I hope will be a relatively consistent blog about goings-on in Montréal & wherever I may find myself next. I'll use it to share some of the sights & sounds that I've been witness to.

I was lucky enough to have borrowed a Soundfield microphone as part of a course at Oboro, an artist-run centre here in Montéal. The course took for it’s topic the system of three-dimensional sound caption known as Ambisonics. Ambisonics is the brain-child of Michael Gerzon and though it’s advantages are numerous, the technology has gone the way of betamax and never gained much attention outside of a committed body of followers. One such devotee, Daniel Courville who taught the course has collected an extensive body of resources on the subject.

Myself & Julien Champagne took the SoundField mic kit on a sound walk through 5 ecosystems at Montreal’s Biodome. We hurried through the rainforest to keep the humidity from drowning the mic. The laurentian forest was abuzz with a dreadful hum from the lights, and unfortunately the microphone's frequency response wasn’t quite up for the bat’s ultra-sonic cries.

Though they didn’t make much noise, we hung out with some animated lemur catta’s from Madagascar who apparently prove their masculinity in a ritual called a “stink-fight” which involves flinging their hormone-annointed tails at one another. I think I’ve encountered similar rituals walking along Saint-Laurent on a Saturday night. Maybe we’re not that far removed after all.

La bande sonore: générique by Antoine Bustros, a Montréal composer for film and dance. This song was written for Mary Ellen Davis’ intimate portrait of Ontario photographer Larry Towell, TERRITORIES, which played at Cinema Politica last night.