digifest 2006 at Harbourfront Centre

digifest: mods – May 13 to July 9

Opening Reception: Friday, May 12th @ 7-9 pm

Harbourfront Centre hosts digifest as part of Canada’s annual interdisciplinary festival of design and media culture, digifest 2006:mods exposes modifications to off-the-shelf products and mainstream technologies with exhibitions and live experiences.

All events located at York Quay Centre, 235 Queens Quay West.

For more information call 416-973-4000

digifest: mods at Harbourfront Centre

• Mods and Rockers
• TEACHING TECH: Performance Lectures on Art and Science
• Mark Argo: Communication Mods
• Simon Trudeau: From a Bag to a Light
• Photogrammetry

Mods and Rockers

Tom Moody and John Parker, Bathtub Stickers
(still from animation),
2006

Curated by Sally McKay part of digifest 2006: mods

Artist teams are:

• Myfanwy Ashmore & Lorna Mills
• Chandra Bulucon & Andrew J. Paterson
• Rob Cruickshank & Veronica Verkley
• Tom Moody & John Parker

In Britain in the 1960s, mods and rockers frequently clashed in bloody battles. For this exhibition, however, we ask them to merge in the name of art. Four pairs of artists, one Mod and one Rocker per team, will collaborate on art, video and sound works that illuminate the polarities of the partnership.

Myfanwy Ashmore
Myfanwy Ashmore graduated from the Sculpture-Installation department at the Ontario College of Art in 1996, and received her MFA from York University in 1998. Currently, she is working at the Ontario College of Art & Design as a Technician in the Academic Computer Centre. She has exhibited extensively including international exhibitions, in Philadelphia, Chicago, Seoul and Amsterdam. She has also been the recipient of numerous grants from The Toronto Arts Council, The Ontario Arts Council, and the Canada Council for the Arts. In 2003 she was nominated and short-listed for the prestigious K.M. Hunter Award through the Ontario Arts Council.
http://www.student.ocad.on.ca/~myfanwyashmore/

Lorna Mills
Lorna Mills was born in Yorkton (Saskatchewan) and currently resides in Toronto. She was one of the founding members of The Red Head Gallery, where she mounted four exhibitions: "Space-Time-Colour" (1991), "Retail" (1992), "Literal" (1994) and "Body and Soul" (1996). She works in a variety of media including painting, photography, film, digital animation and video and has recently participated in several collective exhibitions including "Cross-Eyed", Toronto (1998), "The Video Archaeology Festival" Sophia (1999), "Meat/Viande", Montreal (2000), "Great Lakes", Toronto (2001) and "Persona Volare" (2000 & 2004). She presented "Happy Valley" with David Acheson, curated by Corinna Ghaznavi, at the Walter Philips Gallery, Banff Centre for the Arts (Alberta) in 2002, and "Reality Show", curated by Stuart Reid, at the Tom Thompson Memorial Art Gallery, Owen Sound (2003) & The Robert McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa (2004). Recent exhibitions include "Canadian Club" w/ Persona Volare at the Centre culturel canadien, Paris (2005) and "Time Lag" curated by Janet Bellotto, Basel (2005).
www.personavolare.com/mills_artwork.php

Chandra Bulucon
Sole proprietor of audio production company Puppy Machine Productions, Chandra Bulucon is also an interdisciplinary artist and a financial advisor. A recent recipient of the Untitled Art Awards, she has shown her work in such places as the AGO, YYZ Artists' Outlet, and the Saidye Bronfman Centre for the Arts. She has also collaborated with groups such as Tops'n'Bottoms, Just Like the Movies and Instant Coffee, and has been featured in eye Weekly, Toronto Star, and the dearly missed Lola Magazine.
www.puppymachine.com

Andrew J. Paterson
Andrew J. Paterson is an interdisciplinary media artist and writer based in Toronto. He is the co-founder of the YYZ Books publication Money, Value, Art: State Funding, Free Markets, Big Pictures and his writings have been published in FUSE Magazine, Public, MIX, and Lola. His videos and films have been screened nationally and internationally and are distributed by Vtape (Toronto). Links: http://www.ccca.ca,
www.vtape.org/

Robert Cruickshank
Robert Cruickshank is a Toronto-based multidisciplinary artist. His work in various media including electronic, kinetic and robotic installations, sound art, electro-acoustic music, and photography have been exhibited in Toronto, and internationally. Much of his work is associated with InterAccess Electronic Media Arts Centre in Toronto, where he has developed a number of hands-on workshops for artists using electronics and is currently a member of the Board of Directors. His work combines his knowledge of physical computing with an ongoing fascination with sound, light, and motion. It is as much informed by the kinetic art of the early 20th century as it is by contemporary new media art. Works such as Spiral Incriber (2005) combine microcontrollers with intricate electromechanical systems, reminiscent of early clockwork and mechanical devices, and reflect his interest in obsolete technologies. Many of these works are collaborative in nature, and he has been part of several long-term collaborative projects at Interaccess, such as Space Probe (1998), SenseBus (1999), Art Interface Device (2001-present), as well as being a member of I/O media, a collective of sound and video artists exploring real-time improvised performance.
www.robcruickshank.net/

Veronica Verkley
Veronica Verkley is a Toronto sculptor and filmmaker. Her work combines technology, animals, and scavenging techniques; and ranges from the mechanical to the ethereal. She has shown extensively, including a public art commission in the Don Valley, an animated short film, and a Canada Council new media research and production project. She is in the Symbiosis collective, on the board of Subtle Technologies, and she works in film and theatre doing animatronics, puppeteering, & animation. This summer, Veronica is headed to the Yukon to do an installation for 'The Natural & the Manufactured'.

Tom Moody
Tom Moody is an artist based in New York. His low-tech art made with MSPaintbrush, photocopiers, and consumer printers has appeared at Derek Eller Gallery, UP&CO and in numerous group shows. His weblog at http://www.digitalmediatree.com/tommoody, begun in February 2001, was recently recommended in the Art in America article "Art in the Blogosphere." His next solo show will be in May 2006 at artMoving Projects, Brooklyn, NY.
www.digitalmediatree.com/tommoody

John Parker
John Parker explores the extreme sonic possibilities afforded by contemporary means of sound production, fusing the controlled and the random into a volatile, ever-twisting whole. He has exhibited alongside the likes of DJ Spooky and Christian Marclay at galleries such as Andrew Kreps, Caren Golden, and vertexList and performed alongside Cave Precise, Denim Venom, and Society Cleaners at venues like CBGB’s and The Kitchen in New York City. John continues to compose and perform music with Man From Planet Risk as well as various side and solo projects, and he shows his sound installations in galleries throughout the world. His work can be heard and seen online at www.eyekhan.com.
Also see: www.digitalmediatree.com/tommoody/?35637

TEACHING TECH: Performance Lectures on Art and Science

Teaching Tech

By Susan Bustos and Amos Latteier
Guest curated by Sally McKay
Friday, May 12th, 9pm - 10 pm

Art and information meet in an entertaining evening of performative lectures by Susan Bustos and Amos Latteier. Scientist Susan Bustos has performed around the world, adopting the mantle of evil scientist to discuss pseudo-fictions in feminist forms of bio-chemical mutation and other hot topics. We don't know what she has planned for us this time... and that is half the fun! International performer Amos Latteier has delivered his multi-media performative lectures in Europe and the USA. His ground-breaking work on pigeon aerial photography has achieved wide recognition from artists and geeks alike. Tonight he will inform and enlighten us on the timely topic of Ant and Human Societies.

http://www.ladyscientist.com
http://latteier.com/

Communication Mods

Mark Argo, Argobot

part of digifest New Voices

Modification plays an important role in the adaptive process between humans and technology. Computers and mobile phones are employed in the majority of our daily communications, from the personal and emotional to the formal and instrumental. */Communication Mods/* presents five works that participate in this process of adaptation by exploring how modifications to these 'mediating technologies' affect the way we communicate with each other.

http://www.markargo.com/communicationmods/

Simon Trudeau: From a Bag to a Light

part of digifest New Voices

Montreal-based designer creates an installation of kinetic objects by transforming his molded vinyl Anemone bags.

Photogrammetry

S. Javanrouh

With support from


Davin Risk, Sam Javanrouh, Gayla Trail and Matt O'Sullivan produced in association with Spacing Magazine

Photogrammetry - an exhibition of four Toronto photo bloggers
As these artists map and survey the city through their images a visual record will be constructed and then be reconstructed as new postings are created.
http://spacing.ca/

is presented in partnership with the