Intrigued by this image? So are we. ASTeRIX invites visual artists, musicians, dramatists, new media artists, writers, performers, actors, technologists, and all manner of arts practitioners to engage with us in responding to this image: SQ1P2.pdf.
Join us as we begin a new chapter at ASTeRIX filled with the imagination and creative work of you.
To this end, we share this small, short, fun project with you – a personal response (whatever it may be) to image SQ1P2, the provocative Zoom background of one of our members.
We encourage you to take it, run with it, then share your art-making with other creators, with us, at an ASTeRIX gathering later this fall.
ASTeRIX, in collaboration with SAAG and New Music L.AB presents an evening of live coding and sound performance.
Friday | July 17 6 to 9 PM $10 | $5 with SAAG pass (Includes one beverage and a slice of pizza) | Limited attendance
Live coding is a 21st-century creative process for making music with computer technology – think of it like musical improvisation, but with a digital twist! Live coding involves an analytical mindset, asking the composer/performer to problem solve by arranging numerical values (integers, floats) and text variables (symbols) following the rules of syntax of a computer programming language.
Bring your own laptop (or iPad with keyboard) to join in the performance, which will feature:
D. Andrew Stewart (ASTeRIX)
Lavinia Kell Parker (New Music LAB)
Sam Parker (New Music LAB)
Scott Edward Godin (New Music LAB)
Jordan Berg (New Music LAB)
Shuan Bellamy (New Music LAB)
SAAG’s Craft Beer Friday is a fun way to connect at the end of the week, choose from a selection of new and exciting craft brews selected by the SAAG staff and the experts at Andrew Hilton Wine & Spirits, topped off with delicious pizza by the slice from Two Guys & A Pizza Place.
Continuing our collaboration with SAAG‘s Bletcher Reading Hour, the latest ASTeRIX Gathering+ event brings together scholar-artists focused on nascent concepts and works in progress. Mia van Leeuwen invites D. Andrew Stewart, Annie Martin, Julia Wasilewski and Ekida Laurie into a performance-research process that explores the ‘life and death’ of objects through sound, movement, ritual, costume and photography.
This event builds on the readings and discussion from our last Gathering+ event in October, but no previous knowledge or preparation is required to attend – all are welcome! However, you may contact asterix@uleth.ca for copies of the previous readings if you are interested. Please join us for this free event on March 5, 2020 from 6:00-8:00pm at the SAAG (601 3rd Ave South).
6:00-6:45pm: Context provided for performance research with reference to Bletcher Readings (from Oct 17); open for discussion.
6:45-7:15pm: Performance-research demo How to Raise a Ghost? (haunting 1.3)
7:15-8:00pm: Open discussion and conversation
ASTeRIX Gathering+ events are an informal and conversational opportunity to talk about research creation, encouraging interaction among colleagues from different fields and disciplines, and to discuss nascent concepts and works-in-progress in a more casual off-campus atmosphere.
Performer bios:
Ekida Laurie studied dance at Kyung Hee University in Korea and then went to the Netherlands to dance with the NDT 1 company. She has performed and presented her choreographic work on various stages around the world, including Korea, Japan, Belgium, England, Canada and the USA.
Annie Martin’s practice moves between audio installation, drawing, painting, textile, performance and video. Her work has been exhibited widely in Canada, and also internationally.
D. Andrew Stewart is a composer, pianist and digital musical instrumentalist. A convergence of acoustic and electroacoustic instrumental praxis is at the centre of Stewart’s oeuvre. His music is dedicated to exploring composition and performance for new interfaces for musical expression by adapting and evolving traditional praxis.
Mia van Leeuwen practices the body of performance to explore wide-ranging themes, playfully blurring the lines between theatre and visual art. Altering perspective, baring process, queering, unsettling, combining different forms, making strange, fragmenting time, and juxtaposing imagery, are actions that inform the making of her various projects.
Julia Wasilewski is an Assistant Professor at the University of Lethbridge as well as a Lethbridge-based costume, set, and lighting designer. Julia’s practice embraces the intersection between traditional design conventions and contemporary renewable approaches in an effort to embrace sustainable theatre-making.
On Thursday, Nov 28, ASTeRIX is hosting a student engagement session that focuses on how the centre can better serve and represent student projects. This session will be casual and conversational in nature, and will include asking the following questions:
• What are your research interests and areas of artistic practice?
• What resources/equipment would be most valuable to support your student experience? • What speakers/facilitators/artists would you most like to have visit Uleth to speak/present/etc (perhaps even in the Spring 2020 term)?
• What types of events/workshops/etc might ASTeRIX plan/provide that you would be interested in?
This 2-hour event will take place in the Switch Lab (W520A) on Thursday, November 28 from 4:00-6:00pm. Please drop in for as much or as little as you can. Please RSVP to asterix@uleth.ca
ASTeRIX members Mia van Leeuwen (Fine Arts – Drama) and D. Andrew Stewart (Fine Arts – Music) will be providing context about their art practices and objects studies in relation to the extracts from the following readings.
In Praise of Shadow (Tanizaki, 1933)
The Tears of Things (Schwenger, 2006)
Free Play, Sex and Violins (Nachmanovitch, 1990)
Death and Performing Objects (John Bell)
Guide to Sound Objects, Reduced Listening (Chion, 2009)
View with a Grain of Sand (Szymborska, 1995)
If you can attend, the SAAG is able to provide the reading extracts for you. Traditionally, they provide a limited number of printed and custom-bound copies. If you’d like a copy, or would prefer to receive an electronic version, please let us know at asterix@uleth.ca
Of course, reading everything upfront is not a necessity … we would enjoy seeing you at this ASTeRIX gathering very much. Light refreshments provided.
Gathering+ Presented by ASTeRIX in partnership with SAAG
Thursday, October 17
6:00-7:00pm
601 3rd Ave South
The SAAG’s critical reading group, The Bletcher Hour, is named after the gallery’s first librarian, Mary Hazel Bletcher. Regular readings relate to current exhibitions and dig a little deeper, exploring key themes in the exhibited works.
Please write to asterix@uleth.ca, if you want to be removed from the ASTERIX e-mail list.
As part of the ASTeRIX 2019 AGM, Dr. Natalie Loveless provided a detailed explanation of the UAlberta Research-Creation CoLABoratory (CoLAB), which she co-directs. For instance, Natalie talked about their regular season of topic-based meetings, as well as their organising and co-sponsoring events in other
faculties and departments.
Following her CoLAB presentation, we considered two questions with respect to our own R-C practices and activities at ULethbridge:
(1) What barriers/challenges do you face while conducting R-C?
(2) In the next three years, what is your ideal vision for advancing R-C with respect to the university and local communities, and beyond?
ASTeRIX held its Annual General Meeting on 16 April, 2019. Please find the full Director’s Report here for more information, including a brief summary of Art, Sound, & Technology Research IntersecXions (ASTERIX) activities and news from Fall 2018 and Spring 2019, along with a review of the anticipated centre activities for 2019/2020.
ASTeRIX committee members participated as symposium co-chairs and presenters in IAST.ca. ASTeRIX helped host 70 attendees (of which 53 were scholar-artists visiting from 13 universities across Western Canada). Complete video documentation of the symposium is available on the IAST Media channel and IAST’s main website.
