October 29th – November 1st, 2015
Positioned at the nexus of visual and auditory arts, and research in visual, sonic, and auditory phenomena, the Exhibiting Sound event in Edmonton will feature a core group from the “Curating Ethnomusicology” workshop, along with two keynote speakers: Stephan Moore (Oddnoise.com), influential composer, improviser, audio artist, sound designer, teacher, and curator, will address sound art and museum installation; Barbara London, curator, writer, and sound art advocate internationally recognized for founding the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) video collection, will explore the challenges visual art institutions face in exhibiting and collecting “art in our time.”
Scholars and industry professionals will meet at four Round Table sessions to address the following themes:
(i) Sound Art and Culture (accompanied by newly-created sound art gallery Frishkopf/Exhibiting Sound installations) (Scott Smallwood);
(ii) Exhibiting Sound as Cultural Ecology (Jeff Todd Titon)
(iii) The Virtual Exhibition of Sound (Michael Frishkopf)
(iv) The Tangible Exhibition of Music Culture (Beverley Diamond).
These Round Tables will be held together with institutional and program partners at the UA, including faculty and students from Music (ethnomusicology and composition), Art and Design, Drama, folkwaysAlive!, Humanities Computing, Libraries, the Arts Research Centre, Kule Institute for Advanced Study (KIAS), Computing Science, and UA Museums and Collections Services. Also invited are researchers from a related SSHRC Partnership Development grant, “Evolving the Botanic Garden: Digital Environmental and Cultural Interpretation at the Edmonton Devonian Botanic Garden’s new Islamic Garden” as well as staff from various branches of the Aga Khan Development Network (including Toronto’s new Aga Khan Museum). From the Edmonton community, those involved include curators and staff from institutions ostensibly centred on visual culture but also concerned about its relation to the auditory: Art Gallery of Alberta, Royal Alberta Museum, Latitude 53 Gallery, and Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village (a local living-history museum, where Co-applicant Ostashewski served as Executive Director before taking up her CRC at CBU in 2013). We have also invited members of dorkbot Edmonton (devoted to experi- mentation with electronic artworks), New Music Edmonton society, Film and Video Arts Society of Alberta, Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village, and SJI (St. John’s Institute), who are likewise concerned to share and learn about the ways in which sound can become an object for exhibition. Exhibiting Sound will also include a public performance event (an alternate practice to conventional gallery exhibition).
CSTM 2015 Pre-Conference Workshop
Cape Breton University, Sydney, Nova Scotia
June 15th-16th 2015
A two-day pre-conference workshop, “Curating Ethnomusicology,” will be held June 15-16th, addressing the role of ethnomusicology and its interlocutors in curatorial practices related to diverse musical practices. This interdisciplinary workshop will provide participants an opportunity to learn about, engage with and discuss a variety of ethnographic media and music curation tools, as well as creative models and issues related to music creation, translating field research, archives, and digital curation. A range of methods, tools and issues will be explored. Emergent methodologies and practices arising from work with Indigenous communities will also be a focus of the workshop. Jeff Todd Titon, Professor Emeritus at Brown University, will deliver a keynote address on his pioneering research in ecomusicology and collaborative media production in ethnomusicology. Beverley Diamond, Canada Research Chair in Ethnomusicology at Memorial University and President of the Society for Ethnomusicology, will provide a closing plenary.
This pre-conference workshop will lead to a proceedings of the same name, that translates keynotes, lectures and discussion into an appropriate publication (accompanied by multimedia resources) for ethnomusicologists, folklorists and archivists interested in engaging with their research through media, curated spaces and other materials.
Audio and video recordings of the presentations and discussions will be hosted online under Creative Commons licensing. As academic scholarship moves further toward online platforms for dissemination of knowledge, this website aims to provide students and early career researchers with the resources required to curate their own projects with text and multimedia.
The CSTM 2015 Pre-Conference Workshop is sponsored by the Canadian Centre for Ethnomusicology (UAlberta), The Collaborative Music and Movement (CoMM) Lab (CBU) and the Canada Research Chair (CRC) in Communities and Cultures.
The Canadian Centre for Ethnomusicology is an archive and research resource documenting musical and cultural traditions locally and internationally. The collection includes diverse instruments and more than 4000 titles in audio/video recordings. The Centre helps users understand how people use music to connect, express, and create community and identity. The Centre serves a wide range of students, researchers and community groups, collaborating with music communities, and bringing together scholars, students, musicians and others in performances, workshops, and recordings.
The CoMM Lab is a performance space and a multi-sited research lab with portable production equipment for developing ethnographic media. Its Director is Dr Marcia Ostashewski, Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Communities and Cultures (CBU). The CoMM Lab is funded by the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, and it works in concert with other facilities at CBU, including the Centre for Cape Breton Studies.
Exhibiting Sound 