Team/L’équipe
Dr. Andra McCartney
Principal Investigator
Communication Studies
Concordia University
Andra McCartney was an associate professor of Communication Studies at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada until 2015. She is is a soundwalk artist who gives public walks and makes interactive installations with Toronto artist Prof. Don Sinclair. Her In and Out of the Sound Studio research project investigated the working practices of soundmakers from a range of different professions, focusing particularly on the work of prominent women soundmakers. McCartney has published writings widely in journals and edited collections, including Organised Sound, Soundscape; Musicworks etc. She also produced recordings, performances and radio works. Her works can be heard on the internet, on CBC radio, and on CDs produced by Deep Wireless, Terra Nova, and the Canadian Electroacoustic Community.
David Paquette
Research Assistant
PhD candidate, Communication Studies
Website: sharawadji.org
David’s doctoral thesis rethinks the complexity of listening through a study of the interaction between all senses and a consideration for the sense of place inherent to sound perception. His research interests include acoustic ecology, sense studies, acoustic communication, methodology, and music.
David Madden
Research Assistant
PhD candidate, Communication Studies
Website: David Madden
David Madden (aka Miraclebaby and sometimes Rave Dave) is an electronic music producer, sound designer and video-maker. Along with independently producing and releasing his music and videos, Miraclebaby’s compositions have been commissioned for contemporary dance works, research projects and videos.
Caitlin Loney
Research Assistant
MA student, Media Studies
Her research interests include the history of recording techniques, creative studio practice, and gender and sound. She is an analog recordist, video artist and band member of Freelove Fenner.
Collaborators
Kok Siew-Wai is a video-sound artist and a performer. She has exhibited widely in New York State, Malaysia, China and Europe. Siew-Wai has participated in numerous media art festivals, including, 2004 Improvised and Otherwise Festival (NYC), 25hrs International Video art Show (Spain), Science and Art International Digital Art Education Proseminar & Digital Art Exhibition (China) and more. She has received grants from New York Foundation for the Arts and The Arts Council in Buffalo. She was granted the Special Jury Commendation by the Thayer Fellowship In the Arts (SUNY) during her graduate study at Alfred University. Siew-Wai’s sound works are included in the compilation album Out of Nowhere – Electronic Music from the Upstate New York Fringe (2003), produced by Aaron Miller & the Big Orbit Gallery (Buffalo, NY). Siew-Wai gained her BA in Media Studies at University of Buffalo and her MFA in Electronic Integrated Arts at Alfred University. Wearing many hats as an artist, Siew-Wai is also an independent curator who has produced several media art events in Upstate New York and in Malaysia with the support of local art organizations and educational institutions.
Kathy Kennedy is a sound artist with a background in classical singing. Her art practice generally involves the voice and issues of interface with technology, often using telephony or radio. She is also involved in community art, and is a founder of the digital media center for women in Canada, Studio XX, as well as the innovative choral group for women Choeur Maha. Her large scale sonic installation/performances for up to 100 singers and radio, called “sonic choreographies,” have been performed internationally including the inauguration of the Vancouver New Public Library and at the Lincoln Center’s Out of Doors Series.
Her solo performances include a high level of improvisation over lush soundtracks of painstakingly mixed vocals and other sounds to create an immersive world of different voices.
Professor Don Sinclair has taught new media in the Faculty of Fine Arts at York University since 1990. Sinclair’s interests and creative research encompass physical computing, wearable computing, interactive sound art, laptop performance, web art, database art, interactive dance, video projection, cycling art, sustainability, green architecture and choral singing.
The exploration of the sonic world is important to many of his works, and he has collaborated with numerous sound-based artists to create audience-focused interfaces. They include Andra McCartney (Journées Sonores, Canal de Lachine, interaction / rétroaction / feedback, Toronto-Norwood-Toronto); Chantal Dumas/Christian Calon (around radio roadmovies); and Darren Copeland/New Adventures in Sound Art.
Victoria Fenner is a radio producer and environmental sound artist living in Hamilton Ontario, Canada.Victoria’s sound art works are informed and influenced by the Canadian school of soundscape composition which grew out the pioneering work in acoustic ecology by the eminent composer R. Murray Schafer. She is a past president and board member of the Canadian Association for Acoustic Ecology, a coalition of Canadian individuals and institutions who are concerned about the sound of our communities. This group includes many artists who strive to listen to the soundscape as musical composition and use environmental sound as the basis of their artistic works.In addition to her career as a sound artist and documentarian, Victoria has worked in all aspects of radio for over twenty years. She has worked as a producer, journalist, documentarian and sound engineer for CBC Radio and also at community stations in Canada and the United States. In recent years, she has focused increasingly on teaching workshops in sound and community art making, and helping people share their creations on radio and the internet through social media.
Over the last fifteen years contemporary jazz musician Rainer Wiens has developed one of the most original guitar styles. He has composed music for dance, theater, television, and film. During the ’80s Wiens appeared in performances across Canada and in Europe with his jazz group, Silk Stockings. Along with Tom Walsh, he was a founding member of the group N.O.M.A., and he also started Sound Image Theater. Rainer Wiens works closely with Malcolm Goldstein, John Heward, and Frank Lozano, and he has released a compact disc, Bonunca Dream Music.
Hildegard Westerkamp is a composer, radio artist and sound ecologist. She presents soundscape workshops and lectures internationally, performs and writes.
Hildegard Westerkamp was born in Osnabrück, Germany in 1946 and emigrated to Canada in 1968. After completing her music studies in the early seventies Westerkamp joined the World Soundscape Project under the direction of Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer at Simon Fraser University (SFU) in Vancouver. The founding of Vancouver Co-operative Radio during the same time provided an invaluable opportunity to record, experiment with and broadcast the soundscape.
Malcolm Goldstein, as composer/violinist, has been active in the presentation of new music and dance since the early 1960’s, in New York City, as co-founder of the Tone Roads Ensemble and as participant in the Judson Dance Theater, the New York Festival of the Avant Garde and the Experimental Intermedia Foundation. Since then he has toured extensively throughout North America and Europe, presenting solo violin concerts and appearing as soloist with new music and dance ensembles. His “soundings” improvisations have received international acclaim for having “reinventing violin playing”, extending the range of tonal/sound-texture possibilities of the instrument and revealing new dimensions of expressivity. Since the mid-1960’s Goldstein has integrated structured improvisation elements into his compositions, exploring the rich sound-textures of new performance techniques within a variety of instrumental and vocal frameworks. Goldstein has written extensively on improvisation and is the author of the book: Sounding the Full Circle.
Jean-Paul Thibaud is the research director at the CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientific) in the Cresson Laboratory (Centre de Recherche Sonore et l’Environmnet Urbain). The laboratory is located at the School of Architecture in Grenoble. Thibaud’s main research areas concern ‘socialbility in public spaces,’ ‘theories of action and situated perception,’ and ‘urban ambiences.’
Soundwalking Interactions 