Instant Places: Breathing Room

Instant Places, Breathing Room, 2019, still from intermedia installation. Courtesy of the artists.

Thames Art Gallery

Instant Places: Breathing Room

March 15 – May 5, 2019

Opening Reception: Friday, March 15, 7:00 – 10:00 pm
Artists in Residence: May 1 – 5, Studio Two
Artist Talk: Thursday, May 2, 7:00 – 9:00 pm
Field Art Workshop: Saturday, May 4, 1:00 – 3:00 pm

Ian Birse and Laura Kavanaugh (AKA Instant Places) use performances, generative installations, and telematic networks to create instant places of imagination and connection. The artists design software instruments that generate infinitely varied audio-visual works that transform host galleries into immersive environments. Their collective process-driven productions focus on performative and sound improvisation using experimental technologies where randomization is integral to the outcomes.

The new intermedia installation, Breathing Room is a meditation on complementarity: from the inflow and outflow of breath, to reflections on relationships between shorelines and advancing/retreating ocean waves. Through multiple projections and a multi-speaker 3D audio field, the artists explain: “the generative machine creates a world in which encounters between frequencies of sound and spectra of colour create vibrations of difference, revealing a ‘third presence’ that floats between sound and vision.” Computers continually remake the auditory and visually mutative variations, guaranteeing that visitors will not see or hear the same thing twice.

As a collaborative team, Ian Birse and Laura Kavanaugh have travelled the world creating site-specific and performance works for festivals, venues and art galleries throughout the UK/Europe, Australia, Japan, in the USA/South America and from coast to coast in Canada.

Documents from recent projects and an extensive archive of works dating to 2001 can be found on their website: http://instantplaces.ca/

Instant Places, Breathing Room, 2019, still from intermedia installation. Courtesy of the artists.

Thames Art Gallery’s exhibitions and programs are generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Municipality of Chatham-Kent.

Thames Art Gallery is located at 74 William Street North, Chatham, N7M 4L4 and is open Wednesday to Friday 1:00 – 7:00 pm and Saturday and Sunday from 11:00 am – 4:00 pm. Visit the website http://www.chatham-kent.ca/ThamesArtGallery for more information. Admission is always free.

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Contact: Pamela Edmonds, Curator, pamelae@chatham-kent.ca or (226) 312-2023 x 4410