Aftergrain
March 23rd - April 7th, 2018
Aftergrain, (2018)- If the notion of afterglow refers to the light or luminescence left in the sky after sundown, “aftergrain" could be understood as the sonic and visual noise that remains when most other frequencies are subtracted. In sound, signal and image, Aftergrain explores the expressive environment of low fidelity, from interference-prone terrestrial radio beacons to sonic distillations of field recordings to visual projections based on monochrome photography of electrical and communications infrastructure taken in circumstances of low visibility.
Aftergrain is an installation and performance in which the former grain silo is activated by sounds and signals inside the vast cylinders and saturating the spaces below. Anna Friz creates a sonic geography of an island using the full space of SITE gallery: morse code beacons mark the perimeter while micro-radio transmissions criss-cross the interlocking spaces and mix with sounds of weather, water, and electrical fields, accompanied by multiple projections of monochrome photomontage from fieldwork in northern and eastern Iceland over a period of three years. On Thursday March 22, 2018, Friz activated the installation through live performance using field recordings and electronics.
Anna Friz is a sound and media artist who specializes in multichannel radio transmission systems for installation, performance, and broadcast. Since 1998, she has created and presented new audio art and radiophonic works internationally in which radio is often the source, subject, and medium of the work. She also composes atmospheric sound works and sonic installations for theater, dance, film, and solo performance that reflect upon public media culture, political landscapes and infrastructure, time perception, the intimacy of signal space, and speculative fictions. Friz is Assistant Professor in the Film and Digital Media Department of the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Presentations of her work in the past year include Ars Electronica Big Concert Night (Linz, Austria), the Museum of Arts and Design (New York), Tsonami Festival de Arte Sonoro (Valparaíso and Santiago, Chile), the City Art Gallery of Ljubljana (Ljubljana, Slovenia), Il suono in mostra sound art festival (Udine, Italy), Technosonics XVII: Transmission festival (University of Virginia), Radiophrenia (Glasgow, Scotland), Ausland (Berlin), and Kunstradio on the cultural channel of Austria's national radio. She was one of the core curatorial team for Radio Revolten International Radio Art Festival in Halle (Saale) Germany in 2016, and is currently a steering member of Skálar | Sound Art | Experimental Music based in East Iceland. Anna is also an itinerant collaborator of the Toronto-based art collective Public Studio, which together recently completed a City of Toronto commission for One Hundred and Twenty Mirrors, a permanent sound installation in the Lee Lifeson Arts Park in Willowdale, Toronto.
Anna Friz is presented at SITE Gallery in collaboration with the Kathrine G. McGovern College of the Arts and the Desert Unit for Speculative Territories. www.desertunit.org.
Anna Friz acknowledges the Canada Council for the Arts for providing project research and development funding.
Explore Anna Friz:
https://soundcloud.com/skalarsound/anna-friz-air-can-break-your-heart-excerpt
