Anna Friz, “Resonant Subjectivity in Acousmatic and Radio Spaces”

Date
Fri April 29th 2016, 4:00 - 6:00pm
Event Sponsor
Material Imagination, Humanities Center, Department of Art & Art History, Department of English
Location
Terrace Room, English Department (Margaret Jacks Hall, Building 460)
Anna Friz, “Resonant Subjectivity in Acousmatic and Radio Spaces”

Consider transmission art as taking place in “radio space”: a continuous, available, fluctuating intersection of transmission ecologies, described by the reach of signals within overlapping fields of influence and the space of imagination such invisible territories enable. The extrasensory nature of radio space, taken together with acousmatic explorations of geological and political landscapes, allows for a productive slippage between real material signals and sounds, and imaginary spaces.  Resonance directs awareness to an experience of presence within immersive conditions in which vibrations take place, whether that be the literal physical environment of listening and transmission, or resonance within the cultural imaginary. Anna Friz will discuss several current solo and collaborative works which conceptually engage with resonance in critical physical and radiophonic spaces; drawing from research in the Icelandic wilderness, to manipulations of the atomic clock as broadcast worldwide on shortwave frequencies, to field recordings made in echoic urban spaces such as the Toronto subway system and the aquifer under the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.

Anna Friz is Assistant Professor of Film and Digital Media at UC Santa Cruz. Sound and radio artist and media studies scholar, she specializes in multi-channel transmission systems for installation, performance, and broadcast where where radio is the source, subject, and medium of the work.  She also creates dynamic, atmospheric compositions for theatre, dance, film, and solo performance equally able to reflect upon public media culture or to reveal expressive interior landscapes. Current research involves cross-disciplinary sonic practices which highlight unstable systems, open spaces to new interpretations and use, and which engage in perceptual feedback and affect between site and subject. Together with multi-media artist Konrad Korabiewski, Anna is undertaking research in Iceland, California, and Chile working with material transformations of sound and signal, in which the physical and electro-magnetic landscape of a place leaves audible traces, and in which, along with audio compositions for broadcast and installation, sculptural artifacts are produced from the process of recording and transducing sound. She also works with the Toronto-based collective Public Studio to create multi-channel film installations and sculptures which critically consider the social politics of landscape and infrastructure.