I/O Media
I/O Media is a collaborative collective of sound and video artists exploring real-time performance in an improvised construction that is reminiscent of 1960's free-jazz.
The fluctuating group of participants utilize a wide variety of instruments to make their audio/video compositions, including homemade hardware, customized software applications, analog synthesizers, samplers, and video mixers. Members of the group also experiment with performance techniques such as live sampling, real-time sample manipulation, and audio/video interaction.
Upcoming Performances
2006-2007 performance schedule coming soon
Past Performances
Friday, April 21st, 2006 @ 9:00 PM InterAccess, 9 Ossington Avenue, Toronto (Queen & Ossington).
Friday, March 10th, 2006 @ 9:00 PM InterAccess, 9 Ossington Avenue, Toronto (Queen & Ossington).
Friday, February 17th, 2006 @ 9:00 PM InterAccess, 9 Ossington Avenue, Toronto (Queen & Ossington).
Friday, January 7th, 2006 @ 8:30 PM InterAccess, 9 Ossington Avenue, Toronto (Queen & Ossington).
Tuesday, January 31st, 2006 @ 9:30 PM The Ambient Ping, 794 Bathurst Street, Toronto (Bathurst & Bloor).
Saturday, January 7th, 2006 @ 8:30 PM InterAccess, 9 Ossington Avenue, Toronto (Queen & Ossington).
Friday, February 17th, 2006 @ 8:30 PM InterAccess, 9 Ossington Avenue, Toronto (Queen & Ossington).
Participants
Ben Bogart
Ben is an installation artist, visual performer and programmer. He works in an open-source context and makes the software he develops available under the GPL. His installations create content live and on the fly in response to the work's sensed environment. These works may involve interaction from the audience, or the work may simply respond to the context in which it exists. Ben is a structural thinker and imagines his work as the production of media architectures. Physical modelling, chaos, feedback systems and evolutionary algorithms have been used to inform and engage in his creative process. Ben is currently developing the pixelTANGO visual performance software for the Société des arts technologiques.
Rob Cruickshank
Len Goins
Dafydd Hughes
Dafydd Hughes studied Jazz piano at Mohawk College and the University of Toronto. He graduated in 1999 with a degree in performance with a minor in composition. Over the following years he worked extensively as a freelance performer, composer and arranger in Toronto's Jazz, Popular and Improvised music scenes.
While Dafydd retains his deep love and respect for the traditions of music, in recent years he has been exploring new directions in musical creativity. Heavily influenced by musicians such as Brad Mehldau, Philip Jeck, Bill Frisell and Aphex Twin, he has been experimenting with the fusion of acoustic and electronic musical elements, using turntables, computers and synthesizers, as well as computer programming languages and environments such as Csound and Pure Data. The resulting music attempts to synthesize genres as seemingly disparate as church music, experimental improvisation, mainstream jazz, contemporary concert music and rock and roll.
Dafydd's interests in experimentation and creativity have led to collaborations with a variety of artists, including vocalist Leah State and turntablist/multi-instrumentalist Mike Staford (Pale & Friendless), as well as several projects such as Methuselah, the Deborahs, Retainer and Nightingale.
Rob King
Rob King is an artist, researcher and student in the Communication and Culture masters program at Ryerson. His works have focused on the social interactions between people in an online environment, emergent systems, and digital play.
Mantissa (Jeremy Rotsztain)
Jeremy Rotsztain is a Toronto-based artist/programmer who works with responsive and evolving media systems. His interests span from audio-visual performance to interactive architecture, and "video painting" installations. In 2003, he created BIXSimulator, a realtime 3D simulator for the award winning BIX media facade in Graz, Austria (www.bix.at). He has also worked closely with a number of theatre and dance companies to create media-based components for their productions. Jeremy has performed and exhibited his work in Berlin, Frankfurt, Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal and New York City.
David McCallum
David McCallum is currently the Associate Editor for Musicworks Magazine . He recently completed an M.Sc. in Art and Technology at Chalmers University of Technology in Göteborg, Sweden, where his thesis was the Warbike, a mobile sonification of WiFi networks.
His work focuses on improvised laptop music, DIY electronics, and silliness wherever possible. Groups and projects have included the Live Electroacoustic Research Kitchen, Flexing Swine, and the United Empire Loyalist Orchestra musical improv groups; The Attack of the PANTs DIY electronics outreach workshop; and You Say Potatoe, I Say Potato: a study in the sonic properties of genetically modified potatoes.
VJ Nokami
Eric Filion aka vj Nokami, graphic designer is in the visual media and communications environnement. He participates in several visual artistic performances as media designer. Eric was part of the Neoist movement, and collaborates regularly in international artistic visual presentations in Europe (AVITUK, Optronica, Arts Electronica), USA (SHARE, AVITRetreat, Center art project) in Asia (Mobile road cinema thailand, Thailand New media Arts) and in Canada (Momentfactory, SAT, Champs Libre).
His artistic approach is clearly influenced by his numerous travels on several continents. The canvas of the images he expresses tend to reflect human emotions based on cultural values where ancient traditions meet with the present, to clash and become in harmony in the now.
Michael Trommer
Michael Trommer is a Toronto based producer and visual artist who has recorded for such top electronic music labels as Transmat, Wave, Interchill, Nice'N'Smooth, Dragonfly, Ultra-Vista, Instinct, Impact, Liquid Sound Design and Dakini, both under his own name as well as aliases such as 'sans-soleil, 'Hydraulic',and 'Manitou2'.
Always forward thinking, Michael also creates gallery-based audio installation work. 2005 saw him creating a site-specific sound installation for Australia's 'Liquid Architecture' exhibition. Another of his recent works was a net-based audio-manipulation project which was part of the 'from 0 to 1 and back again' exhibition at Kunsthalle Schirn in Frankfurt, becoming the subject of many radio specials on both Deutsche Welle and Hessischer Rundfunk. His work was recently nominated for the Prix Italia for experimental music. His field-recording based material has been featured on London's Resonance FM, www.vagueterrain.net, www.insine.net, and www.stasisfield.com.
As a live show, sans soleil was featured at the 2003 Movement Festival (a.k.a.DEMF) in support of Michael's full-length album on Detroit's legendary Transmat label.
2005 promises to be a busy year release-wise, with 12-inches appearing on Wave Music (NY) and Truffle (Toronto). Net-label www.phoniq.net will also feature a double-release of recent sans soleil live sets, and some field-recording-based pieces will be featured in 'Incidental Amplifications' , part of Australia's 'liquid architecture' exhibition. In 2006, Michael will be creating an audio installation at the State Gallery in St. Petersburg, Russia, based on Mies van der Rohe's Toronto Dominion Centre.
As a live show, sans soleil was featured at the 2003 Movement Festival (a.k.a.DEMF) in support of Michael's full-length album on Detroit's legendary Transmat label. The tracks featured on phoniq were all recorded during live shows in late 2003 and early 2004.
Neil Wiernik
Montreal ex-pat Neil Wiernik who currently calls Toronto his home, began composing electronic music in 1988 with explorations in audio art and experimental music. Neil's interest in sound and technology has lead him to a continued questioning and refinement of audio tools and modes of production resulting in experimentation with altered instruments, modified devices, and custom software environments. Neil's music could be described as warm, atmospheric, and cinematic electronic music. The sound design of naw is firmly grounded in the rich traditions of dub studio culture but can also be weighed alongside formal contemporary composition. His music was recently described in "The Wire" as having "...the kind of sharpness and clarity usually lost amid the murk and decay of clicks and cuts and digital delays." Neil has released music on various labels including: Noise Factory, Pertin_nce, Clevermusic, Piehead, and A/S Systems.
In addition to his recording career Neil is an accomplished curator and digital media specialist, he has shown work in a variety of non-traditional spaces since the late 1980's and his projects have included works in radio, print, and internet diffusion as well as other non-gallery spaces including derelict buildings, billboards, pirate airwaves, and public space. Neil has presented projects at the Finland Contemporary Museum, ISEA, Subtle Technologies Conference, La SAT, The Medusa Complex, Mutek Festival and Gallery Optica. Neil was a co-founder of the Toronto and Montreal based electronic music promotion outfit clonk, the Canadian electronic music portal phoniq, and currently co-curates vagueterrain.net - an online digital arts quarterly.
