Solo concert with a century-old pipe organ prepared robotically to sound turbulent patterning
Organism, designed by Navid Navab and Garnet Willis, is an investigative platform for stochastic co-patterning via turbulent processes of formation. In this solo performance centered around a robotically-prepared pipe organ, Navab improvises with Organism to explore ways in which its turbulent thresholds manifest unstable timbres.
A Casavant pipe organ built in 1910 is rescued from the indifference of gentrification at a heritage site in Montreal and brought back to life. Organism destabilizes the socio-historical tonality of the pipe organ to liberate its turbulent materiality, robotically unleashing timbres unheard after centuries of sonic repression.
During the concert, shifting metastable states allow for energetic thresholds to rapidly fall into and out of compatibility with one another. With no digital sounds, Navab aerodynamically shapes the resulting ecology of interdependent timbres into emergent realms, traversing microsonic polyrhythms, post-rock overspill and swampy soundscapes.
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Organism: In Turbulence, Photo: Elisa Sibert
Organism: In Turbulence, Photo: Navid Navab
Bio
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Photo: GRMS 2023 Elisa SibertNavid Navab
IR/CA
Navid Navab is recognized as a media-alchemist and anti-disciplinary composer with a background in biomedical sonification. Navab’s work illuminates the intersection of investigative arts, media archeology, and philosophical biology and is characterized by sculpturous engagement with transductive structures of liveliness. His recent creations orchestrate sensory attunement to the dissipative formations and uncanny forms of order that flow from machinic engagement with excitable dynamics of matter.
Credits
Concept, Composition, Performance, Sculpture, Programming, Design, Electronics: Navid Navab
Engineering, Design, Sculpture, Electronics: Garnet Willis
Research Collaborations: SAT Montréal with Québec Ministry of Innovation, Topological Media Lab with Fonds de Recherche du Québec
Assistance: Jean-Michaël Celerier, Camille Desjardins, Philippe Vandal, Pipo Pierre-Louis
Residency: Recto-Verso, Hexagram
Support: Canada Council for the Arts, Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, Conseil des arts de Montréal, Le Salon Richmond 1861