[Nodar003] Three Years In Nodar Context-Specific Art Practices in Rural Portugal 315 pages full color catalogue Accompanying double CD with 20 sound compositions made in Nodar Price: 25 Euros + postage For orders, please contact info@binauralmedia.org The catalog includes essays, critical texts, field diaries, photographs and drawings of more than 40 artists who developed art [...]

PAIVASCAPES #1 – PAIVA RIVER SOUND FESTIVAL
Vila Nova de Paiva, Castro Daire, São Pedro do Sul, Arouca, Castelo de Paiva (PT)
March 4th – 8th, 2011

Retrospective exhibition, multimedia concerts, site-specific sound installations, conferences, video works screenings, sound perception activities and environmental walks.

“An innovative and itinerant festival where the sound and multimedia arts will interact with riverside landscapes and communities along the Paiva River, from its source to its mouth.

“Paivascapes #1 will include exhibitions and sound and multimedia concerts related to the Paiva River, by over twenty renowned artists from Europe, America and Asia.”

Resident Densities Exhibition by artists who participated at Binaural- MoKS exchange programme in 2008- 2010 Y- gallery, Tartu, Estonia 4th-  21st of August, 2010 You are cordially invited to exhibition opening at August 3rd, 5pm On the edges of Europe, two artist-in-residence centers Binaural/Nodar and MoKS have set themselves up, one in the Portuguese village [...]

Nodar: Collective Sound Installation Works by Maksims Shentelevs (LV), Aaron Ximm (US), Pali Meursault (FR) and John Grzinich (US) Estúdio Performas, Aveiro (PT) February, 17th – 27th 2010 This installation was developed at Nodar Artist Residency Center (Portugal) and reflects different esthetic and technical approaches towards Nodar’s sonic environment, ranging from pure field recordings, to [...]

Mosses and Lichens
Collective Exhibition of 6 Estonian Artists
Santa Clara Gallery, Coimbra (PT)
March, 28th – May, 28th 2009

The Santa Clara Gallery hosts between March 28th and May 28th 2009 a collective exhibition of 6 contemporary artists born or living in Estonia: John Grzinich, Evelyn Müürsepp, Toomas Thetloff, Anna Hints, Svetlana Bogomolova and Peeter Laurits.

This exhibition, which seeks to give visibility to the creative vitality of an artistic community located on the other side of Europe, is organized within the context of the cooperation agreement in place between two art centers: Nodar Artist Residency Center, a media arts residency in rural context managed by the Portuguese collective Binaural, and MoKS, Center for Art and Social Practice, located in the village of Mooste, Estonia.

Three of the mentioned artists (John Grzinich, Evelyn Müürsepp, Toomas Thetloff) were resident artists in Nodar during 2008, and the works they will present in the exhibition were conceived in interaction with the region’s rural context. The other three artists (Anna Hints, Svetlana Bogomolova e Peeter Laurits) will be resident artists in Nodar throughout 2009 and will present some emblematic previous works.

The exhibition includes three photographic series (“Charons Crossing” by Peeter Laurits, “Early Childhood Lessons” by Anna Hints and “Aliens and Gummy Bears” by Svetlana Bogomolova.) and three video creations (“Nodar Flowlines” by John Grzinich, “Kudum” by Evelyn Müürsepp and “A Film” by Toomas Thetloff).

The exhibition is curated by Olga Maia Seco, owner of Santa Clara Gallery, by Luís Costa, coordinator of Nodar Artist Residency Center and by Peeter Laurits, one of the most prominent Estonian visual artists.

Exhibition opening:

Saturday, March 28th at 7.00 p.m.
Galeria Santa Clara,
Rua António Augusto Gonçalves, 67
3040 241 Coimbra
Portugal
Tel. 239 441 657

Web:

http://www.galeriasantaclara.com
http://www.binauralmedia.org
http://www.moks.ee

Nodar Artist Residency Center and Teatro Viriato present:

Audio Installation
Works by Maksims Shentelevs, Aaron Ximm, Pali Meursault and John Grzinich
From 01 November to 14 December 08
1.00 p.m. – 7.00  p.m. and evenings in case of shows
Viriato Theatre’s Foyer

Viriato Teatro Municipal
Largo Mouzinho de Albuquerque
3511 901 Viseu
Portugal

This installation includes four works by sound artists Maksims Shentelevs (Latvia), Aaron Ximm (US), Pali Meursault (France) and John Grzinich (US / Estonia). All of them were developed at Nodar Artist Residency Center (Portugal), a rural media arts working and living space. These pieces reflect different esthetic and technical approaches towards Nodar’s sonic environment, ranging from pure field recordings, to field mixing, field improvisation and electroacoustic composition.

Nodar Artist Residency Center, run by the artistic collective Binauralmedia, has positioned itself in the forefront of the international reflection and praxis concerning the use of environmental sounds, having been hosted since 2006 around twenty of the most active sound artists.

Sound works:

Maksims Shentelevs: “Nodar Soundscape Mapping”

A sound project of field recording and mixing. Field mixing as a method opens up possibilities of learning space by inductive decomposing it into complement sonorous parts and selective recomposing of soundscape. Thus field mix resembles a cartographical approach to soundscape with the distinctive quality of intensive mapping expanded rather within determined territory than covering extensive vastness. In this case reconstructed soundscape represents map or a schema of a personal experience rather than display of objectivity. Despite its subjectivity, field mix as a documentation of research allows public access to hidden parts of soundscapes as a topographical map allows to navigate in expanse of terrain.

http://www.audiot.lv

Aaron Ximm: “As Paredes Têm Ouvidos” (“The Walls Have Ears”)

The project started from the perception of how difficult is for a foreign artist to access the sound from inside the houses, where at least half of the real life of Nodar happens, and also from the importance of the slate, the local stone, for building, walls and houses and the bridge and the terraces. Having these ideas in mind, Aaron Ximm developed a sound project that reflected on the interior / exterior dialectics. By putting microphones inside the Nodar walls, Aaron sought to capture how things would sound if we could be inside the walls, what they capture and keep, and not hear what gets away or is stopped by them.

http://www.quietamerican.org

Pali Meursault: “Walk[s]”

« Walk[s] » is a project of sound creation and also the research for a form of musical writing, through the meeting with an environment. This research used the techniques of field-recording, as well as improvisation with found objects, and mainly: walking exploration and encounters. All of this carried out with an extended idea of what an environment is, by questioning the sonorous specificities of space, as well as its geographical, temporal, social or political datum.

http://www.palimeursault.net

John Grzinich: “Nodar Flowlines”

A sonic survey of the landscape around Nodar through a series of site-specific recording sessions. In particular were compared and contrasted the geographic lines caused by the natural water flows towards the river at the bottom of the valley versus the man-made aqueduct that transverses the vertical lines and brings water into the village. Both of these phenomena actually rely on natural forces yet one was created for a specific purpose for the local inhabitants. The base sound material relies on the use of ambient sounds, found objects, (natural and man-made materials), and human intervention (improvisation and performance).

http://maaheli.ee/

Binaural announces a retrospective exhibition of 8 video works created under the Nodar Artist Residency Program. The exhibition, co-organized with Cine Clube de Viseu, happens between July, 11th and August, 31st at the Grão Vasco Museum, located in Viseu (40 km away from Nodar).

The videos will be presented in two modules, that reflect two possible aesthetic approaches to the place: “Nodar: Visions of Sound” presents 4 works that use audio field recordings from Nodar as a means of composing soundscapes; “Nodar: Visions of Space and People” presents 4 works that establish an expressive interaction with the local landscape or communities.

The Grão Vasco museum is a Portuguese state monument and is named after one of the most important Portuguese painters of the Renaissance, Vasco Fernandes (also known as the Grão Vasco), who lived and worked in Viseu. The museum, founded in 1916, occupies the building of the old Seminary, was built in the late 16th century in Mannerist style, and had its interior recently rebuilt by the famous Portuguese architect Eduardo Souto de Moura.

Exhibition program:

Nodar: Visions of Sound
2.00 p.m. – 4.00 p.m.
Videos by John Grzinich (USA/Estonia), Xesús Valle (Spain), Pali Meursault (France), and Martin Clarke / Alicja Rogalska (UK/Poland)

Nodar: Visions of Space and People
4.00 p.m. – 6 p.m.
Videos by Maile Colbert (USA), Suzanne Caines (Canada), Christine Niehoff (Germany) and Evelyn Müürsepp (Estonia)

To read the exhibition flyer (in Portuguese), click here.

John Grzinich produced a framework afield radio show based on some of his recordings made in Nodar, during an artist residency in April 08. This show was broadcasted live on Resonance FM in London on June 8th, 08.

/*framework*/ – phonography / field recording; contextual and decontextualized sound activity
presented by patrick mcginley

/*framework*/ broadcasts sundays on *resonance104.4fm* in London (UK) or worldwide on http://www.resonancefm.com from 10-11 p.m. GMT

To listen to the radio show:

John Grzinich: Nodar sounds @ Framework Play Now

The American sound artist John Grzinich stayed at Nodar Artist Residency Center last April 2008 where he developed a sound project (“Nodar Flowlines”) based on the interaction with local water flows, either the downhill streams that arrive in the Paiva river and the water channels that bring the water to the village. His work methodology was based on the following parameters:

1 – Choice of an appropriate location for each sound recording session;
2 – Set a mechanical device (wire threads, wine bottles, metal objects, wood objects, etc.) that in interaction with the water flow and the microphones would produce modified sound patterns;
3 – Sound recording of the interaction between soundscape + waterflow + device + microphone;
4 – Simultaneous video stills of each specific location, as a means of documenting the sound recording process;
5 – Edition of a DVD with the audiovisual result of the recordings made during the residency.

Here are some photos of John’s presence in Nodar along with a short movie clip of “Nodar Flowlines”:

[MEDIA=10]

A sound improvisation with bottles in contact with water:

John Grzinich - Bottle Phones Play Now

Binaural and Associação Cultural de Nodar present:

Media Arts. Tradition. Environment.

A multidisciplinary event in rural context, organized within the scope of the Nodar Artist Residency Program. An encounter between contemporary and traditional cultures. A dialogical reflection of Nodar geographical and socio-cultural contexts, directed to both rural and urban audiences.

Nodar, S. Pedro do Sul (Portugal) 19 April 08 – 3.00 p.m.

3.00 p.m. – Pedestrian Walk on the Banks of the river Paiva
5.30 p.m. – Three Audiovisual Projects by Artists from MoKS (Estonia): John Grzinich, Evelyn Müürsepp and Toomas Thetloff
7.00 p.m. – Traditional Songs by Two Local Collectives: Worksongs from Sequeiros and Challenging Singing (ancient form of Rap) from Parada de Ester
9.30 p.m. – Cinema: Three feature movies about rural life

Three artistic projects will be presented in the scope of a cooperation agreement in place with the Estonian organization MoKS:

John Grzinich | USA, Estonia
“Flowlines” | Sound and Video Art

A Sound Locations Project

My interest is to carry out a sonic and visual survey of the landscape around Nodar through a series of site-specific recording sessions. In particular I will attempt to compare and contrast the geographic lines caused by the natural water flows towards the river at the bottom of the valley versus the man-made aqueduct that transverses the vertical lines and brings water into the village. Both of these phenomena actually rely on natural forces yet one was created for a specific purpose for the local inhabitants.

John Grzinich is a mixed-media artist who has worked primarily with sound composition, performance and installation since the early 1990s. He has performed and worked on projects extensively throughout Europe and the US and has published a number of CDs of his compositions on such labels as Staalplaat (NL), Edition Sonoro (UK), SIRR (PT), CUT (CH), CMR (NZ), erewhon (BE), Intransitive Recordings (US), Orogenetics (US), Elevator Bath (US), Pale-Disc (JP), Digital Narcis (JP), and Cloud of Statics (CH). Currently John is a project and media lab coordinator for MoKS – Center for Art and Social Practice, an artist-run international residency center and project space in southeast Estonia.

http://maaheli.ee/

Evelyn Müürsepp | Estonia
“Pattern Research” | Drawing, painting, photography, installation

Recently a visit to Obinitsa (Setu village in Estonia by Russian border) twisted my mind. A local craftswoman showed me traditional patterns that ladies have done for hundreds of years and what they still keep creating on their clothes (embroidering, crocheting, knitting etc). There is one rule they have followed – one is never allowed to copy given pattern, but one always has to alter it somehow and must be able to show where the alteration was made. By coming to Nodar- I keep my eyes, senses and ears open. What can I find there? To research and collect patterns in and around Nodar. Drawing, painting, photographing, and recording them. These can be either patterns from nature or patterns from people’s activities (eg wallpaper patterns, stichings on fabrics). Work produced based on research: either animation, video, drawings, paintings or installation. It depends on the material I gather and in what I find.

Evelyn Müürsepp, is an Estonian visual artist. She holds a B.A in Fine Arts by the University of Tartu and is one of the coordinators of MoKS, an art residency center in Mooste. Evelyn collaborates with the sound artist John Grzinich in several projects combining sound and visual arts, and she has presented her solo works (mainly graphic art, painting, photography, site-specific installations) in galleries and festivals in several Baltic and northern Europe countries.

http://maaheli.ee/eku

Toomas Thetloff | Estonia
“Nodar Vs. NOGS” | Still photography video.

To perceive the fruitful characteristics of a subject, it is wise to examine it from many different perspectives. If we consider a space to be a vocabulary then we also need tools of common language to share the experience. For this reason I want to undergo the collective experience of Nodar through the eyes and ears of an ordinary villager. In a small community it is important for an organization to be aware of its impact on the community. One way to learn this is by examining the myths and stories people hold on them.

Toomas Thetloff is an Estonian interdisciplinary artist working in the fields of photography, sound, installation, performance and video. Since 2005 he has been running several performance-actions in cooperation with „Art Security” and EKSP. He is also a coordinator for an experimental project space „p.o.t.t.” and a member of MOKS.

http://www.fantomas.jabber.ee

Poster of the event (click on image to enlarge the poster’s size):