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Opening Date
Wed, May 13, 2015 7pm
“Spectrograms from a Video Archive” is a new media installation by VIVO artist-in-residence Leó Stefánsson.
Stefánsson has applied spectrography and sonification techniques to analyze a selection of video from the Crista Dahl Media Library and Archive. His work reveals recurring patterns and anomalies within this extensive video corpus by utilizing purposely crafted signal transmutations. Beyond the visual and acoustic results of these analyzes, “Spectrograms from a Video Archive” provides a unique synesthetic experience for those who engage with it. The material qualities of the work generate possibilities for embodied knowledge as they are absorbed by the audience within the physical space of the gallery.
Through unique dissections and recompositions of the Crista Dahl Media Library and Archive, “Spectrograms from a Video Archive” explores perceived boundaries between physics, the arts, archival practices, private ownership and collective, public knowledge. Stefansson also provides the basis for a larger inquiry into the creation of a cataloguing tool for video archives — one that identifies and categorizes video through inherent aesthetic and formal qualities while also recognizing inevitable, accumulative losses of information due to compression and preservation issues.
Leó Stefánsson graduated from the Iceland Academy of the Arts in 2011 and will soon complete the MAA Visual Arts program at Emily Carr University of Art + Design. In his work Leó explores the relationship between mind and matter and their common denominators; frequency and amplitude. Mental states can be distinguished and identified by extracting a list of frequencies contained in the brain’s electrical signal, and physical states (objects, things) can be described in the same terms by analyzing the acoustic space. Leó uses a range of programming tools and electronics to construct systems of translation between consciousness, matter, light and sound.
Scientist by day, writer by night, Dominic Walliman got his PhD in quantum device physics from the University of Birmingham in the UK. He now lives in Vancouver working at the futuristic technology company D-Wave, where he programs quantum computers and makes films. In his spare time he writes science books for kids featuring **Professor Astro Cat**.
