Have you ever wanted to tell your story to an audience larger than just your friends and family? Hear your voice on the radio? Or share your creative interests and passion with the world?
On Oct. 19, you can. Come and find out how it feels. Become a performer —or enjoy watching and listening to your peers as they perform with the professionals.
The second event in this fall’s Arts and Humanities Colloquium series is devoted to a highly interactive exploration of how today’s media can shape our creative practice. Humans have always told and performed stories and drawn images. But with new lo-fi and hi-fi technologies, both engaged storytelling and theatrical performance have changed. Building on traditional spoken voice delivery, this event will explore graffiti, audio art, wireless video techniques, live web coding, and crowd sourcing over social networks.
And you can participate in this exploration. Bring your cell or smartphone, your iPad or laptop! Or simply bring yourself.
Two faculty members of VIU’s Media Studies Department, Marian van der Zon and Robin Davies, will create a framework, or protocols, for everyone to work with. van der Zon is a media activist, sound artist, and musician with her own band and years of experience in live performance and radio, including pirate radio. As a scholar, she publishes in print and on line. Davies is a musician (double bass) and expert in sound technology with a long list of recordings to his name; he specializes in software development for musical performance.
van der Zon and Davies will be joined by a group of six fellow participants with an impressive range of artistic interests and experience.
Well known to the VIU community is Honourary Research Associate Dr. Marshall Soules, former Chair of the Media Studies Department, who is currently working on two books on persuasion, propaganda, and media.
Five students will collaborate with the three faculty members: certified chef and Graphic Design major Darrell Bell, who has a special interest in web design and packaging design; photographer and Digital Media student Denisa Krausova, with a background in documentary photography and live-television streaming, not least for not-for profit organizations in the Czech Republic; multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter Zoe Lauckner, who is in her final year in Creative Writing and Digital Media and already an award-winning journalist; videographer, musician, and Digital Media major Brent Pretty, whose main interest is the interface between media technology and politics; and Digital Media student Niel Scobie, whose years of experience as a radio, club DJ, and music producer have earned him several artistic and scholarly awards, including two nominations for a Juno.
Through the collaboration of this group of eight, content will begin to flow through the media technologies the group members provide. Then it is the audience’s turn to play. As with the Internet, all of us can break the performer/audience divide, become involved in the presentation itself, and create innovative and unanticipated results. Be prepared to be surprised!
On Friday, Oct. 19, “Lo-fi & Wi-fi: Conjuring Creativity and Performance,” will take
place—like all presentations in the Arts and Humanities Colloquium series—from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. in the Malaspina Theatre on VIU’s Nanaimo Campus. Everyone is welcome to attend and join the conversation. Refreshments will be provided, and there is no admission charge.
The Fall 2012 Arts and Humanities Colloquium series will continue on Nov. 16, when historian Dr. Stephen Davies, Director of the Canadian Letters and Images Project, will speak on “Voices Through Time: Letters of the Great War.”
For more information, contact Dr. Daniel Burgoyne at 250- 753-3245, local 2126 or <Daniel.Burgoyne@viu.ca>