Sounds
Feel the Sky
May – June 2020
Feel the Sky is a duo of sound works in conversation produced by Jaye Kranz (Australia) and Myra Al-Rahim (USA). Both extend from the same starting point – a recording from 1992 made by a news reporter unfamiliar with field recording, but entranced by a chance encounter with trumpeter swans on an icy lake.
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Are We There Yet?
““Are We There Yet?” is a strange, recurring road-trip towards home. A home we can never really find or retrieve; while at the same time, being a home we have already found: the one that is already ours.”
Jaye Kranz
May 29, 2020
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The Burdened Land
“I wanted the work to have a distinct feeling of space and scale. I sought to explore the thematic interconnectedness between the migratory paths of birds and the sprawling supply chains of capital.”
Bassel Al-Rahim
May 29, 2020
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2020 Season
2020 was Constellations’ most ambitious season to date, and featured work from over twenty artists, mostly made for our podcast feed. The predominant new element of this season was gathering multiple works together in single episodes. In episodes like Missed Connections and Inner Geographies, and Extraction, the pieces trip over each other, harmonize, and build upon each other, either or both thematically and structurally.
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Accumulation Over Time
“I want to understand … what is this accumulation? Like, why is why is this? How is this? What is this?”
Adriene Lilly
August 7, 2020
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Archive
“To re-encounter an archive changes it; we bring our present judgements, preconceptions, understandings, contexts to this artifact from the past, and therefore instantly shift its meaning.”
Erica Huang, Jenn Stanley
October 9, 2020
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Voicing
“By placing these sounds in conversation, potential relationships between sounds, objects, and ideas expand through and in speculative dialogues and environments.”
Mara Schwerdtfeger
September 18, 2020
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Listen to more sounds from the 2020 podcast season here →
Resonant Bodies
August – December 2020
Resonant Bodies is an online exhibition about the sonic reflections between bodies and their environments, and an extension of a physical exhibition which took place at the Toronto Media Arts Centre from August 11-17th, 2019. The online exhibition consists of 6 new Constellations episodes, featuring new works by participating artists Aliya Pabani, Chandra Melting Tallow, Cheldon Paterson, Kaija Siirala, Jon Tjhia, and Phoebe Wang.
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2019 Season
By 2019, Constellations had established itself in a weird little corner of the audio world, leading to more artists and producers making original works for us. Our third season is comprised primarily of new works made especially for Constellations. Working alongside these artists in a curatorial capacity, we continued to craft our in-between space: not quite narrative audio, not quite sound art, but solidly somewhere that people wanted to be with us.
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EMDR
“Whenever I was alone, I always heard this internal monologue that was trying to take over.”
James T. Green
April 24, 2019
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H:O:M:E
“I explored themes of death, displacement, collective memory, and personal stories.”
Amias Hanley
June 7, 2019
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Despojo (Dispossession)
“DESPOJO is a sound work which only uses sounds from an old vinyl record — clips and claps. I cut the big sound loop into fragments, creating small samples.”
Franco Falistoco Araya
February 15, 2019
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Listen to more sounds from the 2019 podcast season here →
2018 Season
Our second year of Constellations contains some of our most inspired original pieces, alongside an excellent back catalogue of established sound artists’ works. We started reaching out to artists around the world to gain insights into sound and audio works outside of North America, and to cultivate a community of artists listening to each other across borders and sonic traditions.
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Air Can Break Your Heart
“The piece is about exploring the element of air and thinking about how communication and connection are longed for but sometimes missed or sometimes impossible.”
Anna Friz
March 23, 2018
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Mi Vida
“I decided to create a work using car sounds to protest the abuse of the automobile in Mexican cities, and as a criticism of its status as a cult object. ”
Israel Martínez
November 9, 2018
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In Search of the Miraculous (Bas Jan Ader)
“I think of this piece as a painting and artist manifesto of sorts; it's about searching for something that you may never find, and the compulsion to make.”
Phoebe Wang
April 20, 2018
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Listen to more sounds from the 2018 podcast season here →
2017 Season
Constellations began as a small collaboration between us, Michelle Macklem and Jess Shane, in the first half of 2017. We were working at a public broadcaster at the time, surrounded by tight deadlines and fast paced workflows. There was intense pressure to keep up with podcasting and radio culture in our industry, and even though we loved working with sound, we were left wondering, were we really listening?
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Blinking
“The soundscapes I create can be considered fragments of impressionistic realities, sometimes playful streams of consciousness punctuated by sonic incursions and intrusions.”
La Cosa Preziosa
August 25, 2017
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Broken English
“I wanted to express how difficult language can be; difficult to convey real and authentic meaning, and difficult when you are in a different territory and you don't speak the language of that territory.”
Janet Rogers
November 17, 2017
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Coarse and Janky
“Art soothes pain. Art is like good bread.”
Aleksandra Bragoszewska
December 27, 2017
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