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.
Listen
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
Listen →
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
Listen →
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.
Listen
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
Listen →
Missed Connections
“What happens when you're not quite getting it?”
Natalie Kestecher, Mike Williams, Yardain Amron
August 14, 2020
Listen →
Inner Geographies
“We are wrong to look for uniformity and objectivity. We have all mapped associations to what our subjective experience is like.”
Axel Kacoutié, Kamikaze Jones
September 11, 2020
Listen →
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.
Listen
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.
Listen
Point Pelee
“While making this piece, I thought a lot about where my urge to recreate this moment at Point Pelee really came from. What evolutionary need does it serve?”
Ayaz Kamani
June 21, 2019
Listen →
Quiet Contemplations
“The relativity of quiet in relation to noise intrigued me and I wanted to explore the relativity of quiet in relation to other quiet moments.”
Ayesha Barmania
March 15, 2019
Listen →
I/a Recording
“What happens when the experience you want to record is another person? How does this interrupt the relationship, or improve it?”
Aidan McMahon
May 10, 2019
Listen →
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.
Listen
Black Beach
“As I worked with the tape of the waves, I began to see what I had been missing in own conflicted relationship with masculinity.”
Chris Connolly
July 13, 2018
Listen →
Dr Faustus Begs to Come
“I really just want to know what love is, and why it treats me so poorly sometimes.”
Dylan Gauche
July 27, 2018
Listen →
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
Listen →
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?
Listen
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
Listen →
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
Listen →
Is this an Exercise?
“Back in the 80's I sneak-watched a TV movie with highly disturbing content (about nuclear war) and it's been passively haunting me ever since.”
Julie Shapiro
October 20, 2017
Listen →