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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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

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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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Extraction

“We're constantly trying to weigh our own wants and complicities against individual sacrifices and the perceived "difference" our actions can make. So what are we left with?”

Sophia Steinert-Evoy, Sarah Boothroyd

November 13, 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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Singing on the Line

Aliya Pabani

August 9, 2019

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Thing-Like

Jon Tjhia

August 9, 2019

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Hamina, Finland

Kaija Siirala

August 9, 2019

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Transport Station

Cheldon Paterson

August 9, 2019

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Protect Me From My Protector

Chandra Melting Tallow

August 9, 2019

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Isn't it lovely?

Phoebe Wang

August 9, 2019

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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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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

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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

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To Slow Down Time

“I began thinking about how we engage in certain processes to slow down time.  If you are tying a rope or laying out a fish net on the ice in the winter, the elders tell you to go slow.”

Janna Graham

February 1, 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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Snooze

“I wanted to explore that time in the morning when I’m half-awake and half-asleep... It’s a time where I feel without rationality or expectation or judgment.”

TK Matunda

May 4, 2018

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Refuse: military.01

“What alternatives to forced conscription are presented to these children? Schools which allow access to the Israeli military propaganda merchants, rarely, if ever, allow alternative voices to reach the children. ”

Meira Asher

June 1, 2018

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And If I Live A Thousand Lives I Hope to Remember One

“Over the course of several years of using the same cassette player and the same cassette tape, the record of the recording turns out to be this kind of palimpsested recording; multiple layers of different performances over several years.”

Bonnie Jones

April 6, 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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06-32-24

“The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what will happen next.”

Craig Desson

December 15, 2017

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Lazaro's Dream

“Lazaro's Dream is an audio walk that mixes history and fiction into a surreal dreamscape and guides listeners through the Danforth area in Toronto, Ontario. Press play and enter a character's dream.”

Angela Shackel

August 11, 2017

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Migraines & Tsunamis

“I think anyone who experiences some kind of internal, invisible but frequently, reoccurring pain ends up using some kind of external imagery or analogy in order to both explain to others, but also to yourself, what exactly the pain is.”

Adriene Lilly

September 8, 2017

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Listen to more sounds from the 2017 podcast season here →

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