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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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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The Tortoise Carries its House on its Back
“Children of immigrants often separately compartmentalize these ideas. Home is a place we live but heritage is a space we occupy.”
Arif Mirbaghi
June 12, 2020
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Basic Ingredients
“What do eyes sound like? Does a spider’s abdomen sound furry or crunchy? How much sameness do I share with a cardinal? A mouse? Or the mold in the corners of my bathroom?... I should clean my bathroom?”
Clare Dolan, Nishant Singh, Kim Hiorthøy
August 28, 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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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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And The Sea Gave Up the Dead Which Were In It
“I wanted to explore the idea of broken sounds. I certainly feel as if many of the clips I used sustained a good amount of abuse throughout the process of creating the piece.”
Bassel Al-Rahim
March 29, 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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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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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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Iota Mikro
“Curious about a specific sonic environment in which I spent the first period of my life, I back to the spot where I was born in 2011.”
Aurélie Lierman
October 12, 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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Coarse and Janky
“Art soothes pain. Art is like good bread.”
Aleksandra Bragoszewska
December 27, 2017
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Ode to my Last 10 Years of Dating
“What can be found by listening to – and sitting with – our internal landscapes?”
Michelle Macklem
September 22, 2017
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Anatomy of the Road
“I was wondering if there was a way to spatially re-create the sounds of being in a car... and whether I could capture that mood and weirdness and giddiness and intensity that comes from being in such a small space with another person.”
Ellie Gordon-Moershel
November 3, 2017
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