Everyonce was an immersive, multi-channel sound installation that I conceived of as a platform for collaboration rather than a static exhibition. Over six weeks, Everyonce included three (re)installations of the sound system: one version resulting from a public workshop I gave on field recording; a second in collaboration with Dont Rhine (a founding member of the activist art collective, Ultra-red) and Syrus Marcus Ware (a Toronto-based artist and organiser); a third with Anishinaabe artist, Maria Hupfield; and aperformance by the Diné composer, and Pulitzer Prize winner f or composition, Raven Chacon. The genesis of Everyoncewas my interest in distributed recording and playback systems that might extend and expand the sonic sensorium. I had been thinking about coordinating a group of people to simultaneously record a site, creating a synchronous sound map, which I would then play back in a gallery, scaled down, allowing listeners to hear a vast stretch of space as though their ears spanned kilometers. For the second installation, sub-titled “Street Hassle,” Rhine, Ware, and I conducted interviews with activists and front-line workers from Toronto’s harm reduction and safe injection communities about their experiences and struggles. We edited the recordings to create narrative tensions and resonances. The third installation, “Mega Sonic Jingle,” created in collaboration with Hupfield, documented my collaborator and her family’s relationship to Anishbnaabe jingles—small cones of repurposed, rolled metal used as sound makers in ceremonies.
Featuring Contributions From:
Syrus Marcus Ware
Maria Hupfield
Raven Chacon
Jonathan Sterne
Lilian Radovac
Ultra-red (Dont Rhine)
Everyonce was supported by the Toronto Friends of the Visual Arts and The Bentway.
Click here to download a PDF of the exhibition pamphlet.