AN OPEN INVITATION July 7 through 21 2012

TECHNO DREAM AND NIGHTMARE CHOIR
a Feisty, participatory Community Art intervention

Send us your Dreams (Send us your Fears)

“Techno Dream and Nightmare Choir” is a Feisty participatory Community Art intervention challenging beliefs about networked technology and its impact on … well, everything.

Inspired by the Complaints Choir movement, the “Techno Dream and Nightmare Choir” invites everyone to participate. You can join the project by sending us messages about your fears and dreams about technology; by coming to live sessions at the Black Bag Media Collective Studio; and/or by participating online via Second Life, Skype, email, Facebook, Twitter and LiveStream.

We will create a set of hybrid Songs rooted St John’s soundworld, inspired by contributions from far and wide … and perform them in a suitably hybrid form.

Black Bag Media Collective’s artist in residence, Tina Pearson, along with BBMC founders Liz Solo, Mike Kean and Marcel Levandier are the hosts and facilitators of this investigation. True to the theme of the project, the Techno Dream and Nightmare song cycle will be made using the widest possible range of technologies – from human voices, rocks, sticks and acoustic instruments, to electronic instruments, digital instruments and virtual instruments. Performers will include anyone wanting to participate in St John’s or online via Second Life, Skype, email, telephone and streaming. The performance will be co-ordinated at the Black Bag Media Collective studio in St John’s, Newfoundland and will culminate in a live event at the LSPU Hall Second Space on Friday July 20th at 8 PM.

So please join us. Tell us your fears and dreams, what makes you happy or sad, about today’s technology and how it is embedded in your life. In ancient times, communities regularly gathered together to make collective songs about their fears and dreams, to make sense of life and its changes. We invite you to gather with us to renew that practice here and now.

SCHEDULE:

SEND US YOUR FEARS AND YOUR DREAMS ANYTIME BEFORE JULY 18TH
In your communications, please let us know if you are interested in performing in person or online on July 20 at 8 PM local time in St John’s Newfoundland

(See the questions below for ideas)

Points of contact:
Skype us: theblackbags
Twitter your ideas #bbmc
Email or Text us at theblackbags@gmail.com
Leave a message on our landline at 709.722.9915
Post a message on our Facebook Wall:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Black-BagsBBMC/126894367370399

JOIN US IN THE BBMC STUDIO
Join us for Daily workshops/interactions – all are welcome at the BBMC Studio
Anytime between 3 – 7 PM Local Time
In Person, or connect with us live via any of the points of contact above.
July 16 – 19
177 Water Street, 2nd Floor

COME TO THE HYBRID REALITY PERFORMANCE EVENT
8 pm Friday July 20
LSPU Hall Second Space
3 Victoria Street,
St. John’s Newfoundland
PWYC at the door.

Your Hosts

Tina Pearson has instigated and facilitated an eclectic range of art and community development processes. She directed the  local and completely acoustic Victoria Complaints Choir as well as the global and hyper technical multi-disciplinary telematic Rotating Brains – Beating Heart collaboration. She has been a facilitator in cross cultural community development and family support projects and in addition to her solo work, regularly participates in collaborative art making and interventions on and offline with musicians, dancers, video and performance artists. She is a member of the global collective Avatar Orchestra Metaverse, the Victoria performance art group OPEN ACTION and the new music ensemble LaSaM.

The Black Bag Media Collective is an artist-run media collective in St. John’s, Newfoundland. It is comprised of artists working in music and audio, live performance, New Media and media arts. Since 2004, the Collective has supported the efforts of members and working artists through open stages, open studios, workshops, conferences and symposia. BBMC is also a record label boasting fifteen releases and operates a re-configurable, multi-use studio/performance space in downtown St. John’s.

About the Project Theme

Some of us can recall a time when the old dial up telephones and black and white tube television were the new thing, following radio, the automobile and printing press in giving us unprecedented access to each other and the world … while at the same time perhaps taking us more away from the people and places we were rooted to.

And others of us have been born into an age where constant connectivity through networked technology is the norm, our fingers dancing over the keyboards of networked devices that bring our thoughts and expressions instantaneously to our friends here and away, and to the world. Being connected has given new freedoms – help is only a call away.

The ideas and definitions of “community”, “relationship” and “friend” have been gradually shifting to mean something quite different than they did to our parents and grandparents, no matter which generation we belong to. And when you think about it, we are already hybrid beings, with brain matter altered by television and computer screens; corneas altered by eyeglasses; hearts, knees and eyes replaced by mechanical and computer-enhanced models; and relationships mediated by gravatars and avatars.

Through advances in technology, we can hear the sound of a mosquito rubbing its feet on a blade of grass and see inside a cell. Networked technology now lets us listen in on, in real time, orcas echolocating in the Pacific or humpbacks calling in the Atlantic, or it lets us watch eagles birthing in forests all over the place, just by switching internet sites from our comfy chairs. And it allows us to mix it all together and send it to our friends if we want to.

What does all of this mean to you? Here are some questions we invite you to ponder with us.

Do you fear all of this technology? Do you embrace it?
Does it make you happy, sad, both?

Has technological connectivity brought us closer to or further from the natural world, or just changed our relationship to it?
Are you concerned about the accumulating detritus of our network devices and its effects on the flora, fauna, insects, dirt, waters and air of Mother Spaceship Earth?

Do you think that wired technology is a naturally evolving aspect of the earth’s connectivity, a manifestation of our innate telepathic one-ness? Can we continue to develop as hybrid beings while maintaining and nurturing a deep sense of belonging with the Earth?

Maybe you are just worried about the dangers of driving while talking on your cell phone.
Maybe you are spending more and more time wired to a networked device for work, play, learning, creativity, spirituality, relationships, other things, or maybe you have removed yourself from the digital grip.
If you are involved in online video games and virtual worlds, how have they effected your body, mind, hopes, dreams, relationships with people, animals, the earth?

Have your senses changed through your use of networked technologies? Do you hear and listen differently, speak differently, smell more or less, see things through different eyes?
Have you fallen in love through a networked connection?
Has your dignity, your compassion, your honesty, your integrity changed as a result of your networked connectivity?

Let us know!

See:
http://www.theblackbags.com
https://tinapearson.wordpress.com
http://hummingpera.blogspot.ca/

This project made possible thanks to the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts, Media Arts Section. http://www.canadacouncil.ca