Disappearing Acts: A Sonic Gesture, Mini Mighty Niagara Film Festival, 2025
"Disappearing Acts" draws on concepts from the "Audio Control Handbook," first published in 1956. This handbook was a key resource for television and radio broadcasting. The hand gestures depicted here illustrate how control room producers communicated with studio musicians and camera operators. These gestures encompassed everything from cues and crossfades to transitions and timing.
Presented as a 10-second animation from still photographs, this gestural language was the most efficient way to convey ideas during sound studio production. In essence, it represents a disappearing act by producers that deserves to be reimagined in the realm of sound creation.
Oringel, R. S. (1979). *Audio Control Handbook: For Radio and Television Broadcasting*. Routledge.
"Disappearing Acts" draws on concepts from the "Audio Control Handbook," first published in 1956. This handbook was a key resource for television and radio broadcasting. The hand gestures depicted here illustrate how control room producers communicated with studio musicians and camera operators. These gestures encompassed everything from cues and crossfades to transitions and timing.
Presented as a 10-second animation from still photographs, this gestural language was the most efficient way to convey ideas during sound studio production. In essence, it represents a disappearing act by producers that deserves to be reimagined in the realm of sound creation.
Oringel, R. S. (1979). *Audio Control Handbook: For Radio and Television Broadcasting*. Routledge.
Troy David Ouellette
Adventures of a Salt Smuggler (Comic Version)
The Politics of Taxation
(This work is to be slated for an exhibition at the (1-20 September 2026) at the Pesquiers salt fields on the Mediterranean coast.)
I acknowledge that as a settler now situated in Niagara, Ontario, Canada, I am on the traditional territory of the Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe peoples, many of whom continue to live and work here today. My ancestry is intertwined with events that converge with First Nations peoples and their stories. I acknowledge the cooperation, partnerships and friendships that have developed in my time on Turtle Island.
In this project, I explore how stories are constructed, reimagined, and presented as a means to consider resources, human resilience, conflict, government restrictions, and social justice. While embarking on this work, I laboured to find a way to minimize my environmental footprint as an artist working mainly digitally, recounting the story of my grandfather six generations ago and integrating it into a comic book form. This genre merges text and image, illustrating the struggles that arose from an unequal Gabelle salt tax in France, which persisted intermittently from one generation to the next, and to which my ancestor was subjected, being exiled to Quebec.
During my time in elementary school, I recall studying European colonial practices for populating outposts and territories acquired through conquest and expansion. By the 1700s C.E., governments worldwide were seeking new ways to finance their activities, and French taxation practices were no exception. By and large, the French Gabelle or salt tax during the 1730s was perceived as an unequal and corrupt system imposed on people with low incomes. This fiscal oppression was misused to fund royal extravagance, colonial expansion, and conflicts in general rather than serving the population. Even tax collectors and officials were known to be corrupt. [1] Smugglers frequently travelled in large, heavily armed groups, making it virtually impossible to control them. Often, civic infrastructure supported through various taxes was used to thwart revolts by the "peasantry" and "serfs," who accounted for roughly 80-90% of France's population by 1730. Salt smuggling itself was not generally meant as a primary activity; most people sold the odd pound of contraband material to subsist and trade. [2] There is no doubt that taxation politics fanned the flames of the French Revolution in 1789, fostering better governance through jurisprudence.
The Story
Of the 600+ faux-saunières and faux-sauniers who came to Canada, most were from northern France, where my ancestor was likely caught and deported. [3] However, there is a parallel in the south of France. The Pesquiers salt fields were subject to the same decrees and oppression, and salt harvesting and distribution were also affected.
Born in 1716 in the small village of Saint-Martin in Angre, Hainaut, a region near the borderlands of what is now Belgium, my ancestor Pierre Dame came to Canada (more specifically to Boucherville, Quebec) in 1739 at the age of 23. This arduous voyage was a result of being captured by the Maréchaussée (the French police) and thrown into Cambrai Prison, 200 km north of Paris. His crime was violating the Gabelle Salt Tax Decree, which was met with severe punishment, ranging from exile to death or imprisonment.
This story, "The Adventures of a Salt Smuggler," follows Pierre's journey to New France, providing a metafictional account that reimagines historical facts and blends imaginative fancy. [4] The characters introduced in the story are based on research I conducted regarding cultural and socioeconomic factors. Other characterizations stem from my genealogical research, ranging from a sympathetic naval captain to an entrepreneur living in Quebec to a rural police officer who enjoys power and embodies rigid, unapologetic legalism. As the truthful aspects of the story took numerous twists and turns, it was imperative to employ a metafictional form that could address everyday interpersonal relations, politics, geography, and internal struggles of the characters portrayed. As a father, I acknowledge that comics offer a way to expand on a story and help early learners uncover lost histories. I wanted to explore the parallels and differences between genealogical narratives, storytelling, representation, social relations, and culture as they played out and are now being manifested again in light of tariffs and trade imbalances. As I explored myriad texts and accounts, as well as dress and customs, I was drawn to how our times interrelate and diverge as a form of quantum futurism.
Even today, market economies with massive populations and widespread global consumption are very different from the world of sailing ships and the subsistence farming practices of the 18th century. Now, underground markets and smuggling activities thrive mostly through tax avoidance, trafficking, waste trade, contraband and arms trade. As goods are taxed, they coexist in a parallel market economy, creating their own unique environmental problems while perpetuating inequality within an illusory monetary system. "Adventures of a Salt Smuggler" shares ideas that transcend boundaries and time, serving as a mirror for thought and speculation, as acts of smuggling are pursued today in shadow fleets and ghost ships. Similarly, we see tax avoidance in offshore accounts and shelters - the difference in my story has to do with the disparity. Legal frameworks were influenced by the way overburdened populations revolted to circumvent the power of the few over the many. [5] At present, the underground art of smuggling involves much more environmental degradation than it did in the 1700s. [6] The subterfuge of the illegal weapons trade pollutes ecosystems. Waste is often dumped indiscriminately into the oceans or transported to countries with less stringent laws. The catastrophic result is not only climate change, but also particulate pollution, usually unseen, that infiltrates the air, water, and land. As hand-craft and fabrication processes evolved into heavy industry, there were reciprocal consequences relative to scale and toxicity. Reading between the lines of this story, you can see how past systems have influenced governments and citizens' actions, and how these influences have evolved.
[1] Spence, Caroline. "Smuggling in Early Modern France." University of Warwick Social History Archive, 2011. https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/history/ecc/archive/emforum/projects/disstheses/dissertations/spence-caroline.pdf. P. 67
[2] Spence, Caroline. "Smuggling in Early Modern France." University of Warwick Social History Archive, 2011. https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/history/ecc/archive/emforum/projects/disstheses/dissertations/spence-caroline.pdf. P. 93
[3] Hickey, Tom. "1739: Salt Smuggler Pierre Dame – One of Our Family's Quebec Sixth Great-Grandfathers." Tom and Kate Hickey Family History. Accessed July 18, 2025. https://tomandkatehickeyfamilyhistory.blogspot.com/2016/10/1730-salt-smuggler-pierre-dame-one-of.html.
[4] Kujawski, Kim. "The Faux-Sauniers Exiled to Canada." The French-Canadian Genealogist. Accessed July 18, 2025. https://www.tfcg.ca/faux-sauniers-in-canada.
[5] "Panama Papers." Wikipedia, June 19, 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Papers.
[6] O'Neill, K. (2000). Waste trading among rich nations: building a new theory of environmental regulation. MIT Press.
Adventures of a Salt Smuggler (Comic Version)
The Politics of Taxation
(This work is to be slated for an exhibition at the (1-20 September 2026) at the Pesquiers salt fields on the Mediterranean coast.)
I acknowledge that as a settler now situated in Niagara, Ontario, Canada, I am on the traditional territory of the Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe peoples, many of whom continue to live and work here today. My ancestry is intertwined with events that converge with First Nations peoples and their stories. I acknowledge the cooperation, partnerships and friendships that have developed in my time on Turtle Island.
In this project, I explore how stories are constructed, reimagined, and presented as a means to consider resources, human resilience, conflict, government restrictions, and social justice. While embarking on this work, I laboured to find a way to minimize my environmental footprint as an artist working mainly digitally, recounting the story of my grandfather six generations ago and integrating it into a comic book form. This genre merges text and image, illustrating the struggles that arose from an unequal Gabelle salt tax in France, which persisted intermittently from one generation to the next, and to which my ancestor was subjected, being exiled to Quebec.
During my time in elementary school, I recall studying European colonial practices for populating outposts and territories acquired through conquest and expansion. By the 1700s C.E., governments worldwide were seeking new ways to finance their activities, and French taxation practices were no exception. By and large, the French Gabelle or salt tax during the 1730s was perceived as an unequal and corrupt system imposed on people with low incomes. This fiscal oppression was misused to fund royal extravagance, colonial expansion, and conflicts in general rather than serving the population. Even tax collectors and officials were known to be corrupt. [1] Smugglers frequently travelled in large, heavily armed groups, making it virtually impossible to control them. Often, civic infrastructure supported through various taxes was used to thwart revolts by the "peasantry" and "serfs," who accounted for roughly 80-90% of France's population by 1730. Salt smuggling itself was not generally meant as a primary activity; most people sold the odd pound of contraband material to subsist and trade. [2] There is no doubt that taxation politics fanned the flames of the French Revolution in 1789, fostering better governance through jurisprudence.
The Story
Of the 600+ faux-saunières and faux-sauniers who came to Canada, most were from northern France, where my ancestor was likely caught and deported. [3] However, there is a parallel in the south of France. The Pesquiers salt fields were subject to the same decrees and oppression, and salt harvesting and distribution were also affected.
Born in 1716 in the small village of Saint-Martin in Angre, Hainaut, a region near the borderlands of what is now Belgium, my ancestor Pierre Dame came to Canada (more specifically to Boucherville, Quebec) in 1739 at the age of 23. This arduous voyage was a result of being captured by the Maréchaussée (the French police) and thrown into Cambrai Prison, 200 km north of Paris. His crime was violating the Gabelle Salt Tax Decree, which was met with severe punishment, ranging from exile to death or imprisonment.
This story, "The Adventures of a Salt Smuggler," follows Pierre's journey to New France, providing a metafictional account that reimagines historical facts and blends imaginative fancy. [4] The characters introduced in the story are based on research I conducted regarding cultural and socioeconomic factors. Other characterizations stem from my genealogical research, ranging from a sympathetic naval captain to an entrepreneur living in Quebec to a rural police officer who enjoys power and embodies rigid, unapologetic legalism. As the truthful aspects of the story took numerous twists and turns, it was imperative to employ a metafictional form that could address everyday interpersonal relations, politics, geography, and internal struggles of the characters portrayed. As a father, I acknowledge that comics offer a way to expand on a story and help early learners uncover lost histories. I wanted to explore the parallels and differences between genealogical narratives, storytelling, representation, social relations, and culture as they played out and are now being manifested again in light of tariffs and trade imbalances. As I explored myriad texts and accounts, as well as dress and customs, I was drawn to how our times interrelate and diverge as a form of quantum futurism.
Even today, market economies with massive populations and widespread global consumption are very different from the world of sailing ships and the subsistence farming practices of the 18th century. Now, underground markets and smuggling activities thrive mostly through tax avoidance, trafficking, waste trade, contraband and arms trade. As goods are taxed, they coexist in a parallel market economy, creating their own unique environmental problems while perpetuating inequality within an illusory monetary system. "Adventures of a Salt Smuggler" shares ideas that transcend boundaries and time, serving as a mirror for thought and speculation, as acts of smuggling are pursued today in shadow fleets and ghost ships. Similarly, we see tax avoidance in offshore accounts and shelters - the difference in my story has to do with the disparity. Legal frameworks were influenced by the way overburdened populations revolted to circumvent the power of the few over the many. [5] At present, the underground art of smuggling involves much more environmental degradation than it did in the 1700s. [6] The subterfuge of the illegal weapons trade pollutes ecosystems. Waste is often dumped indiscriminately into the oceans or transported to countries with less stringent laws. The catastrophic result is not only climate change, but also particulate pollution, usually unseen, that infiltrates the air, water, and land. As hand-craft and fabrication processes evolved into heavy industry, there were reciprocal consequences relative to scale and toxicity. Reading between the lines of this story, you can see how past systems have influenced governments and citizens' actions, and how these influences have evolved.
[1] Spence, Caroline. "Smuggling in Early Modern France." University of Warwick Social History Archive, 2011. https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/history/ecc/archive/emforum/projects/disstheses/dissertations/spence-caroline.pdf. P. 67
[2] Spence, Caroline. "Smuggling in Early Modern France." University of Warwick Social History Archive, 2011. https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/history/ecc/archive/emforum/projects/disstheses/dissertations/spence-caroline.pdf. P. 93
[3] Hickey, Tom. "1739: Salt Smuggler Pierre Dame – One of Our Family's Quebec Sixth Great-Grandfathers." Tom and Kate Hickey Family History. Accessed July 18, 2025. https://tomandkatehickeyfamilyhistory.blogspot.com/2016/10/1730-salt-smuggler-pierre-dame-one-of.html.
[4] Kujawski, Kim. "The Faux-Sauniers Exiled to Canada." The French-Canadian Genealogist. Accessed July 18, 2025. https://www.tfcg.ca/faux-sauniers-in-canada.
[5] "Panama Papers." Wikipedia, June 19, 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Papers.
[6] O'Neill, K. (2000). Waste trading among rich nations: building a new theory of environmental regulation. MIT Press.
The Whispering River is a site-specific outdoor sound installation that immerses listeners in the subtle and often unnoticed sonic ecology of the RiverBrink landscape. In this work, seven to nine outdoor speakers are arranged and suspended on cables approximately 2 metres above the ground. The Whispering River is a multichannel outdoor sound installation that uses original field recordings from the RiverBrink Art Museum and Niagara surroundings to create a continuously evolving ambient acoustic environment. The outdoor pendant speakers form a spatialized array that immerses audiences in the hidden, often unnoticed sonic world of birds, insects, amphibians, and elemental forces along the Niagara River. The work is meant to be unmonumental, contrasting the solid construction of monuments dedicated to conflict and commemoration. Ultimately, ecology is forever changing, entangled, interconnected and fragile. As sounds are attractants, they produce frequencies necessary to inform living entities that materials from food to water are nearby. Sounds also signal the presence or absence of other species, whether friend or foe.
Conceptual Framework
Positioned near the Niagara River — a natural, historical, and symbolic brink — this work reflects on the liminal space between water and land, human presence and wilderness, the audible and the unheard. The term “brink” here is a geographical reference and a metaphor for deep listening at the edge of perception.
The installation explores how sound reveals the deep interconnectivity of living systems, challenging visitors to slow down and tune into the layered chorus of nonhuman voices that inhabit this shared space. This work examines how environmental sound can serve as a gateway to a deeper connection with these liminal zones. Sound, unlike sight, envelops the body, making it the ideal medium for highlighting the rhythms and presences that animate and augment the environment in which it is placed. It amplifies the existing ecosystem rather than imposing sonic layers as a substitute. The construction of the pendant speakers foregrounds the idea that things are suspended and contingent, where outcomes are unknown.
Recordings
• Birdsongs (e.g., warblers, thrushes, red-winged blackbirds, waterfowl)
• Insect rhythms (e.g., cicadas, crickets, bees)
• Amphibians (e.g., spring peepers, bullfrogs)
• Water elements (lapping river waves, rain on leaves, distant waterfalls)
• Wind and tree canopy textures
• Amplified microsounds
• These recordings were edited into an evolving composition with spatial movement:
naturalistic at times, abstract at others, but always grounded in the surrounding
ecosystem.
Conceptual Framework
Positioned near the Niagara River — a natural, historical, and symbolic brink — this work reflects on the liminal space between water and land, human presence and wilderness, the audible and the unheard. The term “brink” here is a geographical reference and a metaphor for deep listening at the edge of perception.
The installation explores how sound reveals the deep interconnectivity of living systems, challenging visitors to slow down and tune into the layered chorus of nonhuman voices that inhabit this shared space. This work examines how environmental sound can serve as a gateway to a deeper connection with these liminal zones. Sound, unlike sight, envelops the body, making it the ideal medium for highlighting the rhythms and presences that animate and augment the environment in which it is placed. It amplifies the existing ecosystem rather than imposing sonic layers as a substitute. The construction of the pendant speakers foregrounds the idea that things are suspended and contingent, where outcomes are unknown.
Recordings
• Birdsongs (e.g., warblers, thrushes, red-winged blackbirds, waterfowl)
• Insect rhythms (e.g., cicadas, crickets, bees)
• Amphibians (e.g., spring peepers, bullfrogs)
• Water elements (lapping river waves, rain on leaves, distant waterfalls)
• Wind and tree canopy textures
• Amplified microsounds
• These recordings were edited into an evolving composition with spatial movement:
naturalistic at times, abstract at others, but always grounded in the surrounding
ecosystem.
|
|
Observatory Station by Miyu Hosoi
My work was recently picked for an installation at the Barbican Centre in London, England, as part of a larger installation work by Miyu Hosoi. Following this premiere run, Feel the Sound will embark on an international tour, including to MoN Takanawa: The Museum of Narratives, Tokyo, in late 2026. My recording will be part of a system that spatially maps and plays sounds from around the globe through a twelve-channel speaker setup. It will appear alongside other sounds contributed by artists and recordists from all over the world. My submission was a field recording completed at Port Colbourne, Ontario, on March 15th, 2025. The sounds in the recording featured migrating geese and the preparations at the mouth of the Welland Canal for new shipments commencing the following week. About the installation Observatory Station by Miyu Hosoi collects and disperses sounds from across the Barbican site, blending them with a curated sonic archive sourced from field recordists worldwide. Feel the Sound is a bold new multi-sensory exhibition experience from the Barbican that explores our personal relationship to Sound and embraces a world of listening that goes beyond the audio. |
Proposal for On Air - On Site, https://onaironsite.com/, 2025
In this work, I conjured childhood memories of tuning into radio programs on the shortwave one and two bands. I was always fascinated by the inner workings of the radios my parents would collect. I would stay up at night tuning into radio programs across the globe on our Zenith 808 1935 Tombstone radio, listening to weather reports, news programs and radio shows. For me, the interference and frequencies disrupted by weather and climate created interesting sonic compositions that were eerie, mysterious and haunting, speaking volumes of distance and distortion.
| troyouellette_thefinalwave__1_.mp3 |
Cities and Memory Autumn Project, 2025
https://citiesandmemory.com/
In this work, each participant in this group project was asked to work with a field recording in one of the cities located across the globe. As I lived near Detroit and grew up in Windsor, I was drawn to a field recording of the People Mover (a 13 station elevated transportation railway system in downtown Detroit). This railway was built by a Canadian company and open to the public in 1987.
The initial composition was created by Sound Artist and Musician Rebecca Goldberg.
In my submitted composition, I was drawn to the musical sounds used to indicate the stops along the line. I wanted to elevate these sounds as punctuations over the existing mechanical sounds of the tracks and breaking sounds of the train. I also wanted to emphasize the acceleration and deceleration in terms of movement.
You can also listen to this work on the Cities and Memory website audioboom.com/posts/8625363-sound-mover
https://citiesandmemory.com/
In this work, each participant in this group project was asked to work with a field recording in one of the cities located across the globe. As I lived near Detroit and grew up in Windsor, I was drawn to a field recording of the People Mover (a 13 station elevated transportation railway system in downtown Detroit). This railway was built by a Canadian company and open to the public in 1987.
The initial composition was created by Sound Artist and Musician Rebecca Goldberg.
In my submitted composition, I was drawn to the musical sounds used to indicate the stops along the line. I wanted to elevate these sounds as punctuations over the existing mechanical sounds of the tracks and breaking sounds of the train. I also wanted to emphasize the acceleration and deceleration in terms of movement.
You can also listen to this work on the Cities and Memory website audioboom.com/posts/8625363-sound-mover
| detroit_people_mover.mp3 |
Division / Modes of Life, 2025
Digital Video & Field Recording, 2:00 (approximately) 16:9 (looped)
https://youtu.be/gadBeL-WKX4
This work grew out of a workshop and walk with Artist Marc-Alexandre Dumoulin through the “Accidental Details”: A Creative Walk as part of the Walker Cultural Leader's Series at Brock University presented by Studies in Arts and Culture (STAC).
The work features plant species that I collected during a walk along Division St. in a downtown neighbourhood of St. Catharines. The visuals comprise macro photography painstakingly masked as .pngs to float over one another and cascade down to the bottom of the screen. The short writing is from my account of the disparity and neglect of the city. This forms part of a series I call “Modes of Life.” The sound is comprised of a short field recording of the area.
Digital Video & Field Recording, 2:00 (approximately) 16:9 (looped)
https://youtu.be/gadBeL-WKX4
This work grew out of a workshop and walk with Artist Marc-Alexandre Dumoulin through the “Accidental Details”: A Creative Walk as part of the Walker Cultural Leader's Series at Brock University presented by Studies in Arts and Culture (STAC).
The work features plant species that I collected during a walk along Division St. in a downtown neighbourhood of St. Catharines. The visuals comprise macro photography painstakingly masked as .pngs to float over one another and cascade down to the bottom of the screen. The short writing is from my account of the disparity and neglect of the city. This forms part of a series I call “Modes of Life.” The sound is comprised of a short field recording of the area.
C(h)ORD, Public Hearing Collective, October 19-20, 2024
New Adventures in Sound Art, 48 Hour Sound Challenge Workshop/Residency
South River, Ontario
16:9 digital video and Field Recording Sound work, 4:46
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zh4q2ysfhKo
C(h)ORD is a sound work that incorporates the history of South River as a town that grew from the logging industry. Using an on-site prepared piano, the artist collective Public Hearing formed by Gina Farrugia and Troy Ouellette combines prepared piano, field recordings of natural rhythms, and an on-site string instrument, uniquely created from natural materials sourced from the surrounding environment. In this work, Gina Farrugia used her ear/music training in the prepared piano elements, where sounds are altered to create percussive, muted, or distorted tones. Gina plays repetitive, minimalist patterns, where it becomes a melodic and percussive instrument, echoing nature's unpredictable and organic rhythms.
The stringed instrument was built using materials from the environment, such as a log for the body. Combining fishing line for the strings, produced unique, earthy tones. Played with a bass bow, the make-shift instrument generates eerie, droning harmonics and resonant textures that blend with the prepared piano. The string instrument is plucked or bowed, producing resonances that evoke the hum of insects or distant animal calls. These sounds combine with the field recordings that flow in and out of time within this video creation.
The performance is designed to blur the boundaries between the natural world and musical creation, inviting listeners to experience the rhythms of nature in a meditative, immersive soundscape.
New Adventures in Sound Art, 48 Hour Sound Challenge Workshop/Residency
South River, Ontario
16:9 digital video and Field Recording Sound work, 4:46
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zh4q2ysfhKo
C(h)ORD is a sound work that incorporates the history of South River as a town that grew from the logging industry. Using an on-site prepared piano, the artist collective Public Hearing formed by Gina Farrugia and Troy Ouellette combines prepared piano, field recordings of natural rhythms, and an on-site string instrument, uniquely created from natural materials sourced from the surrounding environment. In this work, Gina Farrugia used her ear/music training in the prepared piano elements, where sounds are altered to create percussive, muted, or distorted tones. Gina plays repetitive, minimalist patterns, where it becomes a melodic and percussive instrument, echoing nature's unpredictable and organic rhythms.
The stringed instrument was built using materials from the environment, such as a log for the body. Combining fishing line for the strings, produced unique, earthy tones. Played with a bass bow, the make-shift instrument generates eerie, droning harmonics and resonant textures that blend with the prepared piano. The string instrument is plucked or bowed, producing resonances that evoke the hum of insects or distant animal calls. These sounds combine with the field recordings that flow in and out of time within this video creation.
The performance is designed to blur the boundaries between the natural world and musical creation, inviting listeners to experience the rhythms of nature in a meditative, immersive soundscape.
Following the Loss of a Foiled Creation, 2024
16:9 digital video, :36
https://vimeo.com/1008559418
In this work, I chased around a drawing I created during a residency in Hyères, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, France. The wind was from the coast, and I was constantly worried about how my drawing materials would fly into the air. After meditating for a spell, I created this video about futility. Surprisingly, the wind picked up while shooting and whisked the paper away beyond a fence.
Influences for this work include Jeff Wall's "A Sudden Gust of Wind" from 1993 (borrowed from Pieter Brueghel the Elder's: The Blind Leading the Blind,1568) and Marcel Broodthaers' work entitled La Pluie (The Rain) from 1969.
16:9 digital video, :36
https://vimeo.com/1008559418
In this work, I chased around a drawing I created during a residency in Hyères, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, France. The wind was from the coast, and I was constantly worried about how my drawing materials would fly into the air. After meditating for a spell, I created this video about futility. Surprisingly, the wind picked up while shooting and whisked the paper away beyond a fence.
Influences for this work include Jeff Wall's "A Sudden Gust of Wind" from 1993 (borrowed from Pieter Brueghel the Elder's: The Blind Leading the Blind,1568) and Marcel Broodthaers' work entitled La Pluie (The Rain) from 1969.
E-Air
E-Air, 2024
16:9 digital video, 2:54
https://youtu.be/ylVuWF2fgKE
E-Air consists of a series of videos that reference place and time, foregrounding the sonic possibilities of each space in Hyères, France and St. Catharines, Canada. Each chosen site resonated differently as the surroundings changed within the video, yet one common theme remains via a tuning fork, which marks the space's sonic resonance. As an object of obsolescence in music, the tuning fork has taken on a contemporary function as a tool for healing through sound. It references the therapeutic nature of resort towns with littoral space as places of convalescence and respite. It also becomes a rudimentary instrument like a bell to transport the listener psychoacoustically from scene to scene. In each case, the video transitions from one site to another, creating the synergy needed to follow the video as it moves through various environments. Using the tuning fork throughout, there is an attempt to merge science, sound art and music into one composition.
The tuning fork was first developed to standardize pitch, and this work bridges concepts in music with the works of Canadian soundscape artists, who have explored the diverse aspects of acoustic space, acoustic ecology, and ambience. This connection is exemplified historically with the innovative work of Jules Antoine Lissajous, who, in 1858, developed the French national standard for musical pitch. Lissajous' innovative method of sound visualization, using a tuning fork with a small mirror, was instrumental in calibrating and creating a technique for precise tuning, further emphasizing the importance of the tuning fork (as a cultural object) that combined light and sound. See "Sound and Science." Sound and Science | Jules Antoine Lissajous. Accessed June 23, 2024. https://soundandscience.net/people/li....
16:9 digital video, 2:54
https://youtu.be/ylVuWF2fgKE
E-Air consists of a series of videos that reference place and time, foregrounding the sonic possibilities of each space in Hyères, France and St. Catharines, Canada. Each chosen site resonated differently as the surroundings changed within the video, yet one common theme remains via a tuning fork, which marks the space's sonic resonance. As an object of obsolescence in music, the tuning fork has taken on a contemporary function as a tool for healing through sound. It references the therapeutic nature of resort towns with littoral space as places of convalescence and respite. It also becomes a rudimentary instrument like a bell to transport the listener psychoacoustically from scene to scene. In each case, the video transitions from one site to another, creating the synergy needed to follow the video as it moves through various environments. Using the tuning fork throughout, there is an attempt to merge science, sound art and music into one composition.
The tuning fork was first developed to standardize pitch, and this work bridges concepts in music with the works of Canadian soundscape artists, who have explored the diverse aspects of acoustic space, acoustic ecology, and ambience. This connection is exemplified historically with the innovative work of Jules Antoine Lissajous, who, in 1858, developed the French national standard for musical pitch. Lissajous' innovative method of sound visualization, using a tuning fork with a small mirror, was instrumental in calibrating and creating a technique for precise tuning, further emphasizing the importance of the tuning fork (as a cultural object) that combined light and sound. See "Sound and Science." Sound and Science | Jules Antoine Lissajous. Accessed June 23, 2024. https://soundandscience.net/people/li....
Audio file only.
| troy_david_ouellette_e-air.mp3 |
The Kermitron keyboard instrument was developed by Troy David Ouellette and musician Gina Farrugia who attended the Dawn to Dusk New Adventures in Sound Art Workshop in May of 2024. The instrument uses field recording sounds of the Peeper frog (Pseudacris crucifer.) Some samples are pitched differently as the keyboard and electronics effect the recordings thereby allowing the listener to consider the various frequencies and modes of communication. The sfz file is a free download for anyone wishing to use these sounds in their DAW or within the standalone version of Sforzando. Once the files are downloaded you simply drop the sfz into Sforzando to load it into the plugin or stand-alone app.
Here is a video link to see the Kermitron in all it's glory. youtu.be/U4Wadn05_Fo
The link for the vst and program are located here. https://www.plogue.com/downloads.html#sforzando
Here is a video link to see the Kermitron in all it's glory. youtu.be/U4Wadn05_Fo
The link for the vst and program are located here. https://www.plogue.com/downloads.html#sforzando
| kermiton.zip |
Shell, 2023
16:9 digital video, 3:44
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETh5zM6f9yo&t=6s
The initial concept for "Shell" arose from my interest in how animals process aquatic acoustic environments and my fascination with minimal sound and deep listening. My first encounter with shells came from being at the beach when I held an empty shell to my ear to reflect on a distant, imagined ocean. In this work, I transplanted this as a ritual object, listening to the lake instead of calling out by positioning the same empty chamber of the spiral within the shell as I once did while hearing the same echo of my own body in the shell placed to my ear as a child. My grandparent's yearly travels to southern climes brought back this large conch shell they acquired in the Caribbean. During the 1950s, oil companies (began in earnest) to exploit ocean resources, and the urge to produce and consume oil resources was in full swing. With the merger of Dutch Petroleum and Shell Transport of the UK, Shell Oil was born to take on the name in a greenwashing campaign that continues today by classifying natural gas extraction as renewable.In this recent workshop/retreat at NAISA, I was torn by my symbolic, historical and biological interests and the ever-present ecological concerns that often paralyze cultural producers. In biology, for instance, shells from this phylum make temporary homes for other sea organisms once the shells are discarded or the host organism dies. A historical reading of the shell as an instrument is at least 18,000 years old, with one found in the Pyrenees mountains with the markings of being played. With my interest in sonic inhabitance, I cast my breath through the shell chamber (a relatively good approximation of a Pythagorean harmonic series). I recombined it with a software plugin called "jellyfish" to have it sound otherworldly as if to conjure a processed sound in some futile attempt at communication.
16:9 digital video, 3:44
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETh5zM6f9yo&t=6s
The initial concept for "Shell" arose from my interest in how animals process aquatic acoustic environments and my fascination with minimal sound and deep listening. My first encounter with shells came from being at the beach when I held an empty shell to my ear to reflect on a distant, imagined ocean. In this work, I transplanted this as a ritual object, listening to the lake instead of calling out by positioning the same empty chamber of the spiral within the shell as I once did while hearing the same echo of my own body in the shell placed to my ear as a child. My grandparent's yearly travels to southern climes brought back this large conch shell they acquired in the Caribbean. During the 1950s, oil companies (began in earnest) to exploit ocean resources, and the urge to produce and consume oil resources was in full swing. With the merger of Dutch Petroleum and Shell Transport of the UK, Shell Oil was born to take on the name in a greenwashing campaign that continues today by classifying natural gas extraction as renewable.In this recent workshop/retreat at NAISA, I was torn by my symbolic, historical and biological interests and the ever-present ecological concerns that often paralyze cultural producers. In biology, for instance, shells from this phylum make temporary homes for other sea organisms once the shells are discarded or the host organism dies. A historical reading of the shell as an instrument is at least 18,000 years old, with one found in the Pyrenees mountains with the markings of being played. With my interest in sonic inhabitance, I cast my breath through the shell chamber (a relatively good approximation of a Pythagorean harmonic series). I recombined it with a software plugin called "jellyfish" to have it sound otherworldly as if to conjure a processed sound in some futile attempt at communication.
The Toronto Walk Project, 2024
Explore the project here: https://exhibits.library.brocku.ca/s/toronto-walk-project-i/page/28-october-2023
Research Centre in Interdisciplinary Arts and Creative Culture @ Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture / Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts / Brock University
Drawings, Photography, Sound, Text, Video: Ami Xherro, Benjamin de Boer, Catherine Parayre, Declan Ouellette, Derek Knight, Geoff Farnsworth, Lissa Paul, Nicholas Hauck, Sarah Paul, Troy Ouellette
Video: Troy Ouellette
Walk coordinators: Nicholas Hauck and Catherine Parayre
Curator: Catherine Parayre
Copyrights: The Artists 2024
Explore the project here: https://exhibits.library.brocku.ca/s/toronto-walk-project-i/page/28-october-2023
Research Centre in Interdisciplinary Arts and Creative Culture @ Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture / Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts / Brock University
Drawings, Photography, Sound, Text, Video: Ami Xherro, Benjamin de Boer, Catherine Parayre, Declan Ouellette, Derek Knight, Geoff Farnsworth, Lissa Paul, Nicholas Hauck, Sarah Paul, Troy Ouellette
Video: Troy Ouellette
Walk coordinators: Nicholas Hauck and Catherine Parayre
Curator: Catherine Parayre
Copyrights: The Artists 2024
Nighttime views from the window projection/installation/exhibition entitled A Small and Quiet Winter Screen
Troy Ouellette and Mike Rollo | Thursday, December. 8, 2022. (AP Photo/Risa Horowitz)
Breathing Patterns, 2022
16:9 (looped) silent digital video, 9 Minutes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCJ417qFNBM
In this work, I reflect on isolation. During the pandemic's initial stages, some people became paralyzed to the point of being agoraphobic. This video shows a curtain opening into online shopping sites and displays. Then, the endless patterns of curtains and outdoor spaces open and are timed (in this work) with average breathing rhythms as the trauma of being detached from social engagement plays out. The colours and patterns of domestic space, I believe, helped alleviate some of the stress of being shut in, and online activities (for those with access) allowed the transmission of cultural activity to be seen or described to the outside virtual world as commiseration/condolence/sympathy and empathy.
This work is subtly influenced by Michael Snow's Solar Breath (Northern Caryatids), 2002 and the scene in David Lynch's Twin Peaks where Nadine Hurley (actor Wendy Robie) repetitively opens and closes curtains.
Troy Ouellette and Mike Rollo | Thursday, December. 8, 2022. (AP Photo/Risa Horowitz)
Breathing Patterns, 2022
16:9 (looped) silent digital video, 9 Minutes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCJ417qFNBM
In this work, I reflect on isolation. During the pandemic's initial stages, some people became paralyzed to the point of being agoraphobic. This video shows a curtain opening into online shopping sites and displays. Then, the endless patterns of curtains and outdoor spaces open and are timed (in this work) with average breathing rhythms as the trauma of being detached from social engagement plays out. The colours and patterns of domestic space, I believe, helped alleviate some of the stress of being shut in, and online activities (for those with access) allowed the transmission of cultural activity to be seen or described to the outside virtual world as commiseration/condolence/sympathy and empathy.
This work is subtly influenced by Michael Snow's Solar Breath (Northern Caryatids), 2002 and the scene in David Lynch's Twin Peaks where Nadine Hurley (actor Wendy Robie) repetitively opens and closes curtains.
Sound Art Innovation Lab, 2021-Ongoing
https://www.soundartinnovationlab.org/
S.A.I.L. continues my long-term interest in building art organizations as part of my artistic practice. Based in St. Catharines, Ontario, the Sound Art Innovation Lab focuses on experimentation. It is meant to assist sound artists, musicians, actors, producers and theatre and film directors who use sound within their workflows. The lab has computer workstations, microphones, audio booths, near-field monitors, turntables, mixers, tape decks, and keyboards to allow the artistic community to record and mix audio on computers running Logic Pro and Ableton. In addition, 3rd party plugin developers are an essential part of the equation for post-production software for our digital audio workstations. Finally, we are in the process of securing surround sound speakers. The organization features workshops in field recording, sound production, foley work, digital and analogue recording, and post-production. If you have any questions about joining the lab, please get in touch with us at [email protected]
https://www.soundartinnovationlab.org/
S.A.I.L. continues my long-term interest in building art organizations as part of my artistic practice. Based in St. Catharines, Ontario, the Sound Art Innovation Lab focuses on experimentation. It is meant to assist sound artists, musicians, actors, producers and theatre and film directors who use sound within their workflows. The lab has computer workstations, microphones, audio booths, near-field monitors, turntables, mixers, tape decks, and keyboards to allow the artistic community to record and mix audio on computers running Logic Pro and Ableton. In addition, 3rd party plugin developers are an essential part of the equation for post-production software for our digital audio workstations. Finally, we are in the process of securing surround sound speakers. The organization features workshops in field recording, sound production, foley work, digital and analogue recording, and post-production. If you have any questions about joining the lab, please get in touch with us at [email protected]
The Weakened State, 2022
In this work, I argue that many subdued transnational voices, crucial to maintaining peace during the pandemic, diminished within sociocultural contexts. In the wake of this, political elites, using the military-industrial complex's excesses, acted to expand their power. Larger states mobilized campaigns of devastation and propaganda to create state-sanctioned violence amidst uncertain futures. Ironically, the weakened state is not the one that has lost territory; instead, it is the state that, through the suppression of dissent, cannot recognize that its population has lost its voice. As a result, it will remain a shadow of its aspirations.
Ultimately, what is presented here is a tyranny of numbers where bodiless whispers reporting civilian casualties fail to account for the actual cost of intergenerational loss. Yet, at the same time, the creative act is generative and hopeful, countering a troubled era.
In this work, I argue that many subdued transnational voices, crucial to maintaining peace during the pandemic, diminished within sociocultural contexts. In the wake of this, political elites, using the military-industrial complex's excesses, acted to expand their power. Larger states mobilized campaigns of devastation and propaganda to create state-sanctioned violence amidst uncertain futures. Ironically, the weakened state is not the one that has lost territory; instead, it is the state that, through the suppression of dissent, cannot recognize that its population has lost its voice. As a result, it will remain a shadow of its aspirations.
Ultimately, what is presented here is a tyranny of numbers where bodiless whispers reporting civilian casualties fail to account for the actual cost of intergenerational loss. Yet, at the same time, the creative act is generative and hopeful, countering a troubled era.
| a_weakened_state.mp3 |
Modes of Life, Ongoing
In this work, I used a microscope camera and mic to analyze the tiny organisms and materials that inhabit a small sampling of the local forest. The presentation of the work will consist of some pre-fabricated parabolic speakers and will be broadcast through the use of a CRTC-approved radio transmitter. This will exemplify the space within audible perception that often goes unnoticed, bringing into focus the generative aspects of creation. This project combines my interests in sound recording, digital and analogue capture and foregrounds the temporal and ephemeral conditions of actants, interactions and assemblage theory.
In this work, I used a microscope camera and mic to analyze the tiny organisms and materials that inhabit a small sampling of the local forest. The presentation of the work will consist of some pre-fabricated parabolic speakers and will be broadcast through the use of a CRTC-approved radio transmitter. This will exemplify the space within audible perception that often goes unnoticed, bringing into focus the generative aspects of creation. This project combines my interests in sound recording, digital and analogue capture and foregrounds the temporal and ephemeral conditions of actants, interactions and assemblage theory.
Mixed Polarity, Entangled Fields, A Matter of Degrees, 2023
In these works, I combine diagrams of magnetic fields, overlapping microphone polarities, polar charts and bubble imagery that alludes to fragility. The magnetic field diagrams express how design makes invisible forms visible. This work is a departure from my work involving atmospheric field recordings deriving inspiration from the experimental orchestral compositions of John Cage and his use of Czech Astronomer Anton Becvar's Atlas Eclipticalis.
In these works, I combine diagrams of magnetic fields, overlapping microphone polarities, polar charts and bubble imagery that alludes to fragility. The magnetic field diagrams express how design makes invisible forms visible. This work is a departure from my work involving atmospheric field recordings deriving inspiration from the experimental orchestral compositions of John Cage and his use of Czech Astronomer Anton Becvar's Atlas Eclipticalis.
