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Labcoats and beakers? Try lights and speakers 

By Russ Cooper

Prepare to stir up your idea of what constitutes a ‘laboratory.’ From Feb. 15 to March 6, both the Topological Media Lab and matralab will open their doors. Thanks to the efforts of two Canada Research Chairs, the innovative media labs are changing the way art and engineering are perceived here and around the world. For schedules and more information, visit finearts.concordia.ca/news

matralab

By its sheer nature, art is always expanding. Sandeep Bhagwati and his matralab are giving artists a thousand new ways and directions to branch out.

Located in EV 04.520, matralab is a research space exploring interdisciplinary, intercultural, inter-media and interactive art practices and their theory.

"It's a space that can bring together all sorts of disciplines, a place that can accommodate all performing arts," says matralab Director Bhagwati. The space was given to Bhagwati in Sept. 2007, but it is now fully-equipped, fully-functional and its doors will soon be open to fellow researchers and the public.

During the first week of its public opening, the lab will showcase creative research done by current research assistants Lise Comtois (poetry) and Michal Seta (music) performing UniSecs, their experimental poetry and sound exploration; Jerome Delapierre (video), Navid Navab and Michal Seta (sounds) performing Jam Session, an interactive audio-visual session with real-time computer music; and Ralph Denzer (interdisciplinary) and Florian Götz (theatre), performing D-Opera and Just Us exploring Charles Darwin and the life and role of theatre, among others.

Following reading break, the third week at matralab will welcome members of Montreal's artistic community. To name a couple, Eldad Tsabary and Navid Navab will perform 60x60 – the Canadian Mix, an interactive overview of the Canadian electroacoustic music community and the Bozzini String Quartet will perform the works of Beethoven, John Cage and Bhagwati.

The matralab (a well-truncated acronym for movement/media/music art theatre/theory, research agency) consists of two distinct but interconnected components: matrabox is a 800 sq. ft. soundproof, single-level performance space wired with theatre lighting, three-channel video projection and comprehensive equipment for video and audio production. While designed to accommodate musical, dance, theatre, cinematic, studio arts or any combination thereof, don't count on renting it for huge parties; having a capacity of 25 people max, the space is more of a testing lab than a venue for large events.

The second component is matrabureau; a 400 sq. ft. natural light workspace with audio and video and administrative workspaces to be used for project development, research and teaching.

An internationally renowned composer, theatre director and concept artist, Bhagwati joined Concordia as CRC in Inter-X Art Practice and Theory in 2006 appointed by the departments of music and theatre. (See Journal, Sept. 14, 2006).

Bhagwati believes that while similar facilities exist in the professional world, matralab can set itself apart by being far more accessible to burgeoning artists.

"Being in a university environment, it's quite original. There isn't the limited access due to availability and steep fees you see in pro labs. Here, artists can shape their projects over longer periods of time and work with practitioners of other disciplines as well as with theoreticians towards more evolved and rich work.”

Not only able to aid artists shape their own work, Bhagwati and the matralab are helping push the boundaries of Concordia's public perception.

"Every time I bring people in from outside, they tell me they didn't know Concordia did things like this. The idea of Concordia is already changing."

Topological Media Lab

Inspiration for creating art comes from within. But inspiration needs instruments to become truly vibrant. Concordia's Topological Media Lab (TML) is where inspiration becomes reality.

Starting Feb. 15, the TML in EV 7.725 will be showcasing a number of projects around Concordia and Montreal. The brain child of Computer Arts Associate Professor Sha Xin Wei, the lab was established in 2001 to, "study gesture and embodied use of hybrid computational-physical materials," and aims to create materials that are sensitive to movement, temperature, etc. and respond by changing their form and creating light, music, etc.

Take for example the lab's WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) project. It's aiming to create a fabric to be used for improvised play – a wearable instrument, if you will. This 20’-long 'tapestry' woven from conductive fibre interprets hand gestures into sound of wind and voices.

The elemental difference between the TML and the matralab is that the TML is not a facility for producing works of art. The TML examines people's response to their surrounding environment, looking at the elements of art and engineering within. It then applies its findings to creating materials that blend sound, light, fabric, etc. The goal is to bring a new depth of artistic and technological expression to everyday life.

"We're looking into making everyday things more responsive, like bus shelters or airports," Sha says. “We want to ask, 'how can we make our world not just complicated but rich?'”

Among the presentations being showcased during Feb. and March are CAVE, an interactive audio-visual 'video-busking' installation that responds to the movements of passers by; and the MEMBRANE, a projected surface on the side of the EV building, on which shadows of people inside the building will mix with those of pedestrians outside.

"People can come in as a sound artist or video artist or as an anthropologist or philosopher," he says. "Both grads and undergrads come from all disciplines because it's a safe place to do creative work. This is a place to explore the area between art and science, using ideas from both."

His idea for the TML started in 2001 when he was completing his PhD in Mathematics at Stanford, but began to build it when he was teaching at the Georgia Tech School of Literature, Culture and Communication a few years later. Sha joined Concordia as a Tier-2 Canada Research Chair in New Media Arts in 2004.

For all the seriousness and technicalities surrounding the work being done at TML, Sha is quite lighthearted when it comes to final products.

"It's technical, but it's quite poetic as well," he says. "I'm trying to create a place where people can do work that they have to explain but don't have to justify."

In the relatively near future, Sha hopes the research coming out of the TML will bring forth dynamic new ways to enjoy life by incorporating the technologies into public spaces and architecture for everyday people to interact with.

"Maybe we'll be able to communicate with a bit more metaphor," he says. "Maybe we could create a few more silver linings in everyday life."