Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada — Thursday, 23 January 2020: On 23 January, the MacKenzie Art Gallery is pleased to host the opening of a solo exhibition by artist Erin Gee beginning at 7 PM. Originally from Regina, Gee currently resides in Montreal, where she is working toward a Doctorate in music. In To the Sooe, Gee seeks to understand the relationship between machines and the human body by creating emotionally stimulating environments using sonic electronics and computational algorithms.

“We are thrilled to introduce or re-introduce Gee and her work to prairie audiences, in her hometown,” says Anthony Kiendl, Executive Director and CEO of the MacKenzie Art Gallery. “Gee’s art is innovative, playful and immersive, while speaking to contemporary society, technology and the body. It touches us in unexpected and compelling ways.”

Programming will begin at 7 PM with an artist conversation with Erin Gee. The conversation will be followed by a reception in Craft Services, with a performance by Holophon beginning at 8 PM. The evening takes place as part of Rawlco Radio and the MacKenzie Art Gallery’s Free Admission Nights. The second floor galleries of the MacKenzie will be free for everyone to explore from 5 to 9 PM.

“I am thrilled to be able to work alongside Erin to bring such an incredible exhibition to the MacKenzie,” says Tak Pham, Assistant Curator of the MacKenzie Art Gallery and curator of To the Sooe. “Her work will allow people to interact with each other in a way they normally don’t: hearing breath and heartbeat, and enabling us to look both inward and outward, as we contemplate the potential connections that we might make with each other in order to co-exist and share responsibility within society.”

Gee enhances the organic responses that form the basis of any human body: vibration in the larynx, heartbeat, pulse, and sweat. Her robots and other devices distort, transform, enhance, and communicate feelings and emotions as reflected in the biorhythms of our body.

“It is incredibly exciting to be able to bring my work to the MacKenzie, and share my research and my passion with the people of Regina,” says artist Erin Gee. “My work in robotics, ASMR, and bio-feedback has allowed me to explore the materiality of emotion as it is reflected in the human body – and I am driven to create new technology through the consideration of emotion, and how it affects us physically.”

Interviews with the artist or curator Tak Pham can be arranged. Please contact our Communications Coordinator below.

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ABOUT ERIN GEE

Erin Gee is a Canadian media artist and composer who explores human voices in electronic bodies. Articulating feminist materialist strategies for creation with digital tools, Gee works with technology through the human body and its voices. In particular, she likens the micro rhythms of emotion in the body to the rhythms of a vibrating vocal fold, exposing the material of affect as embodied and embedded communicative tool.

Her work in bio signal driven choral composition, virtual reality, and robotics has been shown at venues such as FILE festival, São Paulo (2019), Cluster Festival, Winnipeg (2019), Ars Electronica (2018), NRW Forum, Düsseldorf (2018), Trinity Square Video, Toronto (2017), Media Live Festival, Boulder USA (2017), and Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (2015).

ABOUT HOLOPHON

Holophon Audio Arts is a non-profit organization supporting sound art and experimental music in Saskatchewan. The organization was founded in 2008 and is centered in Treaty 4 Territory/Regina.

Holophon engages communities using sound as an artistic medium, promoting sound art and experimental music through live performances, concerts, workshops, community events, and educational programming; uniting artists and audiences with their projects across disciplines and specializations using sound as an integral artistic component.

Holophon works to increase awareness of and to develop sound art practices in the province of Saskatchewan and on the Great Plains of Canada, and to encourage and facilitate discussion around critical and creative listening.

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