Resophonic City | Mark Templeton & Nicola Ratti, with Leanne Olson
May 14 – June 8, 2013
Opening reception | Friday, May 24 at 7 pm
An audiovisual collaboration by Edmonton’s Mark Templeton and Italy’s Nicola Ratti, with images by Leanne Olson, will be the first artwork to fill the new, dramatically larger ProjEx Room in Latitude 53’s new downtown gallery space. Their exploration of urban spaces in Edmonton and Milan through sound and photography is the perfect fit to open the new Latitude 53—an incredible new gallery in the heart of downtown Edmonton.
Artist's Statement
Resophonic City is an experimental concept devised by Nicola Ratti & Mark Templeton that integrates with and builds upon the existing soundscape of two cities of different origin, size and architecture. Locations in Edmonton and Milan were flooded with synthetic sounds through a portable PA and recordings made of how the artificial interacts with the natural—sound resonating, bouncing and finally dissipating into the different environments of each respective city.
Recording sound in Edmonton, photo courtesy of Mark Templeton
The open spaces of Edmonton, such as an urban parkade or an industrial lot, work both as acoustic filters and resonating chambers. The city's sound passes through, reverberating off wind-buffed concrete, accumulating and distilling traces of its population.
In Milan the sound and size changes, it's smaller and more private. Doorways and stairwells of houses work as a channel between the domestic and public environment. Parks and courtyards become places of resonance of the inhabitants and their daily grind.
Photo by Leanne Olson
Resophonic City underwent a series of stages, each becoming part of the work itself; an ongoing experiment, the development and creative process are present throughout the finished work. In Edmonton, the process continues by adding local photographer, Leanne Olson. Leanne's work explores intricate patterns of natural objects and the serene emptiness of our landscapes. She received audio files of the finished recordings without knowing the locations they were drawn from. These were used to compose visual interpretations of the work for an audiovisual installation at Latitude 53 in Edmonton, May 10–June 8 2013. Likewise, Alessandro Roma, a Milanese visual artist living in London, UK, will interpret the recordings and work ensemble with the musicians to compose an installation at a gallery in Milan, Italy, later in 2013.
—Mark Templeton
