Image: Gordon Monahan, Water Coiling (photo: Simon Vogel)

A vibrotactile performance by acclaimed artists Marla Hlady, Ellen Moffat and Gordon Monahan, curated by David Bobier. Using haptic systems (belts, pillows and floors that vibrate), the audience is invited into an immersive experience that extends beyond sight and sound to touch and motion.

Co-presented by Guelph Museums and VibraFusionLab with support from the Musagetes Fund through the Guelph Community Foundation.

The building is physically accessible and there will be ASL interpretation.

Partner / Co-creator: David Bobier (London, ON) is an HOH media artist and the parent of two deaf children. Bobier develops vibrotactile technology as a creative medium, which led to his establishment of VibraFusionLab in 2014. VibraFusionLab is a multi-media, multi-sensory centre providing inclusive technologies for supporting accessibility in the arts. Bobier, through VibraFusionLab, has recognized as a leader in the Deaf and Disability Arts movement in Canada and abroad. Additionally, Bobier is Founder and Past Chair of London Ontario Media Arts Association, Secretary of the Board of Media Arts Network Ontario, and Founder and Co-chair of Tangled London, which is dedicated to developing opportunities for Deaf artists, artists with disabilities and artists experiencing isolation to engage in artistic practice and cultural enrichment. Bobier has twice received Canada Council for the Arts funding to do ongoing research of the Deaf and Disability Arts movement in the United Kingdom and the United States.

Performance Artist: Marla Hlady (Toronto) draws, makes sculpture, and works with sites, sounds and video. Hlady’s kinetic sculptures and sound pieces often consist of common objects (such as teapots, cocktail mixers, jars) that are expanded and animated to reveal unexpected sonic and poetic properties. She creates site-specific work in unique environments, such as the fjords of Norway, a rural grain silo, an apartment window in Berlin, a tour bus in Ottawa, a department store display window, and an empty shell of a building. She has shown widely in solo and group shows.

Performance Artist: Ellen Moffat (Saskatoon) is a sound artist whose work is rooted in the vocabulary of sculpture – space, the body and materiality. Moffatt’s practice ranges from multi-channel installations to electroacoustic instruments, and includes performance and community-based projects. Her recent work mixes live sound generation with physical interfaces, transducers, real-time sound processing and interactivity. Her work has been presented throughout Canada and internationally.

Performance Artist: Gordon Monahan (Meaford) works across genres using piano, loudspeakers, video, kinetic sculpture, and computer-controlled sound environments. As a composer and sound artist, he juxtaposes natural acoustical phenomena with mediated technologies, site-specific spaces (environment, architecture, etc.), popular culture, and live performance. The renowned composer John Cage once said, “Gordon Monahan produces sounds we haven’t heard before.”

About VibraFusionLab: Bridging Practices in Accessibility, Art and Communications exhibit:

Experience sound and vibration technologies through art installations by David Bobier, Lindsay Fisher, Marla Hlady, Ellen Moffat, Gordon Monahan, Alison O’Daniel, and Lynx Sainte-Marie. By making sound tangible through touch, this exhibition aims to change public perceptions of difference and disability.

Presented in partnership with VibraFusionLab, an innovative centre for vibrotactile research and creative practice based in London, Ontario.