Biography(ies)

Colin Frank experiments with percussion, improvisation, live-electronics, video, sculpture, and theatre; investigating excess, bodily extremes, unpredictable instruments, and rich raw noises. His practice is fluid since it continually reshapes responsively to the materials, objects, environments and circumstances he encounters. This was central to his PhD research at the University of Huddersfield, which investigated how unconventional instruments and objects act and influence his creative process. As a composer-performer, improviser and installation artist, Colin values collaborating on projects which challenge him to learn new skills and test out conceptual ideas.

Colin is a founding member of the composer-performer groups Brutalust and Drift Ensemble. In these groups, he has combined notation with improvisation to explore intra-ensemble relationships and instrument agency. With these ensembles he has performed at hcmf//, Sounds Like THIS, and at the University of Hull’s CLAC series, with a recent CD release on Verz and a forthcoming one on Crow Verses Crow. His compositions have notably been performed by International Contemporary Ensemble, TAK, AndPlay, Red Note, and the Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble. He has performed solo and in ensembles at the CTM festival, the Darmstadt Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik, Electric Springs, SoundThought, Beast Feast, and PAS Quebec Days, amongst others.

Colin recently received the Hildegard Westerkamp award from Jeu de Temps / Time to Play for a track from his album of site-specific performances, Sounding the Weight of an Object, that was released on Impulsive Habitat. Colin’s installations often involve audience interactivity and have been exhibited at Salem Art Works, Dai Hall, and Analix Forever. Recently he modified an upright piano with polystyrene and sound-responsive LEDs for the Leeds Piano Competition’s public piano trail. He studied performance and composition at McGill University and sound at the Institute of Sonology. He has taught improvisation at the Waterloo Region Contemporary Music Festival and experimental music at the University of Huddersfield.

COLIN FRANK | JTTP | SOUND CREATION

COLIN FRANK

18.09 — 01.10 / 2022

We are pleased to welcome the artist Colin Frank for a two week residency in sound creation. This proposal marks the inaugural edition of the Jeu de temps / Times Play (JTTP) project organized by the Canadian Electroacoustic Community (CEC) in partnership with Sporobole.

Project Description:

Machines pervade urban environments, yet their sonic performances are little considered. Everything from air conditioner units to electrical boxes continually hum, clunk, and sing everywhere around us. They create sonic landscapes that are often ignored or given little attention to, even though they underpin the psychogeography of the spaces we live in, work at, and travel to. By considering the sounds of machines as posthuman performances, then we can reimagine the spaces around us as living and breathing environments. How can listening to machines’ performances change our perceptions of the spaces we live in?

This project aims to create an audience-interactive installation that maps machine noises that will be recorded around Sherbrooke. The city’s technological soundscape will be brought into the installation space, compressing the wider city’s hum into one location. By combining these field recordings with photographs and digital maps of Sherbrooke, the installation seeks to reconsider how we increasingly understand distance, space, and place through virtual representations. Interior, acoustically dampened spaces contrast with exterior, sonically rich ones, and these real-world soundscapes concurrently contrast with the ‘quiet’ and self-curated soundscapes of our digital world. As we increasingly immerse ourselves in digital spaces on smartphones and other devices, the background hum of our cityscapes grows louder—not only through audible sounds but also through inaudible ‘data exhaust’, electromagnetic interferences, and other electronic sonic residues. By listening-in and giving focus to the performances of these non-humans, perhaps we can discover otherworldly and inspiring new types of music.