base

Steve Heimbecker will be presenting a talk based upon his article, “SQUARING THE CIRCLE - An Artist’s Exploration of Space, Time, Frequency and Sound”. This article is the culmination of Heimbecker’s artistic exploration of multi-channel audio and new media creation and production since 1992. A portion of this article will be printed in a publication focusing on the use of sound in visual and mediatic arts in Canada, edited by Nicole Gingras, published at Artextes editions, Montréal in November 2003. At Subtle Technologies, Heimbecker will discuss his early influences and processes leading up to and including the development of the “Wind Array Cascade Machine” and the various installations he is producing to represent this 64 channel environmental network diffusion system. His influences have included the Saskatchewan prairies, cartography, alchemy, synchronisity, dada, visual art, negative space, silence, acoustic ecology, the relativity theory, the sound recording industry, music, and the holographic universe.

Heimbecker’s presentation is an informal look at his own work in audio art and new media over the last 10 - 15 years, specifically related to using multi channel systems to map, present, and represent immersive sonic environments. His creative systems, which border the scientific, have included the use the speed of sound as a playable event, 8 - 7 foot tall low amplitude pressure wave generators / paintings that produce 3 vibrations per second, and most recently, a 64 channel outdoor capture system to digitize the wind movement across a horizontal plane. He has worked within the conceptual borders of the soundpool, acoustic ecology, his Acoustic Mapping Process, and his Dynamics Voltage Mapping system. Through these systems Heimbecker maintains that complexity is created through the multiplicity of simplicity. With the addition of the multi channel mapping of natural occurances in sound space, Heimbecker seeks not the object of sound space, but the architecture of sound space, which remains in constant flux and is infact an illusion of repetition.

Biography
Steve Heimbecker is recognized as an audio art innovator in multi channel sound composition, diffusion, and installation art in Canada and abroad. Currently in Montreal, he is creating new works using the DVD surround sound format as well producing the ambitious 64 channel environmental network diffusion system, "Wind Array Cascade Machine".