The International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation (IICSI) and Musagetes are pleased to welcome Jen Reimer & Max Stein who will produce their work Sounding the City in Guelph as the 2018 Improvisers-in-Residence.

Come meet Jen and Max and learn about their residency plans at a session of Thinking Spaces: The Improvisation Reading Group and Speaker Series on Friday, March 2, 1:30 pm, at the IICSI House. Please RSVP at: https://www.facebook.com/events/166968197430480/. Please note that this venue is not wheelchair accessible; contact us with any accommodation requests at improv@uoguelph.ca.

Reimer and Stein will be in residence in Guelph for the first of four trips from February 25 through March 4, researching and gathering materials for their Sounding the City project, which will be presented in Guelph in September 2018.

Sounding the City is an online exhibition dedicated to capturing urban environments and re-imagining their soundscapes through site-specific installations and acoustic interventions. These installations emerge from their surroundings and occur in the environments themselves. They invite our ears to focus on the music of the places in which we find ourselves, and draw our gaze towards characteristics of urban environments that might otherwise go unnoticed. These interventions aim to transcend our everyday experience of space by blurring the perceptual lines between what is natural and what has been introduced into the environment.

Jen Reimer (CAN) & Max Stein (USA) are sound artists based in Montréal. Their work explores the resonances of urban and rural sonic environments through in situ performances, installations and spatial recordings.

Since 2009 they have created performances and installations in abandoned, transient and resonant spaces in North America and Europe including St-Urbain Underpass, Wellington Tunnel (Montréal), Union Station (Winnipeg), Mãe d’Água (Lisboa, PT), Estufa Fria (Lisboa, PT), Rotonda della Besana (Milan, IT), Vapaan Taiteen Tila (Helsinki, FI) and Sottopassaggio di Porta Vescovo (Verona, IT). Their performances combine live and processed horn and field recordings with the inherent sonic environment to create an immersive and physical experience of sound and space.

They have collaborated with various festivals and organizations including Suoni per Il Popolo (Montréal), Send + Receive (Winnipeg), Sound Development City (Lisbon, PT & Marseille, FR), Invisible Places (São Miguel, PT), Son/Contexte (Québec), Nes Artist Residency (Skagaströnd, IS), Lisboa Soa (Lisboa, PT), Äänen Lumo (Helsinki, FI), Videosoundart Festival (Milan, IT), and P A T H Festival (Verona, IT).