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Video Pool Inc.

send + receive festival

(Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada)

The Daniel Langlois Foundation is supporting the third year of send + receive, a new festival devoted to sound art. This event and exhibition is organized by Video Pool in Winnipeg, Manitoba, to promote the work of Canadian and international audio artists and make their work accessible to the public in an engaging and innovative manner. Since its founding in 1983, Video Pool has established itself as a valuable distribution, production and education centre for video and other electronic, time-based arts. Video Pool encourages the use of video, audio, multimedia and electronic technologies for the advancement and enrichment of Winnipeg's artistic community.

send + receive was created in 1998 to provide a forum for Canadian artists involved primarily with sound to exhibit their works and interact with an audience. In putting together this dynamic, captivating event, festival director Steve Bates has joined forces with several Winnipeg organizations such as Plug In and the University of Winnipeg's radio station CKUW 95.9,in addition to organizations located in such places as Vienna, Austria (KunstRadio) and Banff, Alberta (Internet Radio 90). Through these collaborations, Bates's team is developing the festival's on-line component and investigating live-streaming and remote-audience possibilities.

The first edition of send + receive took place in November 1998 and featured works and live performances by artists such as Ken Gregory, Martin Tétreault, Michael Dumontier, Théophile Billich and Bruce Russell. The event was also an opportunity for organizers to showcase audio and video works in Video Pool's collection. What this festival did not do, however, was reach very far outside the Winnipeg arts community. Bates and the organizing committee therefore refined their mandate and decided to focus on the Internet and other communications technologies, such as radio, to connect with a different public perhaps unaware of Winnipeg's strong artistic community.

"Here in the remote heartland of Canada, we are intensely aware of our isolation from other producing media artists around the world. Current theory and discussion on the subjects of cultural and geographic isolation, and its technological implications, are of great interest to us. Canada, because of its large geographic territory and advanced communications technology, is the perfect locale for an investigative festival like send + receive. Our goal is to send audio artwork from Canada to the rest of the world, and to receive audio work from around the world, bringing it to our local audience."

The festival's second edition was held from November 14 to 20, 1999. More ambitious in its outreach than the first, this edition incorporated a multitude of radio and Internet streaming events via the University of Winnipeg's radio station and send + receive's new Web site.

The 1999 festival spotlighted a wider selection of international artists such as Stelios Giannoulakis (Greece) and John Levack Drever (Scotland). Several practical, hands-on workshops were organized, including a training session devoted to Net radio and led by Susan Kennard and Heath Bunting from Radio 90 (Banff) and an introduction to basic electronics with artist Diana Burgoyne.

The 2000 edition of send + receive presented installations by Ed Osborn, Carsten Nicolai and Angela Somerset as well as performances by Janek Schaefer, Martin Tétreault, Oval, Christophe Charles, Anna Friz and Ken Gregory.

Angela Plohman © 2004 FDL