For 10 years, professor Brent Lee has received phone messages from a telemarketer looking for a women named Julie Wade—a woman he doesn’t know. Finally, Dr. Lee started saving the messages and used them to create an audiovisual installation and multimedia performance piece, This is an important message for Julie Wade.
He will present it to the public on Thursday, March 3, in Studio A, Lambton Tower.
In the installation version, Lee explains, an algorithm randomly accesses bits of the phone messages and disperses them among four audio channels.
“Each time a number is spoken, a random video clip featuring a number is triggered and projected,” he says. “There are additional background materials created from the processed sound of the dial tone as well as video taken from the window of a train going through a long tunnel at high speed.”
In live performance, a soprano saxophone adds breathy noises to the audio mix, triggering video clips of an imaginary Julie Wade, waiting for her messages.
Both versions will be presented free as part of the Noiseborder Multimedia Performance Laboratory’s in/fuse series: the installation is open from 4:30 to 8:30 p.m., with five-minute performances at 5, 6, 7 and 8 p.m.