Noiseborder

August 28, 2023

The Noiseborder Ensemble creates and performs multimedia works featuring a combination of acoustic and electronic instruments as well as live processing and mixing of sound and video. Based in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, the group has presented more than thirty original multimedia works of varying instrumentation, duration, and forms of interactivity since its inception in 2008. The Noiseborder Ensemble also works on an ongoing basis with collaborating artists nationally and internationally.

My contributions are in generating video and image material, working on conceptual frameworks for pieces, and giving the project visual identity. 

Below is a selection of projects; more can be viewed on the Noiseborder Ensemble site

Always, sideways

As part of Megumi Masaki’s HEARING ICE project, Always, Sideways (2023) is a short piece for piano with live audio processing and video mixing by Brent Lee and Sigi Torinus. The pacing of the piece and character of the audiovisual gestures reflect the slow and relentless nature of changes to our environment, particularly the melting of the polar ice caps. The title is reminiscent of the movement of glaciers, with the video exploring themes of transformation, fluidity, fragility, and the transformative qualities of water and ice. Ephemeral shapes constantly change and evolve, matched by periodic shifts in timbre and harmony in the piano music.
Premiered at Evolution Classical 2023, Rolston Recital Hall, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Canada

Megumi Masaki’s HEARING ICE project seeks positive social and environmental change through the creation and sharing of personal stories, scientific facts, and interactive artistic works.

XVitro (in progress)

X Vitro is an intricate interactive audiovisual installation created by Sigi Torinus and Brent Lee featuring multiple suspended plexiglass objects in the shape of windshields. The windshields are coated to hold video projections and are equipped with small transducers, allowing for them to become both projection surfaces and loudspeakers. Once constructed, the installation runs according to a Max algorithm that generates or triggers sonic and visual gestures. At the same time, the installation remains open to performance interventions, where an improvising singer or instrumentalist can interact with the installation, taking over a prominent role in the sonic textural design and influencing the triggering and live processing of the projected video.
For this first presentation, Meaghen Quinn performed the installation in the new Noiseborder Multimedia Performance Lab.

KLANGFABRIK I (2016)

offers up a conversation between live performers and their pre-recorded projected counterparts. Their co-presence draws from moments of convergence as well as wandering off and returning. Video and live video performance, Sigi Torinus; clarinet, Trevor Pittman; saxophone, Brent Lee; trumpet, Anthony Giglio.

Torinus Noiseborder Klangfabrik 1
KLANGFABRIK with Brent Lee, Trevor Pittmann and Anthony Giglio

SUBATOMIC TIME (2010-2015)

a 35-minute performance piece featuring solo percussionist Nicholas Papador, live audio processing by Brent Lee (also the composition), and live video mixing. The title of the piece reflects the central notion of extremes of spatial and temporal scale; parallels are drawn between camera-related techniques (zoom, focus, pan, colour saturation) and audio processing (amplification, reverberation and filtering, spatialization, spectral manipulations). Aural and visual material is presented sometimes in parallel, sometimes in counterpoint, and sometimes heterophonically. My contribution includes the visual design, the video and image material, as well as the live mixing with Max/Jitter.

PRANA (2014)

an interactive audiovisual work for one or two wind instruments, live electronics, and live video mixing. The amplitude of the instrument/breath controls the visibility of smoke against a black background, with puffs of smoke matched to bursts of air and long wisps of smoke to sustained tones creating a sense of synchretic audiovisual gesture. Video and interactive design Sigi Torinus; with Trevor Pittman (clarinet), Felix del Tredici (trombone), Brent Lee (saxophone; sound processing).

Performed at Kunstmuseet KUBE, Ålesund, Norway (2015; with Brent Lee, saxophone); at 4th Wall Music, Joy Theatre, Windsor ON (2014; with Trevor Pittman, clarinet; Brent Lee, saxophone and sound processing); at in/fuse 19, Studio A, Windsor, ON (2014; with Felix del Tredici, trombone; Trevor Pittman, clarinet; Brent Lee, sound processing)