Collaborate bio-sonically with non-human organisms around you! As part of Vector Festival, InterAccess is pleased to partner with MOCA Toronto to host a free workshop with Tosca Hidalgo y Terán. Drop by on Sunday, July 14 between 1-4pm on Floor 1 to listen to bio-data through various analogue synthesizers, plants, moss and mushrooms and experience a non-human bio-sonification symphony!

Bio-sonification is a process to translate complex real-time sensor data into musical notes and controls, exploring the auditory sensory modality to provide insights into invisible phenomenon. Participants will get a chance to place electrodes onto plants, fungi, themselves or each other to have their bio-data turned into music.

About the Artists: Tosca Teran, aka Nanotopia, is an interdisciplinary artist. Her work has been featured at SOFA New York, Culture Canada, and The Toronto Design Exchange. Tosca has been awarded artist residencies with Nes, Skagaströnd, The Ayatana Research Program in Ottawa and The Icelandic Visual Artists Association through Sím, Reykjavik Iceland. Tosca is currently an invited Bio-Artist in residence at the Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto in partnership with the Ontario Science Centre. This summer Tosca will further her research in bio-sonification and bio-remediation with local mycologists at Bilpin Australia where she is the recipient of the 2019 BigCi Environmental Award at Wollemi National Park within the UNESCO World Heritage site in the Greater Blue Mountains.

“I view my research as a collaborative effort with the non-Human entities I touch, caress, grow. Having ‘minds’ of their own, my work explores sculpting forms with living mycelium, and bio-sonification. My fascination with mycelium (the root structure of mushrooms) is compounded by a number of factors: fungi are neither plant nor animal and fungi can clean up ecological disasters.”

Check out more of Tosca’s work here:
Nanotopia.net
www.toscateran.com
@MothAntler

About Vector Festival: Vector Festival is a participatory and community-oriented initiative dedicated to showcasing digital games and creative media practices. Presenting works across a dynamic range of exhibitions, screenings, performances, lectures, and workshops, Vector acts as a critical bridge between emergent digital platforms and new media art practice. The festival was founded in 2013 as the “Vector Game Art & New Media Festival” by an independent group of artists and curators: Skot Deeming, Clint Enns, Christine Kim, and Katie Micak, who were later joined by Diana Poulsen and Martin Zeilinger.

Questions? If you have any questions about the workshop or special requirements, please contact us at education@interaccess.org.