Name: HELLO by James Buffin by WORKMAN ARTS AUDIO STREAM
Duration: 2 min 26 s
Description: As an artist primarily working in visual media, some big surprises unfolded while exploring audio in this project. While my documentary work is dedicated to very heavy topics, with this project I was able to access another part of my voice. Seems the playful, sarcastic side of me wanted out.

	
“Messages” is a trip hop-inspired song that incorporates recordings of my “channeling” sessions - that is, consciously switching my mind into a state in which I allow messages from the unconscious to rise to the surface and come out as automatic handwriting, or as the case is with this project, through my voice.  It is not a case of repeating a voice in my head - instead, it is a kinetic, reflexive phenomenon that I have experienced as a result of going through spiritual emergency, dating back to 2007.  “Messages” incorporates a sample from Cornershop’s “It’s Indian Tobacco, My Friend”, modified using sound software.  The hope is that even with the unsettling sounds, the listener will also feel soothed by the experience of encouraging messages.

Messages2 by Sarafin

Using quotes from memory, one of my own compositions, and instruments I had on hand, I explored the assigned theme of "Navigating Wellness" in terms of my own journey, especially the part centred around my time at CAMH.

BUG IN A BOX 2 by Kerry Westell

BUG IN A BOX 1 by Kerry Westell

RUMINATION works with content and sensory distortion through repetition to reveal an aesthetic resolution. The sample is an audio glitch of Toronto's very own Honest Ed.

RUMINATION by Jan Swinburne

As an artist primarily working in visual media, some big surprises unfolded while exploring audio in this project. While my documentary work is dedicated to very heavy topics, with this project I was able to access another part of my voice. Seems the playful, sarcastic side of me wanted out.

HELLO by James Buffin

EXTRO by James Buffin

“Breathe” is a sound work created by Carrol Louie to spotlight the subtly of our moment-to-moment struggle to exist with the simple act of breathing.

Breathe by Carrol Louie

The Ontario Lunatic Asylum, built on these grounds in 1850, was situated between two streams: Asylum Stream, to the the Southwest, and, to the Northeast, Stafford Stream. These watercourses, like Garrison Creek (to which they were tributaries), were submerged beneath the settler colonies which would become Toronto.

I find it significant that in this place, the waters, which in many cultures are associated with healing, have been disappeared. Asylum Stream and Garrison Creek exist now as sewers. I restore them with whispers of charcoal pencils and paper, steps toward healing.

With grateful acknowledgments: Miriam Kingvisser performed "The Brook" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson; Lost Rivers Toronto; Bomgiizhik (Isaac Murdoch), for his teachings about the relationship between healing people and healing the waters and lands.


Draw Me A River by Lisa Walter

A discussion of the past and present of the Rendezvous With Madness Festival, now in its 26th year, including a conversation with special guest Catherine MacLellan, an award-winning musician who is the subject of a documentary film The Song and the Sorrow that is being featured at the festival.  MacLellan talks about her father Gene, also an award-winning musician, who died by suicide when she was 14-years-old.  In a wide-ranging interview, she discusses the impact his death had on her and her career, and her desire to open up the conversation about mental health.

HELLO by James Buffin

WORKMAN ARTS AUDIO STREAM

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