James Andean

E100, Toronto International Film Festival

E100 (2010, with François Xavier Saint-Pierre) was a sound installation commissioned by the Toronto International Film Festival, in celebration of the opening of their new Bell Lightbox theatre complex. In 2010, the Toronto International Film Festival, together with Cinematheque Ontario, prepared a list of the 'Essential 100 Films', which were then presented as a film series at the Bell Lightbox. The E100 installation was part of the Essential Cinema exhibition organised in conjunction with this film series. It ran from 9 September through 3 October, 2010, in Cinema 5 of the Bell Lightbox.

"E-100 re-contextualises cinematic sounds from the Essential 100 - fragments of dialogue, instrumental samples and environmental sounds - according to their musical properties, creating an encyclopaedic sonic collage. While the sounds are divorced from their narrative context, memories of their original contexts linger, and evocative juxtapositions ensue. The metrical perfection and monotone voice of Hal 9000 is coloured by a sample of Bernard Hermann's hypnotic score of Vertigo, for example, or two films that share a fixation on an image from the past meet, as the closing fanfare of Charles Foster Kane's life joins the spoken thoughts of La Jetée's unnamed time traveler. An aleatoric algorithm links the collaged phrases of cinema sounds creating an unending chain of musical scenes, and offering audiences a new, non-visual experience of cinema's most significant moments." - Laurel MacMillan

Expo 2010, Shanghai: Finland Pavilion.

(Winner, Gold Statue: Best Pavilion Design.) In spring 2009, the group that was to become the Resonator Helsinki sound collective was asked to provide sound and music for the Finland Pavilion at Expo 2010 in Shanghai. Over the year that followed, this team worked closely with the architects and designers of the pavilion, as well as with the team responsible for the video projection that formed the audiovisual centrepiece of the pavilion's main exhibition space, to prepare a large-scale, multi-faceted sound installation. This included sound for many different spaces on all three floors of the pavilion, including music and soundscapes, as well as sound design for the large-scale video presentations. My role in this group centred on soundscape and sound design. I was entirely responsible for the soundscapes and sound installations for the entry and foyer of the pavilion, and for the VIP lounges on the pavilion's third floor; I also contributed soundscapes for the main exhibition spaces, and contributed to the sound design for the main video installations.

The excerpt compiles material taken from several of these spaces. Additional material by Libero Mureddu.

Juorujen Äärelle

Juorujen Äärelle (2008) is an audio installation, commissioned by the Sibelius Weeks festival and presented in the city of Järvenpää, Finland, in November 2008. Juorujen Äärelle was entirely composed from press material surrounding the festival's previous commission - a work by Finnish composer and violist Max Savikangas, presented two years earlier. This includes quotes extracted from commentary and interviews with the composer and members of the public, as well as the electroacoustic treatment of radio broadcasts covering the opening of Savikangas' installation.

Mahtava is one of the longer sections of Juorujen Äärelle. It is built from a single phrase of Finnish text: "Mahtavaa - nyt se pulputtaa tuossa", which translates as "Wonderful - now it's pumping there". It is quoted from a newspaper interview with Savikangas, referring to the sound coming from a loudspeaker at his installation's opening. This short text is repeated and increasingly layered, creating rhythms and timbral artefacts in a manner reminiscent of Steve Reich's early tape pieces. The work is further developed through an additional process, whereby the results are filtered through the formants of the reader's voice: the strongest formant areas are increasingly reinforced, while the rest of the spectrum begins to drop away. Eventually, when all sense of words and speech has fallen away, leaving only pulsing drones, these processes reverse themselves, finally to return to the original phrase.

Rank Ensemble

Rank Ensemble is a Helsinki-based ensemble devoted to new music and free improvisation. More specifically, their activities focus on improvisation on the one hand, as well as works from the contemporary music repertoire which include elements of improvisation, or otherwise expanded roles for the performers.

Rank Ensemble is: Saara Rautio - Harp; Solmund Nystabakk - Guitar; Elena Kakaliagou - French horn; James Andean - Piano and electronics

Resonator Helsinki

Resonator Helsinki is a sound art production and interaction design company based in Helsinki and Berlin, specialising in interactive environments and sound for public and commercial spaces, including sound art and installations, soundscapes, and architectural sound design.

Plucié / Des Andes

Plucié/Des Andes are film artist Marek Pluciennik and sound artist James Andean. Together they have developed a unique audiovisual performance practice, drawing on the diverse background each has in their respective fields, seamlessly blending film, sound art, and performance art.Marek Pluciennik emphasises the tactile qualities of film, not just as a vessel for content, but as a material medium, by treating and transforming the film during the act of projection, most commonly by melting and burning the film as it is projected on the screen, as well as through the digital capture and transformation of both materials and process. The visual results are thus a combination of the film content, and the beautiful, strangely transfixing display of colour and texture as the film bubbles, melts, and dissolves. The results capture the transitory, ephemeral nature of experience, art, and performance, as images, scenes, narratives, and people melt away on the screen. Pluciennik's live treatment of the film extends into the digital - as these physical metamorphoses are recaptured, digitally treated and transformed, and projected anew - and also into the realm of performance art, as his methods are played out in front of, within, and around the audience, sometimes requiring the participation of audience members, and often extending into broader metaphors of performance action. James Andean creates live soundscapes to accompany and dialogue with the projected visuals. These soundscapes are often centred on live, site-specific sound, using the sound artifacts of the venue, the space, the audience, or the film projection as primary sound materials, to be further developed and extended live in the spontaneity of performance, creating a soundworld which once again stresses the fleeting impermanence of the experience of live art.

Re:****Sitruuna ja meduusa

"Re:****Sitruuna ja meduusa" is an audiovisual installation, in collaboration with visual artist Merja Nieminen, which was premiered at Galleria Aarni, in Espoo, Finland, in February 2011. The installation constructs a 'live' dynamic system, comprised of projected 3D graphics and projected sound, creating a virtual environment or ecosystem which changes and evolves in real-time. It explores the capacity of the spectator to create relationships - to build worlds - from multiple sensory information. "Re:****Sitruuna ja meduusa" will be presented in Berlin at NK Projekt in November 2011. "Sitruuna ja meduusa: Mark II" will be presented at Galleria Katariina in Helsinki in January 2012.