Meridian - a Multimedia Performance Event

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Saturday, July 29th, 2017
7:00 PM

Meridian brings live multimedia performance to The Roxy, Gabriola Meridian is an innovative, artistic collaboration of four Vancouver Island based artists and VIU’s Arts and Humanities faculty members. The approximately 60-minute long live performance features fluid abstract imagery accompanied with electronic sound score, looped and layered female vocals, and spoken word poetry. Attending the Arts and Humanities Colloquium in January 2016, an anonymous audience member noted that Meridian “transcends time with digital media by collaborating, improvising, through time, over time, in bits of time, and then making sure it’s live as a performance for synchronicity.”

About Meridian: Meridian is an ongoing exploration of new media art forms and live performance. Since the formation and first show in 2012, Meridian has evolved continuously, birthing two different performance works. It has seen the members participate in public talks and present 11 performances Canada-wise.

Meridian is Robin Davies, Kevin Mazutinec, Justin McGrail and Marian van der Zon. Driven by their mantra “Fun? Just stop not having some,” the artists experiment with their respective artistic media.

Kevin Mazutinec teaches in the departments of media studies and art and design. In his conceptually driven practice he explores and defies the conventions that frame these disciplines. The visual score he produces for Meridian shows traits of his own expressiveness, and follows dramatic curves through the concepts of space, scale and matter.

Robin Davies also works in the same two departments. Robin based the soundscape on electronic material made from scratch and on samples from Marian van der Zon’s improvised work. There are several moments in the performance where the audio is pre-synchronized with the visuals, but Robin’s part of the performance is live, although the audience may not be aware of the complexity of his act in the background.

Justin McGrail is a professor of art history and a prolific artist of the spoken word. He brings the final element - the spoken word poetry., which offers the audience the familiar structure of language, yet challenges them to keep up as the words dip, soar dive and fall in passionate rendition, to coalesce with the energies that are Meridian.

Marian van der Zon adds further dimension to the work with an improvised performance featuring the use of acoustic instruments as well as elaborately layered vocals, orchestrated through the use of loop pedals. On stage, Marian may or may not be absent in person, but she is always present as a digital entity. Her vocals and play are turned into data, altered, manipulated and distorted by technology. Half human, half mechanistic she is the essential ingredient in the ambiguous mood of the performance. “Meridian is one of the finest collaborative projects at VIU,” Dean of Arts and Humanities Ross McKay says.

“ The creativity of this group is remarkable – their daring improvisations, their imaginative use of sound and video, and the sheer joy with which they go about planning, rehearsing, and carrying out their performances is inspirational.” For further inquiries and ticket info, contact <[email protected]> or visit .