The urge to create is also a destructive urge
Keywords:
powerdrone, textiles, audiovisual, multimedia, cross-media, intermedia
noise, sound art, ritual, experiment, performance, place based, rural
Members:
Alyssa Semczyszyn, BLA
Principal at Prospect & Refuge Landscape Architecture
Textile Artist
Community Facilitator
Wayne Mercier
Audiovisualist/noise artist
Vocalist/performer
Max/MSP programming
Base:
Gabriola Island, BC, Canada
In the reach of the Salish Sea
In the unceded territories of the Snuneymuxw people
Fields of work:
live audiovisual performance
Textile arts
Community workshops/engagement
Ritual performance
New media
Media:
https://eightprime.net/thrums/
https://thrums.bandcamp.com/
Wayne Mercier is a poet, vocalist, programmer, and audiovisual artist who has been performing and collaborating on the west coast of Canada since the turn of the century. He has a background in radio, community service work, and advocacy in addition to his arts practice.
Alyssa Semczyszyn is a Landscape Architect and textile artist working with flexible form in the realm of the tactile. She has a history of environmental advocacy and community organizing and has been the Principal of Prospect & Refuge Landscape Architecture since 2019.
Together they record, produce, and perform (and hold workshops) as THRUMS – an intermedia performing arts project exploring drone, ritual, and transformation.
As the KHA Situation they curate a seasonal series of experimental audiovisual performances.
As participants in the life of their community they practice mutual aid and eternal vigilance. THRUMS are avid foragers.
Recent Works
Third Annual Solstice Sound Intensive
SnakeSKin Crackle
live audiovisual performance with 8-shaft loom, laptop, live percussion
Gabriola Sound Symposium 2023- September 2, 2023
Workshop and performance using Haptic Throb Engine software, spinning wheel, voice
Active Passive-Galiano Island, BC, August 10-14, 2023
Youth Textile, Sound, and Digital Processing Workshop
Workshop and performance
Recording “Fingering Weight”
Hand dyed, locally sourced Arcott & Mohair
Unfettered voice
Custom software (Haptic Throb Engine) for timbral analysis & gestural control of audio signal
KHA Situation Solstice Sound Intensive/Equinoctial Experiment
Curated and performed on Gabriola Island
Winter Solstice, 2021 & 2022
Vernal Equinox 2022 & 2023
Audiovisual performance and stream
Field recordings, custom video software, guest artists
Loom Experiment 2022
Doom Lounge
Audiovisual project developed for Cultivate Festival
Field recordings, custom video software
Gabriola Island, Sept 2019
Wayne
Things Gone, Things Going Away
commissioned audio piece for Barbara Adler’s multi-disciplinary textile-based process work Spring/ Summer 2024 for the Gabriola Island of the Arts Festival April 1- 10, 2023
Every Cookie Is A Tiny Fist Raised Against the Dismal Edifice of Babylon
Theatrical performance developed for Cultivate Festival
Gabriola Island, September 2019
ANTHROPO
Site specific divinatory work performed at Luck Luck-ee (CRAB Park), Vancouver
Funded by DTES Small Arts Grant
May 2017
https://anthropo2017.wordpress.com/
Alyssa
BC Society of Landscape Architects registered member since 2011.
Sugar Refinery Dye Works in 2016- custom dyeing for weavers and then weaving/ dyeing
Founded Prospect & Refuge Landscape Architects in 2019
Member of the Gabriola Spinners and Weavers Guild since 2017
Gabriola Fiber Pod founding member in 2021
“Spinning a Gabriola Island Fibershed” workshop 2023- developed and delivered with members of the pod and a Snuneymuxw indigenous knowledge keeper for the Gabriola Island of the Arts 2023, April 7, 2023