Introduced by Amanda Dawn Christie.
Since World War II, residents of Sackville, New Brunswick heard voices in their sinks, refrigerators, and radiator pipes. Lights glowed on and off at random, and even transmitted thoughts into their minds, causing one spooked soul to dream in languages that he was unable to speak. For anyone unaware of their source, these broadcasts from beyond could sound supernatural. The foreign tongues filtering into the east coast Canadian town with a population of less than 6,000, were actually due to shortwave transmissions, unintentionally picked up from 13 radio towers located in the saltwater Tantramar Marshes built by the CBC in 1944.
Moncton-born experimental artist and filmmaker Amanda Dawn Christie spent seven years exploring this otherworldly phenomenon culminating in her film Spectres of Shortwave.
This screening of the film is accompanied by a radio simulcast, so that while viewers watch the film on a big screen in one part of the world, listeners can hear the sound track over radio waves in another part of the world. This experimental documentary film focuses on the flat marshland landscape accompanied by stories told by local residents and the technicians who worked at the site.
Amanda Dawn Christie is an interdisciplinary new media artist who makes film, installation, performance, and transmission artworks. The research and creation of her projects is frequently funded by grants and prizes from various arts councils. Over the past decade her works have been presented internationally on five continents, and she is currently creating a new transmission artwork using HAARP, one of the planet’s only Ionospheric Research Instruments.
Her interdisciplinary practice extends to audiences outside of contemporary art circles, and has been profiled by electronic engineering, shortwave, and hacking communities. Critical analysis of Christie’s work has been published in various books, catalogues, and journals, and her films are distributed by the CFMDC, the Dutchfilmbank, and Lightcone. Her works can also be found in various private and public art collections including the New Brunswick Art Bank and the Galerie d’art Louise et Reuben Cohen.
Christie’s work has been presented at various galleries, festivals, and museums around the world, including the Canadian Film Institute, the Rotterdam Film Festival, the San Francisco Cinematheque, the Millenium Film Workshop in New York, Cannes, Radio Web MACBA of the Museum of Contemporary Art Barcelona, the BBC, the Confederation Centre for the Arts Gallery, VIVA!, Dazibao, the Banff Park Museum, and the Museum of Civilization in Quebec, among many others.
* Best Documentary Film (international competition) 2016 / FICFA
Official Selection:
Atlantic Film Festival – Halifax, Canada
Festival international du cinéma francophone en Acadie – Moncton, Canada
Co-presented by send+receive: a festival of sound.
