George Rahi is an interdisciplinary artist based in Vancouver, on unceded Coast Salish Territories. He works with experimental instruments and technologies as a method of exploring acoustic and digital anomalies, modes of listening, spatial and architectural thinking. His work includes installations, instrument making, composition, solo and ensemble performance, and works for radio, theatre, and public spaces.
This display presents two of Rahi’s installations. Created during his Art & Technology Residency, Watershed Moments invites visitors into a sound installation shaped by the sounds and cycles of the so-called Fraser River. Drawing on Maryanne Amacher’s idea of ‘perceptual geography’ where listening extends beyond the individual ear into an environment of relations and resonances, the work explores how water shapes the contours of perception, place, and time.
The second work, Decoy, reflects on the power and lure of imitation in sound reproduction technologies. Using a self-constructed birdsong machine, the work delves into the history of technological listening through a constellation of mechanical, acoustic, and digital devices whose differing logics of representation converge in a single environment to create a surreal form of imitation. Accompanying this perceptual decoy is a video work that presents the uncanniness of this birdsong in another register: the artificial ecologies of built environments such as the Bloedel Conservatory.
Watershed Moments
2025
automated piano, chimes, and custom instruments, hydrophone audio and radio signals
Combining self-built instruments with computer-controlled piano and chimes, the installation sounds rhythms that merge environmental signals and musical textures to create a polyphony of human and more-than-human sounds. The textures of this sonic landscape range from the poetic to the data-driven. The compositional forms are inspired by water’s multiplicity of movements; currents, rivulets, rapids, and descending patterns of motion. At the riverside, a hydrophone underneath the
‘Samson V’ boat streams real-time audio into the gallery, providing the counterpoint of the river’s underwater soundscape. Rhythms derived from water-level sensors also give shape to water’s periodicity; its repetitions & cycles.
Decoy
2025
record player, birdsong recording, organ pipes, electronics, video
From mechanical automatons to “Hi-Fi” environmental recordings, there are recurring ways that the seemingly-miraculous nature of birdsong has been treated as a testing ground for the simulation of the natural world. Through mixing contrasting media technics from disparate eras, this installation reproduces birdsong through a surreal form of imitation. The bird songs are mimicked by the sounds of organ pipes submerged in water, controlled by a digital machine listening system. This system listens to a vinyl recording from the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology to decode and reproduce their sounds, in a reversal of their mechanical instrumentality. Accompanying the installation is a video of early morning scenes at the Bloedel Conservatory, a tropical plant and bird sanctuary built in 1969 in Vancouver. Inside the dome, an impossible ‘dawn chorus’ is sung from bird species all over the world, where a choreography of maintenance, mediation, and infrastructure sustains life under glass.
Schedule & Activites
New West Culture Crawl: Studio Visit
Meet George Rahi at New Media Gallery for a studio visit and experience his work in progress.
Saturday, Oct 4, 12pm – 4pm
New Media Gallery
Public Display
Watershed Moments: November 13 – December 20
Decoy: November 13 – December 13
Thursday – Saturday, 10am – 5pm
Artist Talk & Reception
Monday, November 17, 5:30pm – 8:00pm
Residency Backround
The Art and Technology Artist in Residence invites artists to explore and experiment in response to Anvil Centre and its communities. The residency aims to support artists with time, space, and resources to further their research, interests, and overall artistic practice. Artists are invited to propose their own conceptual approaches to the residency that best meet the needs of their practice. Artists engage with publics and visitors in a way that is in keeping with their practice, while inviting reciprocal exchanges with the areas’ communities and staff, and reflecting upon this while sharing their thinking and working processes through public events/talks.
Artists are selected based on their experience working in public contexts and whose interests and artistic practice is fitting with the goals of the project. Artists for the 2025 residency program have been selected from the public art program artist roster.
During the residency, the Artist can examine and respond to Anvil Centre, its community, history, site, and programming activities. All interventions will be considered, and the artist can explore options with staff throughout their time in the residency.
PROJECT GOALS
– To provide an opportunity to immerse artists into a civic context and develop site-responsive public art;
– To extend the understanding of contemporary new media art, history of the site, and its significance to the communities it serves;
– To activate the New Media Art Gallery space and engage audiences with new media art; – To encourage meaningful engagement and responses to civic spaces;
– To facilitate shared dialogue between artists, community members, and visitors;
– To create programming and activations during the residency that provides a benefit to the public either through a reflection of them, engagement with them, or their involvement.