Ania Reynolds and Carl Polke Audiovisual: Ania Reynolds and Carl Polke create audiovisual works that explore the notion of sonic identity of place, and seek to uncover the extraordinary within the ordinary. Their unique process uses field recordings and video footage gathered from specific locations which are then manipulated and processed to create kaleidoscopic video art and psychedelic found-sound compositions that form audiovisual portraits of place. They received a 2020 Australian Music Centre Peggy Glanville-Hicks Commission to create the first work in the series, Audible Lockdown, which won the Best Short Film Award at the 2021 Experimental, Dance and Music Film Festival Toronto and received an Honorable Mention as a semi-finalist in the Prague International Indie Film Festival. They created Rad.I.Us 5K for 2020 Make It Up Club’s online concert series, followed by Audible Cubicle supported by the Melbourne Fringe’s 2021 Show Support program, and received a funded artist residency from the 2020 international Programme Odyssée des Résidences d’Artistes to create Ambronay in collaboration with the Centre Cultural de Rencontre d’Ambronay in France.
Ania Reynolds is a multi-award-winning composer, musician and producer who has performed her original music across five continents, been the Musical Director of Circus Oz and Yothu Yindi And The Treaty Project shared a duet saxophone solo with Femi Kuti, and recently performed with her two solo projects at the Buskers’ World Games and International Festival Of Recollection in Gwangju, South Korea. She has released three solo albums, two as an electronic artist Synthotronica: UFORIK (2019) and Hexentrunk (2022), and one as a solo pianist My Shadow Is My Only Follower (2020). She was an Artist In Residence at Despina, Rio de Janeiro, in 2019, creating an audio installation Música De Coco, and again in 2021-22, collaborating remotely to create a multi-channel video installation Trilha Sonora. As Synthotronica she has performed at the Buskers’ World Games Gwangju, White Night Bendigo, Honk! Festival Rio de Janeiro and Tollwood Winter Festival Munich, in addition to countless street performances across the globe. As a solo pianist, Ania performs all original music in concert halls, bars, aged care facilities and more, and with her public art music project Allegro Non-Oppo, where she gives free public piano concerts installation-style in Op shops (thrift shops).
Carl Polke is an Australian award-winning composer, sound designer and multi- instrumentalist whose work is known for its animated style and theatrical sensibility. His work in the live theatre and contemporary circus is well recognized and has received both Helpmann award nominations and a Canadian Jessie award. As musical director of Circus Oz for many years, he composed and performed at international level, and went on to create sound designs and compositions for Legs on the Wall, Phunktional, NICA, Melbourne Youth Orchestra and many other physical and theatrical companies and large-scale events. Carl’s current performative practice involves free improvisation utilizing digital audio effects with an alto saxophone, interrogating the relationship between society/the individual and the digital realm. It has featured both as a solo presentation for the 2020 Australasian Computer Music Conference and in his duo The Confabulations, which performs regularly in the local improvised music scene. His website-based interactive project The Endless Guitar Solo received funding from the 2020 City of Melbourne Quick Response Arts Grants, and he is currently the conductor of Melbourne based Squawkestra! Full list of credits: https://www.carlpolke.com/about