Gatherings 2.0 // Ottawa Drone Day 2024

Carleton Dominion-Chalmers Centre (enter at 290 Lisgar Street)

May 25, 2024

1:00 pm - 9:00 pm

Community and experimental sound unite to celebrate this international day of drone.

Drone Day is an annual global celebration of drone, community and experimental sounds. This year, Debaser and CUAG are co-presenting a special edition of Ottawa Drone Day. Featured performers and facilitators include Anne Bourne, Olivia Shortt and Andy Slater.  

Ottawa Drone Day 2024 takes place at Carleton Dominion-Chalmers Centre (CDCC), a heritage building in Centretown, not far from Parliament Hill. It reflects on the question, “what is our relationship to this land?”   

Taking place in CDCC’s vaulted performance hall, Drone Day is a participatory program that invites experienced and beginner sound-makers to add their voices to a heterogenous yet unified hum. It requests listening as much as inviting sounding.   

We’ll take our cues from Pauline Oliveros’ ideas of deep listening as activism and Dylan Robinson’s concept of hungry listening. This decentralized program of organized sound elevates group consciousness while honouring individual contributions on their own terms. Conceived together, drone is a healing and socializing agent. 

This event is PWYC (pay what you can) and open to everyone.

Access  Carleton Dominion-Chalmers Centre (CDCC) is a fully accessible space, with an elevator and barrier-free washrooms. The Para Transpo drop-off and an entrance with ramps are located on the 290 Lisgar Street side of the building.  

Parking Paid visitor parking is available in the CDCC’s Lisgar Street lot. There is also street parking available nearby.  

Thank you CUAG is co-producing this event with Debaser. Poster design by @al11z. 

Participants

Anne Bourne is an artist, composer, improvising cellist and vocalist. She researches the geopoetics of shorelines, spectral wave patterns of water and collective sound creation. Seasoned in international concert touring and recording, Anne has improvised with many artists, significantly composer Pauline Oliveros, developing a deep listening practice that she will share with Drone Day participants. 

Olivia Shortt (they/them) (Anishinaabe, Nipissing First Nation) is a storyteller and performing artist working across Turtle Island and internationally. They are a vocalist, noisemaker, improviser, composer, sound designer, video artist, drag artist, curator, administrator and producer. They are Carleton Music’s Artist-in-Residence for 2024. 

Andy Slater is a blind Chicago-based media artist, writer, performer and Disability advocate / loudmouth. Andy holds a Masters in Sound Arts and Industries from Northwestern University and a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Andy’s current work focuses on advocacy for accessible art and technology, Alt-Text for sound and image, the phonology of the blind body and spatial audio for extended reality.