Can we change direction?

Ricardo Dal Farra (Concordia University, Montreal, CA).

ricardo.dalfarra@concordia.ca

http://www.concordia.ca/faculty/ricardo-dal-farra.html

“We are living in a world reaching a critical point where the equilibrium between a healthy environment, the energy our society needs to maintain or improve this lifestyle and the interconnected economies could pass more quickly than expected from the current complex balance to a complete new reality where unbalance would be the rule and human beings would need to be as creative as never before to survive. Environmental problems, economic uncertainty and political complexity have been around for a long time. What was different before was the speed and depth of transformations compared with today’s sudden changes. The frequent occurrence and severity that certain weather and climate-related events are having around us is increasing, and the ability of human beings on modifying adjacent surroundings as well as distant places have turn into a power capable of altering the planet […] The arts could play a major part in helping the global society to understand the magnitude of the crisis we are facing, and in promoting the awareness around environmental matters. it could also be a very good vehicle to disseminate proposals able produce changes in our behavior and decisions, influencing our chances for the future. Artists could promote inter and transdisciplinary actions focusing on our responsibility regarding the turning point we are living in defining the future of -human- life on Earth.”

BIOGRAPHIE:

Dr. Ricardo Dal Farra is the founder of Balance Unbalance.

Dr. Ricardo Dal Farra (ricardo.dalfarra@concordia.ca) is a composer and new media artist, educator, historian and curator. He is Associate Professor at the Music Department of Concordia University, Canada and founder-director of the Electronic Arts Research Centre (CEIArtE) of UNTREF University, Argentina.

Dal Farra has presented his sound-art, electroacoustic and visual-music works in more than 40 countries, and recordings of his pieces are published in 23 international editions (including CDs by Computer Music Journal and Leonardo Music Journal, on MIT Press). Among others, he received awards and commissions from: Sao Paulo International Arts Biennale, Brazil; the National Endowment for the Arts, Argentina, the Concours International de Musique Electroacoustique de Bourges, France; Centro di Sonologia Computazionale, University of Padua, Italy; and the International Computer Music Association.

He has been researcher and consultant on electroacoustic music and media arts history for UNESCO, France; director of the Hexagram Centre for Research-Creation in Media Arts and Technologies, Canada; associated researcher of the Music, Technology and Innovation Research Centre at De Montfort University, UK; senior consultant of the Amauta – Andean Media Arts Centre in Cusco, Peru; coordinator of the international research alliance DOCAM – Documentation and Conservation of the Media Arts Heritage; and director of the Multimedia Communication national program at the Federal Ministry of Education, Argentina.

Funded by The Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science and Technology of Montreal, he created the largest collection publicly available of Latin American Electroacoustic Music.

Dr. Dal Farra is founder-director of the international conference series Understanding Visual Music – UVM (held in Canada, Argentina and Brazil) and Balance-Unbalance, on how the media arts could contribute to solving the environmental crisis (held in Argentina, Canada, Australia, United States, Colombia and now in the UK). Dr. Dal Farra has been also the artistic director of the Mexican electronic arts biennale Transitio in 2015.