Shift
Mani Mazinani and Sanaz Mazinani

Located within two, 20-foot shipping containers, Shift takes the form of a large-scale stereo system that engages with both seated audiences and passers-by. It is a collaboration between multidisciplinary artists Mani Mazinani and Sanaz Mazinani who have created a spatial-perceptual experience on The Bentway site, enabling audiences to perceive movement and motion in the absence of a visual component.

Shift features a sound composition that challenges notions of place and space through a series of audible instances of the Doppler effect. The audio is assembled from synthesizer fragments combined with original recordings of lakeside waves, a rolling thunderstorm, and radiation emissions of the planets and stars as recorded outside the Earth’s atmosphere.

Shift addresses both the history and future of The Bentway’s waterfront location. It asks audiences to place themselves within the conceptual shift that occurs as we explore the aural transition from landscape to atmosphere, and finally to the galaxy beyond. These sounds propel us through the natural landscapes that have played host to our long history, and towards a future that has existed for millennia. The city’s surrounding soundscape further contributes to the work, simultaneously grounding us to this particular time and place.

Michael Snow and Mani Mazinani
Octave Cat Synthesizer duo

Starting in 2010, Michael Snow and Mani Mazinani have performed a series of concerts featuring their Octave Cat Analog Synthesizers. They are the only Octave Cat Synthesizer duo in the world.

On October 28, they come to The Bentway for an intimate performance. Snow and Mazinani will take over The Bentway’s shipping containers – which currently house Shift, an audio installation by Sanaz and Mani Mazinani, part of The Bentway’s Fall Public Art Exhibition If, But, What If? – for a unique sonic experience.

Both Snow (CCMC) & Mazinani (Gravitons) come from a visual arts and music background, having worked with countless materials, approaches, and forms, they perform together both playing CAT synthesizers. This abrasive yet entrancing duo creates a new language as they dance with each other in what feels like a sonic battle. The grand scope & versatility of synthesis is reduced as both improvisers have all the same tools. The focus becomes their own capacity to create and engage in what often seems like a caustic storm of notes, morphing in mid air.
– Tad Michalak

Part of The Bentway’s Fall Art Exhibition If, But, What If?

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Sanaz Mazinani is a contemporary artist who works primarily in photography, video, and large-scale installations. She obtained her undergraduate degree in photography from the Ontario College of Art & Design University, and an MFA from Stanford University where her research focused on the study of digital photographic propagation and its impact on representation and perception.

Mani Mazinani makes artworks in multiple media including installation, video, film, photography, painting, printmaking, multiples, sound, and music. His work directs attention to the physicality and logic of his subject medium. Mazinani’s works have been exhibited in North America, Europe, and Asia.