Skip to main content
man at a DJ table

William Basinski: Arcadia Archive

VIFF Live

Image: © Jose Ramón Caamaño

This event has passed

Acclaimed ambient and experimental composer William Basinski presents the Canadian Premiere of Arcadia Archive: an immersive, transcendent live performance that combines music drawn from Basinski’s extensive archival work with 40+ year-old tape loops. For this special VIFF Live concert, Basinski will premiere a new work – a prayer for peace, channeled via 1970s Uher tape machines and digital feedback and archival piano recordings from Arcadia, his former loft in Brooklyn – accompanied by a new “nocturnal video work” created by Basinski’s longtime partner and collaborator, artist-filmmaker James Elaine.

William Basinski has been working in experimental media for over 30 years in New York City and California. Employing obsolete technology and analog tape loops, his haunting and melancholy soundscapes explore the temporal nature of life and resound with the reverberations of memory and the mystery of time. His epic, 4-disc masterwork, The Disintegration Loops, received international critical acclaim and was named by Pitchfork as one the best ambient albums of all time.

New York-based avant-garde composer William Basinski sculpts samples, drones and feedback loops into soundscapes rich in melancholic atmosphere.

The Guardian, 2017

 

Supported by

Media Partner

       

Community Partner

              

Artist
Date

Oct 2

Time

8:00 pm

Venue

Rio Theatre

19+
90 min

Book Tickets

This event has passed.

Artist

William Basinski headshot

Photo by James Elaine, 2011

William Basinski

William Basinski is a classically trained musician and composer who has been working in experimental media for over 30 years in NYC and most recently, California. Employing obsolete technology and analogue tape loops, his haunting and melancholy soundscapes explore the temporal nature of life and resound with the reverberations of memory and the mystery of time. His epic 4-disc masterwork, The Disintegration Loops received international critical acclaim and was chosen as one of the top 50 albums of 2004 by Pitchfork Media. The Temporary Residence deluxe LP box-set reissue from 2012 was awarded best re-issue of the year and a score of 10 on Pitchfork. Installations and films made in collaboration with artist-filmmaker, James Elaine have been presented in festivals and museums internationally, and his concerts are presented to sold out crowds around the world. Basinski was chosen by Music Director, Antony Hegarty to create music for the Robert Wilson opera, The Life and Death of Marina Abramovic which had its world premiere at the Manchester International Festival in July 2011 and toured Europe in 2012 and North America in 2013. Orchestral transcriptions of The Disintegration Loops by Maxim Moston have been performed at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Queen Elizabeth Hall and La Batie Festival in Geneva, Switzerland, Dark Mofo Festival in Hobart Tasmania and most recently Pitchfork Midwinter Festival with the Chicago Philharmonic and Primavera Sound Barcelona.

Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre

Boxcutter

Dir. Reza Dahya
88 min

The first feature from former Toronto Flow OTA Live host and producer Reza Dahya is a boisterous, sometimes bruising day-in-the-life of wannabe rapper Rome (Ashton James), set on meeting megastar Richie Hill (Rich Kidd).

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

The Exterminating Angel: Live Scored by Magazinist

Dir. Luis Bunuel
95 min

Using crystal singing glasses, resonant bowls, pepper grinders and other sound objects, experimental music duo Magazinist perform a unique live score alongside Luis Buñuel's surrealist masterpiece about a dinner party which becomes an inescapable prison.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema
Gondola
Gondola film image; two women staring intently at one another sitting in a gondola

Gondola

Dir. Veit Helmer
85 min

In this whimsical comedy two cable car conductors fall in love as they criss cross a beautiful Georgian valley every half hour.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

The Life of Chuck

Dir. Mike Flanagan
111 min

The winner of the coveted Audience Award at TIFF last year, The Life of Chuck keeps us guessing about what it's up to and where it's going... Trust us, it's a keeper.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Hud

Dir. Martin Ritt
112 min

Landmark modern western with Brandon de Wilde from Shane worshipping the wrong hero, Paul Newman’s eponymous heel. According to Paul Schrader, this movie marks the birth of the cynical (anti-)hero in American cinema.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Inedia

Dir. Liz Cairns
107 min

Liz Cairns makes a mesmerizing feature debut that sees a young woman suffering from mysterious food allergies join a remote island community practicing alternative healing methods. She soon realizes that not everything is as it seems.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre