Join us on Saturday, March 9 for Dani Gal’s performance of Semi-Automatic: The Swamp in June followed by the opening of his exhibition Dani Gal: Historical Records.

The performance has reached capacity

Join us for the Opening Celebration at 7:00pm

5:30 PM - Doors Open to Seaspan Pavilion
6:00 PM - Performance of Semi-Automatic: The Swamp in June in Seaspan Pavillion
7:00pm - Opening Reception with Artist in attendance in The Polygon’s ground floor gallery
7:30pm - Remarks

Dani Gal: Historical Records is on view March 9 – July 14 in The Polygon's ground floor gallery.

About the Performance
In Semi-Automatic: The Swamp In June, Dani Gal uses his evolving system for putting different sound sources – such as live radio, field recordings (including samples from the Historical Records collection) and acoustic instruments outfitted with specially made motors – in dialogue. For example, by switching stations on a radio receiver, shifts in the sound level affect the movement of the motor that by result plays a string instrument. In relation to one another the sources, which the player has only partial control over, create an indeterminate musical composition.
One of the main aspects in this project is the use of speech. Through the radio receiver or pre-recorded voices, speech acts as an activating sound source. When stimulating a motor that excites a string instrument it creates a sort of Speech Surrogacy; the practice of imitating verbal speech without the use of the larynx. When both the voice and the instrument braid into each other, spoken language becomes music.

About the Exhibition on view March 9-July 14, 2024
Dani Gal’s epic work, Historical Records (2005-ongoing) comprises over 700 commercially issued vinyl LPs, which the artist has collected since the beginning of this century. As the collection grew over the years, it was divided into three parts and The Polygon Gallery is showing Part 1 , 2005-2018 (comprised of 246 records), from the Collection of Migros Museum in Zürich, in its ground floor gallery. This poignantly plural work becomes the centrepiece of Dani Gal’s first solo exhibition in Canada.
Find out more

Dani Gal: Historical Records is curated by Monika Szewczyk, Audain Chief Curator

Dani Gal performance at Centre Pompidou-Paris 05/2023, courtesy of the artist.