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Augurs Wand is the Montreal-based visual music duo of Mike Cassidy and composer Kristian North. Powered by the three-laser Cerberus system and the Phosphene synthesis environment, the project unifies sound, form, and color into a synesthetic language of audiovisual ritual.
The work employs an extended technique of ‘vector synthesis’ (Holzer, 2019), whereby laser image and sound are produced by the same analogue signals, forming a unified audiovisual instrument that is programmatic rather than merely associative. The title of the work refers to a newly identified biological state where cellular systems retain responsiveness beyond the boundaries of clinical life and death. Third State interprets this liminal space as a perceptual flux between light and darkness, past and present, or form and abstraction, which never truly settles into form constancy.
Their work has been featured at Elektra Festival, and Hexagram.
Artist Bios
Kristian North (he/him) is a genre agnostic songwriter, musician, and composer based in Tio’tia:ke/Montréal. He has written, recorded, and toured original music extensively in North America and Europe as a solo artist and band member since ~2003. This experience in the music industry informs his compositional practice that values chance, live performance, and collaboration. He works on soundscape composition, visual music, and transdisciplinary research-creation. He holds a BFA in electroacoustic composition and is pursuing an MA in interdisciplinary studies at Concordia University.
Mike Cassidy (he/him) is a digital artist primarily working with sound, light, and movement. With a background in music therapy, software engineering, and interaction design, he builds tools for making kinetic art. He holds a BA in Psychology, a BFA in electroacoustic composition, and is currently pursuing an interdisciplinary MA in assistive technology and multi-sensory media.