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CLINKER | PRESS & INTERVIEWS

VUE MAGAZINE ARTICLE | JULY 2008

CLINKER AT THE LEONARD COHEN INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL
EVEN COHEN CAN DROP A CLINKER
Written by Bryan Birtles

Being quite a fan of the man himself, I was really curious to see what the Leonard Cohen International Festival was all about. But there was one question troubling me about the music aspect of the festival: how many covers of “Suzanne” or “First We Take Manhattan” can I really listen to, no matter how well they’re re-imagined?

This year, however, festival goers in the mood for something more experimental will be treated to a new live cinema commission by the likes of Gary James Joynes, who creates lush sound and visual projects under the name Clinker. Live cinema is a relatively new art form combining musical and sound art elements with visual and film effects, all of which is controlled live by the artist. No two performances are ever the same.

“I’m a visual artist and a musician and I always wanted to merge the two together,” explains Joynes of how he came to be a live cinema innovator, creating his own system for making his art. “I’ve got a custom control system that I use that gives me the ability to have a matrix of different video files under my left hand and a bunch of sliders and knobs all programmed to do different things like various effects and blending type things under my right hand. It gives me the ability to play video like an instrument—like how a keyboard player would play a synthesizer.”

Commissioned by the festival to create a piece, Joynes—who describes himself as having previously been a “sideline admirer” of Cohen, but not a super fan by any means—dove into the poet’s work and was struck most forcefully by the bassy timbre of the man’s voice.

“As a sound artist I was enamoured by the sound and the bass and the tone and the texture of his voice. I had the idea of featuring that as something novel to this festival which will be a lot of other really great artists doing more traditional cover songs,” Joynes explains of the inspiration behind the piece. “I was commissioned to do an experimental piece, and that’s where my inspiration came from—his voice basically.”

Although Edmonton might be known as a festival city, this paper has lately pointed out that most of the art created within the context of these festivals is of a very safe variety. That’s why it is so important that the Leonard Cohen International Festival is taking a risk on Clinker, especially because live cinema is a very expensive art to produce properly, and it needs the support a festival can provide.

“The challenge in this city is finding a venue that’s suitable because it really has to be presented somewhere the audience can sit comfortably and there’s a screen available and good acoustics. Once you start adding up the expenses of putting that stuff together [it gets very costly],” explains Joynes. “I mean, you might think that the underground electronic community or that underground post rock scene might be into it, but you’re lucky if you get a hundred people out. So it comes down to the feasibility of pulling it off. That’s why I’m excited about this opportunity: it’s taken those challenges right out of it.”