As its contribution to the International Chilliwack Biennial, Or Gallery presents When a day you know to be Wednesday, starts off sounding like Sunday, you know there is something seriously wrong somewhere, a program of individual projects by Christoph Keller / Stählemühle, Gareth Moore, Heather and Ivan Morison, and Kara Uzelman.

The program takes its title from the opening sentence of John Wyndham’s 1951 post-apocalyptic novel The Day of the Triffids, and the works presented play on the novel’s attention to shifts in soundscape as well as literary connections pertinent to the novel’s distopic themes.

Christoph Keller / Stählemühle – Keller et Fils – Absinthe Traditionelle du Lac de Contance (edition 65/88), 2010
Christoph Keller, founder of Revolver Books (Frankfurt) and editor of Christoph Keller Editions published by JRP Ringier (Zürich), produces small editions of fine spirits on his farm in the Lake Constance region of South Germany. Keller draws conscious lines between his work designing and producing books to his newer practice of distilling alcohol, and these lines seem all the more apparent with the recent production of a traditional French-style absinthe. Absinthe was a drink particularly among European artists and writers of the late 19th and early 20th centuryin the rife with literary and distopic references and allusions. In the context of this series, Keller’s absinthe might be seen to stand in as the hallucinatory green meteor shower of Wyndham’s novel that leaves most of the world blind the following morning.

* Small quantities served undiluted on the evening of Thursday, July 29.

*Gareth Moore – The Sound of the Ocean Brought to The Lake, 2010*
Twice daily, the artist will bring a small portable stereo to the edge of Cultus Lake and play the sound of the ocean.

Heather and Ivan Morison – The J.G. Ballard Sausage
Originally developed with a pig farmer in Wales, the J.G. Ballard Sausage was first produced for the barn raising of Heather and Ivan Morison’s work _Black Cloud_. Ballard had just died, so the artists decided to dedicate a sausage to him.

Ideal recipe: blood, mixed meats, apples gathered from the roadside where they have grown from discarded cores by passing motorists, wild fennel (or something similar that is locally, naturally available.), seasoning and whatever is needed to give correct texture and form. They should be around one foot long, half inch in diameter and black in colour, a bit like the kind of sausage Robert Maitland might have made in Ballard’s novel Concrete Island.
* Served on the evening of Thursday, July 29.

Kara Uzelman — Shortwave Receiver and Antenna, 2010
Using materials derived from a camping vernacular (tent poles, beer bottles, wire, found speaker, recovered electronics, metal pot, AA batteries), Uzelman assembles a shortwave receiver with the goal of making attributes of the campsite’s ‘hertzian space’ audible. Herzian space is a term sometimes used to describe the invisible landscape of the electromagnetic spectrum, complete with electrogeography and electroclimate. Uzleman’s practice has long involved the use of found and salvaged materials, and with her recent work she takes increasing interest in expanding this practice to include found radio waves — normally invisible and inaudible, yet highly regulated for use by government and commercial interests.