A 1910 Casavant pipe organ is rescued from impending gentrification at a heritage site in Montréal and brought back to life as Organism, an experimental instrument and investigative platform for stochastic patterning via turbulent processes of formation. In this acoustic solo performance, Navid Navab improvises with Organism to explore ways in which its turbulent thresholds manifest unstable timbres and intricate sonic self-organization.

Organism destabilizes the socio-historical tonality of the organ to liberate and sound its hidden turbulent materiality, robotically unleashing timbres unheard after centuries of sonic restraint. The rescued pipes and their pneumatic architecture have been carefully modified to remove aerodynamic ‘edge-tone’ stabilizations that historically aimed to eliminate turbulent flow and its uncontrollable sound world.

During the concert, Organism’s slowly-shifting metastable states allow for the pipes’ energetic thresholds to transductively fall into and out of compatibility with one another, turning each pipe into a vortex-shedding, edge-tone jumping, theatre of spectra and tone. With no digital sounds, Navab aerodynamically shapes the resulting ecology of interdependent timbres into emergent realms, traversing microsonic polyrhythms, post-rock overspill and swampy soundscapes.

PUBLICATION & REVIEWS. selected

Organism foreground a new form of listening: one that welcomes indeterminacy and entanglement, allowing material intelligence to speak in its own time and voice. A re-imagining of time, space, and historical memory… a profound and poetic gesture—an invitation to listen differently, and to reclaim what was silenced through resonance, care, and embodied presence. 

Jury Statement (short excerpt), GOLDEN NICA, Prix Ars Electronica

Navab plunges us into the experience of sonic and material processes in which the boundaries of mechanical movements, generative algorithms and acoustic materials become blurred and intertwined, to the delight of our ears, eyes and imagination.

Espace Art Actuel, P. Baltazar, 2024.07

There’s something undeniably visceral taking place …a gut-level sense that you’re experiencing something fundamentally attuned to the secrets of the universe… It’s a rave – an anarchic, irreverent party on the bones of the defeated organ. It’s productive, not destructive; it’s about giving voice to nature, not speaking for it. It’s a font of liveliness: a ritual of life.

C. McLean, FIBER, Writing Wildness, 2025.11

…technology now has the power to make the reinvented organ blow noises never produced before.

Le Devoir, Galadriel Avon, 2024.07

The humming in your chest, the rattling of the technology, the archaic sound creeping through the concrete. “Organism” was no ordinary piece of music. It was an experience, raw, expansive, almost eerie. And above all: difficult to forget. Organism sent the audience into trance with its hypnotic sounds.

M. Schmidhumer, Ars Electronica Review, 2024-2025

The performance at Orgelpark exceeded expectations. Navab wrings the most enchanting sounds out of the turbulent Organism. His art lies in an impressive sound palette... After a hellish ride, the audience is very enthusiastic.

GONZO Circus, 2025.07

Turbulent dynamics generated a musical experience that felt at once highly structured and profoundly alive. The result was a performance of extraordinary atmospheric density and remarkable nuance—one whose resonances lingered long after the final sounds had faded. The audience rose as one in a prolonged standing ovation.

H. Pauler, Trailer Ruhr, 2026.07

The organ becomes a transductive, sculptural being, its hidden wilderness exposed. Its pipes erupt in drony soundscapes, organic textures, shedding vortices and jumping edges, becoming something like sentient throats of turbulent song, interrupted occasionally by Navab themselves blowing into organ pipes like horns: raw, breathy interjections that cut through the machine’s chaotic whisperings, grounding the otherwise otherworldly atmosphere in something bodily and immediate.

E. Margkou,, FIBER, Writing Wildness, 2025.11

CONCERTS. selected

Credits

Organism: In Turbulence

NAVID NAVAB, 2024

Navid Navab concept, direction, composition, sculpture, programming, design, electronics, performance
_
Garnet Willis engineering, design, sculpture, electronics
Production Transductive Formations (https://www.navidnavab.com/company)
Research Partners SAT Montréal with Québec ministry of Innovation, Topological Media Lab with Fonds de Recherche du Québec
Assistance Camille Desjardns, Evan Montpellier, Jean-Michaël Celerier, Philippe Vandal
Residencies Werktank, FIBER , iii, Recto-Verso, iMAL, Hexagram, Milieux Institute, Matralab
Support Canada Council for the Arts, Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, Conseil des arts de Montréal