top of page
The Sound Of The Space You Displace.
"Loved this piece. The little robot that's attracted to faces was my best friend!"
I'm very happy to say that The Sound Of The Space you Displace won the Audience Award for most popular piece at Milton Keynes Gallery exhibition 'MK Calling' :)
This interactive sound installation explores some of the subtle, unconscious and involuntary effects we and the world have on each other. Inputs including very small displacements of air, and subtle vibrations - the kind you cant help but make simply by being there - are expressed as part of the composition. In a way, making audible the music we are constantly surrounded by but not usually aware of.
Part of a device that's very sensitive to small airflows. Movement of the air causes movement of a very light diaphragm. A laser and camera arrangement sense that movement and qualities from the motion feed into the sound. In a way, the sound is shaped by the space your body takes up...
This little robot creature is very interested in faces. Its very tempting to perceive it in a social way and as you interact with it, the resulting data feeds into the composition. Even your social presence can have a sound!
This element responds to subtle movements of the building. People both inside and outside have an effect on the structure of the building by their footsteps, speaking, walking and driving. This one was a little tricky and went through a few iterations. One version featured a microphone that weighed several killigrams :) Lasers and tinfoil worked the magic in the end (so obvious now!..) A ball covered in tinfoil plays the role of 'rough surfaced reflective sphere'. The ball is suspended from the ceiling by a long piece of string and a laser and camera once again are able to read its tiny movements by the changes of laser pattern on the surface. A combination of a seismograph and an optical mouse! And again it becomes part of the composition.
I think of this part as the Secret Disco. A screen shows the immediate surroundings in both visible and extended wavelengths of light. It reveals the 'secret' that you are covered in moving points of light, just in normally invisible infra-red. We are surrounded by infinite worlds right here, right now. Its only a question of being aware of it.
Art meets Trip Hazard. The piece installed at Milton Keynes Gallery, listening to visitors and turning place into sound :)
bottom of page