Presentations:

Sound Art Open Call recipient, Substation Gallery in Singapore in 2012.

Wagon features a 6 channel surround sound composition of resonant frequencies of the space and 3 kinetic sculptures that interact and feedback with the soundscape through on board microphones.  The project was a culmination of a research-creation process that involved an interdisciplinary residency with the Ear Science Institute of Australia (Perth, Western Australia) where i observed tune-up sessions for cochlear implantees.  (another work was entitled ‘Nanovibrancy‘ that sonified the viscoelasticity of the eardrum) The work references the way sound is spectrally separated through physical tonotopicity in the hearing pathway and reconstituted in the brain.  In situations of hearing loss (or variabilities in hearing) this pathway is disrupted which can result in desensitization to one or many frequency bands, reducing an ability to process sounds in the environment such as alerts or speech, as well as the appreciation of sounds as music.

Wagon explores this disruption as a strategy for generating new landscapes of listening and resonances. Responding to Seth Kim Cohen’s (2009) call for a “non-cochlear hearing” or a listening through the body, it uses visitor’s movements to create disruptions in the sonic equilibrium (established through 6 speakers playing resonant frequencies of the room), allowing the listening process to meld into a continuum of ears, bodies, feet and machines.

Wagon was a commissioned project as part of the Sound Art Open Call in 2012 by the Substation gallery and was presented as part of SeptFest 2012.

An example of the tune-up interface showing the different bands of frequencies and respective amplitudes that are provided to the cochlear implantee by the audiologist.  

Video documentation: