handcut paper, custom shelves, light. Each approximately 108″ x 10″.
Shown together in the exhibition Toward the Unsound at the Arts Club of Chicago, January 23 – April 27, 2019.
The scores for telix and telix y(e)arn not one for humans to decode, they are instead for machines. Their function is to provide the trigger for the light sensors, which in turn will make the samples play on the sound modules.
The process of creating the scores for the telix pieceshappened in parallel with composing the sounds themselves and creating the physical installations. The first step was to establish the position of the sensors on the wall. Next was assigning a sound sample to each individual sound module. Then, using the set layout of sensors and knowing where which sound was located, I could design the placement of perforations on the score to fall on specific sensors at specific times, sometimes in combinations – as chords, layering the samples into the overall composition.
This compositional strategy, allowed me to think of the broad sonic structure in a visual way.
Surely the mechanical apparatus owes a debt to player pianos, but its conceptual inspiration comes from the simple experience of gazing at light patterns as they glide across walls and ceilings, playing and literally illuminating forgotten corners of the architecture.
Here are links to documentation of the original installations:
Installation view with homespun in the foreground and photosonic thrust in the background