MATA Festival, Chashama Gallery, NYC
“Closer Before We Touch” is a kinetic sound sculpture exploring the interplay between physical and simulated spatialization. Exhibited in a highly visible storefront location in Manhattan’s Garment District, I decided to begin by collecting discarded materials from local stores: empty fabric rolls. By mounting speakers at the end of these cardboard tubes they act as resonating chambers that both filter and focus the sound. Controlled by a high powered motor, the tubes move sound in a slowly rotating motion towards the street – in musical dialogue with a stationary horn speaker placed facing towards the moving tubes, a hidden speaker placed in a back room, and the oncoming sound of the busy NYC street. Alternating between waves of noise, difference tones, and quick clicking rhythms, the continuous movement of sound creates a disorienting space where the perception of depth exists in an intangible position between the real and the simulated.
“Closer Before We Touch” was presented as part of the MATA Festival 2015 and was made possible in part by the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant.