Traverse;
Digital sound installation, w/live microphone feed, 2014.

This installation works to place the viewer in the centre of the piece. Comprising 4 speakers arranged along the length of a corridor, with microphones descended to the floor to pick up feedback of passing foot traffic. The microphones are mixed using a preamplifier in order to generate audio feedback whenever people enter/exit the space. The feedback is not explained to the person generating it, however provides an opportunity in the right conditions to allow for self reflection, of the journeys one makes in a day, the spaces one enters and the acknowledgeable points in time that signify beacons of duration.

The installation raises questions over the ‘live’ and the ‘playback’ media. Particularly focusing on the participant’s relationship to the works paradoxical temporal qualities, one being historical, one perpetually present, in order to render oneself a part of a significant moment.

As a person traverses the space, they pass through the microphone feed creating audio feedback, as well as amplifying their general presence, across the entire space, heightening their awareness of their situation both spatially and temporally, as well as one’s engagement with one’s surroundings. The piece is in the spirit of existentialist philosophy, returning the auric qualities mused by Walter Benjamin, to the situation of the work (both temporally and socially) in the present time and location, and the unique qualities this permits, when it can only ever occur in the now…