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A clock: twelve cages sing twelve songs for twelve hours of the day. A flock: which has temporarily gathered up high on a lamp post, as birds are wont to do, and every hour, on the hour, they sing a song. These songs, composed of recorded bird calls and simple synthesized tones, are warnings, expressions of joy, crooning love songs, mating calls, questions, frustrated cries... Simultaneously they're mysterious offerings and homages to the wind, the air, and to the things that slip through the rungs of a cage.
Cuckoo, that's nonsense. Language is complicated. As time passes, it seems to gain complexity: meanings, associations, uses and misuses all accrue. The twelve songs that play over the course of the day through the speakers in the cages are written as a manner of disassembling and reformatting language. The arrangement of their tones are based on patterns of Morse-code-translations of words whose use I have found to be so complex and diluted that meaning is often lost or taken for granted. ... --- ...
These coded words share many qualities with bird songs: both being tonal, chirping languages which, without a means of translation, can only be recognized as skeletal structures; only hinting at content through their ability to contain. But even when a translation occurs, by nature of design, so many other things pass through rungs, and meaning happens somewhere in the wind, through the wires.
This machine is best explained in a connect-the-dots fashion:
sing song---bird song---12 eggs makes a dozen---a coded message---transmission---distress call---beep beep beep---12 tones makes an equal temperament---tweet tweet tweet---language---like, um, totally---(secret) well, not so much---meaning just this, this is what I'm saying---blah blah blah---visceral---nuance---what?---tick tick tick---12 numbers make the face of a clock---moment---ding---cuckoo cuckoo cuckoo |
"CUCKOO RADIO... " was created for was created for the City of Pittsfield's 2008/9 "Artscape" exhibition, and is located on the lamp post in front of 438 North Street in downtown Pittsfield through September of 2009.
Thanks to everyone who made this piece possible, Megan Whilden, Mary Domenichelli, Leslie Ferrin, Roger & his mighty handy lift, & Anthony & Alexis at Salem Art Works! |
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A collaboration between Matthew Belanger, Sean Riley & Ven Voisey.“Lumens” was an installation of lamps networked across three spaces: Greylock Arts, MCLA Gallery 51 annex, and Turbulence.org. Scores of lamps that usually inhabit and illuminate the interiors of homes and shops have been borrowed from residents of Adams and North Adams, MA. They are also represented by images and texts on turbulence.org, which serves to connect the two locations telematically. The lamps have been outfitted with proximity sensors and microcontrollers so that an individual's physical presence illuminates them in all three spaces. Thus, an individual in Adams can communicate his/her presence to an individual in North Adams, and vice versa.Part of a series of works entitled “Networked Realities: (Re)Connecting the Adamses,” “Lumens” is an illustration and exploration of location, influence, history, and the present.
Lumens @ turbulence.org
http://transition.turbulence.org/Works/newadams/lumens/
The virtual location, which contains the lamp stories and images, continues on at turbulence.org even tho the physical lamps have now been returned to their owners.
Matthew Belanger put together a great blog documenting this project:
Building Lumens - http://buildinglumens.newadams.es/
Huge thank yous:
Physical interaction consultant: Tom Igoe
Larry Alice, Michael Chapman, Abbi Hermosa, Marianne R. Petit, John Schimmel, Jonathan Secor, Jo-Anne Green, and Helen Thorington. |
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| these threads are lines crossed |
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A collaboration between Ven Voisey and Olivia Park.
Dimentions: 32' wide, 30' tall, 24" depth.
Individual strands: 3492 or so.
Knots tied: we lost count.
...and we tried best we could to make sense of the entanglements: lines run parallel, occasionally cross, become knotted, then run on again. Seemingly arbitrary points act as markers and boundaries. The individual threads seem unaware that they have created the thin film that is the barrier between what is "now" and what has become "once upon a time." This is one of those moments, to become history, the shadows cast their way in, and we invisibly tie more knots, cross more lines.
This work existed for one day. |
"these threads..." was created for Warehouse 1310, 1310 Potrero, San Francisco CA. Thanks to everyone who made space available, helped tie knots, hang thread, paint the massive wall, provided food/drink... (Billy Browne, Erika, Brian Barreto, Cindy Iijima, Becky Laks, Kevin Mcelroy, Jon Clary, Kevin Hailey, Tina Lee, Azi Rad, Lauren, Julia, Eric Miranda, Aaron Dall, Rylee, Sadie, Gregory, Noah, Jimmy, Abel, Ducky, Michelle & Han Park, Steve Costello ) |
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Fourty-five sacks of dirt were suspended from the ceiling, in a line, head-height, dividing the gallery in two. Each sack had a tag which read "please take", and scissors were available to cut them down. Once removed, the tag could be unfolded to reveal more text:
| Thank you for taking this sack of dirt. Thank you for clearing the space. Please note that this bound soil contains immense potential. Please keep this someplace safe until the land thaws, then spread it out, outside, let it experience light, air, water, pollen, insects... let something grow. That something could be great, it's hue deeper than what you or I have ever known. It may grow taller, fuller, richer... or it may just something completely undesirable, a rogue weed. In fact, it may grow nothing at all, maybe it'll just be a pile of dirt. Regardless, it's worth a shot. If you do not feel up to the task & know of someone else who might be better suited for such a thing, feel free to pass the sack on. |
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| a center of attention ( voice paper ) |
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This space is in transition, a shell, building upon and within history to make 'now'. This space is waiting for something to happen within it, as 'voicepaper' is waiting for something to happen with in it. When that something happens, experience happens, life happens. In taking part in this communication we're not writing history, not documenting history, but re-appropriating the tools of static knowledge to create a moment in this space that resonates with history, and builds upon it. This knowledge of experience cannot sit on a shelf of a library, or in a single frame of film. It is not a filter, or a layer of someone else's documented happening. It is this now, and what, and how, and here.
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'Center of attention' is a site specific installation created for the former Adams Theater in Adams, MA. This piece is also a magnified manifestation of ideas which began with the 'voice paper' series. A 40-foot ring-shaped mechanism was suspended in the cavernous remains of the theater. One Hundred-twenty sheets of paper were hung from the device. Upon entering the ring, an individual activates a motion sensor which triggers a mechanism which flicks and pops the paper. This installation was done prior to Topia Art Center's planned renovations of the space. Thank you to Caryn and Nana of Topia, The Local Cultural Council of Northern Berkshire, and to Edward Cating, Laura Christensen, and Heather Phillips for fabrication/installation assistance. |
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| A trilogy of environments (a voyage) composed of light (raw, splayed out, for you), shadow (as far as it's surrounding, previously mentioned light carries), movement (as it were, soft gestures, alive, or, as in this moment, here, rather) and sound (frequency system resonant light whispers, as internal creature/ gentle settling of dust). fluttering bodies slow fall not to the floor/rise up beyond sky. |
'Flutter' is a three-part installation. The first room, 'cocoon moth belly', houses seven sensor-activated, internally lit, motor-driven cocoon-like objects. The second room, '60-cycle lamentation' utilizes a drop-ceiling hung oppressively low, a handsome collection of dead moths (natural and fabricated), and the hum of the electric lighting is amplified. A one-note violin performance was played in the space, tuned to the 60-cycle hum of electricity the lighting emmitted. The third, 'shadow room', was initially dark except for a light in the far corner. As the viewer approached the light, a sensor was activated, turning on several other "moth" devices & lights which cast their fluttering shadows on the walls and scrim fabric throughout the space. Many thanks to Hezzie Phillips & Forest Graham. |
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