Description



Steel Ice & Stone is a multi-media interactive installation.
Nine suspended LED panels and sensor-triggered sound create an environment for memory recall.

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Love of Knowledge

Something about speaking to someone who does what they love and loves what they do:
I spent a half-hour on the phone with a curator from Cornell's Ornithology lab chatting about SIS, and it was like a ray of light. Not that SIS ever ceased for a moment to be a fascination for me, but it is as if a secret door opened to a distant and exquisite kingdom, at every turn ingenuous yet richly layered; at once intimate and untouchable.

Simple questions by the curator began an avalanche of thought:

Do the sounds need to closely mirror the sounds of the machine sound bytes?
European lapwing, a recommended specimen.
That answer was easy. No. The bird songs and the machine sounds need to complement each other; to both play off and reinforce one another. In so doing, they set up the discourse in the viewer's mind: What occurs in nature? What is man-made? Similar to: What happens in our every day lives? What is our interpretation of it?

What about the other ambient sounds that inevitably occur on the same recording with the bird call specimen? I see this as a contribution to the project, not a detriment. The naturally occurring ambient adds a layer to the work's environment: finding a machine sound that forms a dialog to this voice stands to deepen the experience of those visiting the installation.

Would I need images of the birds whose calls are included in the installation?
At first, my answer was no, but a steel trap snapped in my head: why not be familiar with the image of the creature whose voice contributes to my work?

More points were touched upon, more to think and smile about.

Thursday, September 6, 2012

Prototype preparation

From the Cornell.edu site.
At this phase everything's been tiled: eighteen tiles per piece. Just trimming is needed. Turns out the color on two originals was off; chromes rescanned and to be reprinted.
Proposals needed for second Prototype Phase needed; from there, it's the usual:
•  contract the engineer
•  tape new sound
•  go to Ithaca to work with the ornithologists.