Stainless steel 3000mm x 1200mm , speakers, sound
In 2011 a 6.2 magnitude earthquake devastated Christchurch, New Zealand. The central police building’s structural integrity was compromised and the building was imploded March 2014. Through a Cloud of Smoke and Dust’s sounds were harvested from the building while it was under going demolition and implosion. Those sounds are reactivated in the work across the stainless steel plates, their surface becoming the medium through which the sound amplifies as it resonates in sympathy, shakes and thrills to the vibrations of the building’s destruction.
This is the sonic ecology of the building in moments of quiet, when only the affect of environmental forces are disrupting its calm, to the melodic interaction of workers singing as they remove asbestos, to diggers ripping into the dense concrete structure, tearing the building apart floor by floor, all grumbling and screaming, right up to the implosion.
Raw mild steel, speakers, audio equipment, sound
2400mm x 12000mm
The Warehouse Precinct in Dunedin is a neighbourhood of industrial buildings built from the 1860s during the Otago gold rush. The buildings had been largely abandoned to the a few out of the way businesses and to the artists & musicians for studio/practice spaces. In 2013, when the sounds that were used in the installation were harvested, the area had begun a process of gentrification. The sounds presented were gathered from the last few abandoned buildings.
The sound of abandoned buildings vibrate the surface of the hung steel. The plates shimmer and vibrate in sympathy with the environmental forces the buildings were undergoing, traffic, wind, rain, seagulls even.
Raw mild steel, contact microphones, camera, transducers, audio equipment
600mm x 1560mm
An exploration of sympathy and resonance through surface and sound.
As you traverse the entrance of the space the vibration of your feet animate the steel plates and they respond to your presence with soft human sounds of the body. A breath becomes heavy, a heartbeat quickens and a gurgling tummy squelches ripple across the membranic surface of the steel as the metal resonates to your being in the room.
