2024 — Duration: [to be defined] 15 small microphones, 15 vibration motors, microbiology-laboratory glassware (beakers, flasks, graduated cylinders), laboratory fume hood Performer: Valentina Sansone First presented at: [to be defined]
Fifteen small microphones are arranged in the space and pick up ambient sounds: background noise, voices, footsteps, rustling. The collected audio signals are processed in real time and used to drive fifteen vibration motors, each placed inside a piece of microbiology-laboratory glassware. The vessels differ in shape and size — beakers, flasks, graduated cylinders. The vibrations of the motors pass through the glass walls and generate sounds: each vessel produces a different frequency and timbre according to its shape, thickness and volume. The dancer Valentina Sansone interacts physically with the installation. She moves the vessels, lifts them, repositions them, lies down among them on the floor. Every displacement alters the acoustic conditions: a glass moved from the fume hood to the floor vibrates differently, produces a different sound. In the course of the performance the vessels are progressively transferred from the laboratory fume hood to the floor, redrawing the layout of the installation and the sound map of the space.
Retroactive regime. Here the string is the sound–vibration–movement cycle. Ambient sounds drive the vibration motors in the glass vessels; the dancer moves the vessels, altering the acoustic conditions, which change the vibrations, which change the sounds. The circuit closes between sonic environment, glass and body.
Photo: Cristina Crippa Produced by artQ13.