reciprocation
a mutual exchange, an alternating motion.
The body is where sound is born. Sound is simply motion until the body transforms oscillation into sensation in a messy, subjective process.
From the material through which sound moves to the anatomical variations in each ear and brain, the chain of dependencies between sound and understanding is rife with distortion and occlusion. The physicality of sound and the phenomenon of listening are dependent on reciprocal movement and reciprocal intention. The four works in reciprocation reimagine loudspeakers – transforming them from “invisible” aural channels into sculptural objects to interrogate interpersonal relationships, (mis)communications, and the kinetic phenomenon of sound. While recorded audio is used to drive the loudspeakers and implicate the viewer-listener’s body, the heard sound is an artifact of the materials activated by the speakers’ movement. This was my thesis project for my MFA in Intermedia and Digital Arts from University of Maryland - Baltimore County.