installations

C L O S E R, 2024

Breathless Ensemble, 2024

Installed on a large sheet of steel mesh, this work features a network of raw speakers rewired to interactive sound circuits. The wire mesh serves as both an armature and a collective electrical conduit, conducting signal currents simultaneously between terminals on each interwoven circuit.

Several speakers project the digital playback of glottal stop noises, recorded with a contact microphone placed on the artist’s larynx. The glottal stop, or “vocal fry,” occurs when not enough breath passes through the vocal folds: a phenomenon commonly stereotyped as the “queer voice”. Amplified through the remaining speakers, analog circuits, such as oscillators and DC vibrators, attempt to mimic these glottal and bodily sounds. The layered vocal and electronic pulses emit a chorus of breathlessness, encouraging polyrhythmic dialogues between human and non-human sound sources.

Breathless Ensemble builds upon my ongoing research in queering technologies and dissecting social metaphor from intersectional sound practices. Connected to distance sensors, the circuits fluctuate in volume and pitch depending on the viewer’s proximity, inviting a conversation between body and electronics empowered by the visitor’s curiosity. Breathless Ensemble proposes a communal methodology of thinking through the personification of speakers, transcending the breath across mediums and from the artist to the visitor.

Interlude, 2024

This work was created in response to sound as a mindful practice in the NSCAD Mindful Campus group show, “In Full Sense”. A recording of the empty gallery’s room tone is mixed and amplified through a raw subwoofer speaker inside a plinth. Flipped on its side, the interior of the plinth is lined with audio foam panels, insulating the body of spatial sound which consumes the visitor’s perception as they stick their head inside.

Universe (Unfolded), 2024

Extending from the virtual world of a self-produced video game Universe, Universe (unfolded) features a sound piece of recorded breath playing through a subwoofer with a silk fabric print gently draped over its face. In the game, each of the moving objects in the terrain have been AI-generated from the name or medical term for a gender-affirming care process (e.g. mastectomy, testosterone, blockers, etc.), the list of which is used to paint the sky.

The audio track in the game features harmonies of my transitioning voice undergoing testosterone-HRT, while the recorded rhythms of breath are filtered and amplified through the sub as a way of re-animating the breath into physical space. Printed from a digital collage of the AI-generated forms, the fabric moves and ripples in response to the breath through the sub, carrying the intention of resilience through change.

Tuning In, 2023

Broken umbrellas, steel, fiber glass and electronics are used to create this public installation for the Resonant Grounds exhibition at Point Pleasant Park, Kjipuktuk. The sculpture’s dome reflects ambient sounds from the harbour, while a speaker inside the dome plays recordings taken with a hydrophone walking along the shore. Physically mixing these two depths of sound, the work juxtaposes heavy industrial noise and delicate water movements as a reflection of the colonial history of the site.