MEDIATED INTIMACY: CHAIRS

(2016)

interactive installation

Two common lounge chairs sit back-to-back behind privacy curtains. Embedded with surface transducers (deconstructed speakers), the chairs emit low-frequency waveforms across their entire surface. A microphone in front of each chair triggers the transducers in the opposite chair. As participants wear headphones that play a drone to obfuscate external sounds, they use the microphones to engage in a “conversation”. The pitch and volume of their voices are tracked, producing vibrating sensations in their partner’s chair which are experienced as variable, dynamic, and musical. The result is a private, embodied dialogue which is felt rather than heard.

In collaboration with JP Merz.

Exhibitions:
  • New Music Gathering, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH (2017)
  • Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, Boulder, CO (2016)
  • Artist Cooperative Residency and Exhibitions (ACRE) Gallery, Chicago, IL (2016)