THE METEMPSYCHOSIS PROJECT
Penticton, BC
Residency, Penticton Art Gallery, Jan 2023
Exhibition Dates 2025 TBD
The Metempsychosis Project combines sculptural fibre and soundscapes to explore the cyclical nature of existence. It is a body of work in development with sound artist and composer, Danelle Savage.
Upon entering the installation space, visitors are met by luminous combed wool, forming a snake-like sculpture that glows from within. This suspended form hovers throughout the gallery at varying heights, its trajectory anchored by near-invisible wire along a translucent spine. Intimating a giant Ouroboros, it circles the gallery space, spiraling back into itself. The creature invites a kind of “seeing with eyes closed”, a primal impulse of serpentine musculature, intro/extrospection and sensation.
Overhead, where the walls meet the ceiling, a quartet of high-fidelity speakers transforms sound into a sculptural medium all its own. Utilising modular synthesis to investigate timescales, the sonic terrain shifts between linear melodic arcs juxtaposed with textures and granularization. The resulting piece is an immersive ritual that is spatialized in coiling vortices of sound that crest, circle, swell, crack, release & rebuild in motion throughout the space.
The room is intentionally dark, with sparse, almost imperceptible, track lighting enhancing the sculptural piece. The neutral-coloured walls fade into the shadows, drawing all attention to the glowing focal point of the sculpture, which provides most of the light in the room.
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PLACING THIS WORK IN THE EVOLUTION OF THE ARTISTS: OUR CURRENT EXPLORATION
Danielle and Alexandra first started working together because of a mutual fascination with how the artistic disciplines of sound and sculpture can be combined as a transdisciplinary practice. Alexandra’s 2015 exhibition, MicrocosmoSoma, contained sculptural forms that reminded many gallery visitors of sound-making apparatuses, such as the bell of a trumpet. She was given the feedback that the exhibition ‘looked like it should make sound’. Soon after, Danielle and Alexandra embarked on a 3.5 year journey with their work, Migration Parade, exploring how these practices could be truly integrated from process to product. Is there a shared place that both sound and sculpture occupy that can shape the work from its inception, sitting in neither of these practices completely, but perhaps occupying a medium of its own? This long-term research project yielded many findings, and helped the artists establish a shared symbolic language, as well as the foundations of a sophisticated collaborative praxis and philosophy of their creative process, which they continue to hone.
Out of this exploration, grew the desire to centre the sonic composition as a true “voice” of the sculpture. For context, the speakers/ microcomputers embedded in the sculptures that make up our previous installation, Migration Parade, only have so much power and volume, and are therefore limited in their expressive capacity. Additionally, Danielle specializes in multi-channel composition. The artists want to make full use of spatializing sound - shaping it as an evolving, sculptural force throughout the room. In order to support this, they are building The Metempsychosis Project around the use of a multichannel environment (sound through multiple studio monitors), so the intricacy of the composition can be fully felt by gallery visitors.
In terms of the sculptural elements, Alexandra wishes to push the boundaries of the armature structures she has developed in the past to support a larger, more abstract form. Additionally, she wants to develop the use of fibre sculpture as a light receptacle, exploring how light moves through raw wool and woven textile.
Both artists will be exploring possibilities with responsive technology (using motion, laser or ultrasonic sensors). Danielle is currently developing a large installation with a group of artists in the Yukon which employs both light and sound sensors- lessons learned there may be drawn upon for integration into this piece. Both Danielle and Alexandra will be exploring how light can be sensitive to the sonic environment or gallery visitors moving through the room.
Thank you to our funders:
