Marshall Avett - Atlanta, Georgia
Tidal Pool (2003)

Media: CDR, CD player, tuner, speakers, speaker wires, vinyl records

"For many years I experienced a recurring dream that seemed to involve only sound. I had a sense that what I was hearing was drawing me closer to death or some other trauma, and the louder and more varied the sounds became the closer that end was. It terrified me, yet enthralled me. Each time I had this dream I distinctly recall feeling the need to fight this pull, to deny the unknown fate. Yet, I was so enamored by the sound(s) that I wanted to hear more, to learn how they changed and what the final impact might be. I haven't had this dream for many years now, but have discovered similar sounds in the works of noise artists, electro-acoustic recordings and musique concrete experiments. When I record music or incorporate sound into my art I want the viewer/listener to have the same reaction: instinctive knowledge that what is being heard is unlike anything known to them and may become dangerous at any moment, but drawn to it in hopes of discovering something new within themselves. Like flies to a spider trapped in a bowl of honey."

Marshall Avett's interest in sound and art began a decade ago when his taste in music branched out into the realms of noise, collage, musique concrete, free jazz, and field recordings. Influenced by the works of Christian Marclay, Eric Gaffney and Anton Bruhin, Avett records his own music and creates works of art of both two- and three-dimensions as well as installations and multimedia creations. His piece, Tidal Pool, is based on a recent vacation to Pawley's Island, South Carolina and drawings of imaginary creatures done as a child.

In addition to being the editor of the Jackson Progress-Argus weekly newspaper in Butts County, Georgia and co-founder of Old Gold Records, a label devoted to beautiful overlooked and under-appreciated music, Marshall Avett is a visual artist whose works have appeared at Eyedrum and the Silver Ceiling in Atlanta, the Lowery Gallery in Watkinsville and the Lump Gallery in Raleigh, North Carolina. He lives with a cat named Lucky and a growing collection of records in Jackson, Georgia where he can hear trains pass through town day and night. He is a Sagittarius.

 

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Catherine Bechard & Sabin Hudon - Quebec, Canada
Undertones: Imprivent, Nuts (2002)

1- Imprivent
Media: Maple, aluminum, steel, electronic circuit, motor, microphone, amplifier, speaker, motion detector, photo, steel base.

2- Nuts
Media: Padouk, maple, nuts, steel, brass, cogwheels, electronic circuit, step motor, piezo, motion detector, amplifier, speaker, steel base.

Undertones and fleeting impressions of the ordinary, sound metaphors of natural spaces, these automated constructions create a sound environment that is sometimes turbulent, wild and disturbing, sometimes seductive, amusing and transporting. They extend an invitation to saunter freely, to linger, and to let oneself become infused with them. This orchestra of automatic mechanisms makes for an exploration of sound with endless variation. The sound patterns fluctuate as a function of the interaction with the audience, which makes for a completely unpredictable sound environment. We want to present a sound production that will broaden the visitors’ horizons and modes of perception: a meeting between the here and the elsewhere, a route along the paths of memory, through dreams of exploration, and above all to a door that opens on the contemplation of sound.

Catherine Béchard was born in Sept-Iles, Quebec in 1962. She studied the art of jewelry and since 1994 her work has been seen across Canada as well as on the international scene: Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, Baltimore, New Jersey, Chicago, New York, Paris and Santa Monica.

Since 1997 she has received numerous grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Québec Council for Arts and Letters. Since 1998, her interests and career have shifted toward sound, multimedia and interactivity.

Sabin Hudon was born in Lesage, Quebec in 1964. As a professional saxophonist, he has recorded albums with such groups as Miriodor, Papaboa, Amours délices et larmes et Acoustik Bleuenotes. He has collaborated as a sound designer for several theater, dance and video productions and has also designed sound for the multidisciplinary shows by Marcelle Hudon (Les portraits de la renarde, 1998; Allias Jean XXIII, 1997). He has made a name for himself in broadcast video production as a sound designer and sound editor.

Their common passions for sound and noises of all types has inspired their investigation into the conception of sonorous sculpture-objects, from the noise box to the fully automated sound object. In their work, they try to excite our sound perceptions, to create playful and disturbing microcosms of larger life events, and to establish a relationship between life and art.

Undertones was first presented at the Chapelle historique du Bon-Pasteur, in Montréal, in Spring, 2002.

Catherine Bechard and Sabin Hudon’s participation is made possible with support from The Council of Arts and Letters of Quebec.

osa.sat.qc.ca

 

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Xavier Charles - Brabant sur Meuse, France
Vibrating Surfaces (2002)
Media: found objects, low frequency sound, speakers, wire, amplifiers, CD players

The work of clarinetist Xavier Charles ranges from noise to electro-acoustic via sound poetry. He has played in numerous new music festivals in France and abroad. Charles collaborates with both Jacques Di Donato and Frédéric Le Junter. In his work with groups and collectives, he has also collaborated with Martin Tetreault, The Ex, Pierre Berthet, Etage 34, Axel Dñrner, Jérôme Jeanmart, John Butcher, Jean Pallandre, Marc Pichelin, Cris Cutler, Martine Altenburger, Camel Zekri, Emmanuelle Pellegrini, Michel Doneda and Frédéric Blondys. The artist has composed for the theatre, most notably with the Théâtre François Lazaro.

Charles studied at the Sorbonne in Paris, receiving a degree in musicology. Currently his musical research ranges from performance on the bass guitar to the installation of vibrating speakers at the edge of improvised music, noisy rock and electro acoustic sound. He is a key organizer of the festival Densités in Verdun, France.

www.vudunoeuf.asso.fr/xavier/

 

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Xan Deeb - Atlanta, Georgia
Hydration Calculator (2003)

Media: Wood, water pump, manufactured plexi tanks & valves, water wheels, sever arms, slam hammer, sponge, splatter shield, rubber hose, microphones, speakers

ARTISTS STATEMENT:

Concept:

Fundamental, mechanical simplicity overshadowed by original composition and innovation; applicable humor should NEVER be overlooked, just as the workings themselves should never be hidden. Every piece is a binary, the theoretical end AND the means; I struggle through constant experimentation to finally reach an end, and that end is for the audience, who most assuredly sees what my mechanical mind does not.

Medium:

Dealing with simple materials develops its own complexity: Aesthetics vs. Strength, Easy vs. Time, Soft vs. Entropy, etc.  By using softer materials in an industrial setting; quirky mechanics where there should be stability; more questions can be asked about the entire act itself.

Movement:

Mechanization creates fascination, in certain degrees in certain individuals. I wish to reach ALL individuals.

Result:

The end result is never as predicted by the plans. The end is certainly the challenge that motivates the means but is most often, during the creative process, a compromise with both.

 

Local Atlanta kinetic artist Xan Deeb has been quietly gathering a following based on the idea that simplicity and subtle humor are the means to bringing it all together, "It all" meaning exactly that. What are usually complex situations can be reduced by magnification and subsequent simplification…. leaving nothing more than the bare exposed truth, which is more often than not, humorous. Leaving today’s technology behind and bringing da Vinci-type economy to the surface leaves a lasting impression due to sheer visual understanding. Complex mechanisms simplified and performing in an understandable visual language ties together the "question of authenticity" with the very nature of the "problem".

 Xan Deeb, a BFA Graduate from Georgia State University, works closely with the art faculty, teaching various workshops on self-contained mark making machines, experimental art\sound devices, and is currently working with professor Craig Dongoski (GSU) on simplistic speech\art machines. Xan's clinical but unique gourd musical instruments are sold throughout the Southeast US.  Xan's kinetic work is shown exclusively in Atlanta, a town that he despises and soon hopes to grow out of.


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Will Eccleston - Atlanta, Georgia
Green (2003)

Media: Apple II monitors, guitar strings, electromagnetic pickup, amplifier, speakers, windows, cables, other assorted things

Will Eccleston is a hopeless tinkerer who sometimes creates things that some folks call "art".

www.kinetiscape.com

 

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Kevin Jacques - Birmingham, England
Co Co: Cube of Constant Observation (2002)

Media: expanding foam, speakers, receiver, microphone

Privacy, he said, was a very valuable thing. Everyone wanted a place where they could be alone occasionally.
- George Orwell, 1984

Britain has the largest CCTV (close circuit television) network in the world - approximately 1 camera per 25 people.  We are under constant observation, in our private telephone calls, private emails or private conversations. A law has recently been introduced to allow any email to be viewed by a government body if they feel they have ‘just reason’ to do so, without informing anyone. My work looks at how we readily accept and positively embrace these intrusions, influenced by what we hear on the radio, television and read in our newspapers.

In this project the theme is based around surveillance and the possibilities that citizens are under constant observation in the name of public safety. A comfort zone is created using expanding foam, which kills the outside noise and allows you to become absorbed within the sounds that are being transmitted into the cube. But from the outside the piece has a menacing appearance working with the notion that, once you are inside a system, you become unaware of the potential dangers.

Kevin Jacques recently graduated from the University of Central England in Birmingham. He has been in a variety of exhibitions throughout the U.K and is very excited to be part of L’Objet Sonore, his first exhibition in the U.S.A.  Although he uses sound extensively in his art pieces, he has never received any formal training in music; this allows him the freedom of not knowing the traditional formulates of sound production, so these constraints are not ingrained within him. It also gives him a fresh approach to the possibilities of what sound is and how it can be used within art.  Kevin creates interactive sound sculptures, allowing the viewer to be a part of the art piece so that the ideas he is trying to portray remain with the viewer as they help create the experience.

Kevin Jacques' participation is made possible with a grant from the Regional Arts Board of the West Midlands in England.

www.kevinjacques.freeserve.co.uk/INDEX.html

 

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John Mallia - Boston, Massachusetts
Transcriptions (2003)

Media: amplified pencil, manual typewriter with case, electric typewriter with case, amplified pencil (with attached phono cartridge), pencil sharpener, guest book, comment cards, speaker drivers, magnet with coil and mylar, tactile transducer, amplifiers, table, music stand (or lectern).  

Visitors to the exhibition may sign the guest book with a pencil amplified by means of an attached phono cartridge, making the physical recording of their signature, information and comments audible to other visitors in the immediate vicinity of the installation. Visitors are also invited to use the two available typewriters (1 electric, 1 manual) to fill out comment cards. The typewriters are not amplified, but a tactile transducer, designed to exaggerate vibrations caused by bass frequencies, is attached to the underside of the table on which the typewriters are set up. The transducer causes the table and typewriters to vibrate and resonate in synchronization with typed rhythms that have been pre-recorded.

The sounds of live transcription (amplified pencil and typing) occur against a quieter backdrop of pre-recorded material also derived from the sounds of handwriting and typing. The recording plays continuously through speaker drivers mounted inside the typewriter cases. All of the recordings were made while transcribing the following text taken from Claude Levi-Strauss’ The Raw and the Cooked: 

Musique Concrète may be intoxicated with the illusion that it is saying something; in fact, it is floundering in non-significance.

For me, the statement’s meaning is negated by its own anatomy when patterns of articulation emerge in the sound of its repeated transcription, producing their own, abstract, semantic sphere.

John Mallia is a composer/sound artist whose recent work includes multi-media installations, electro-acoustic sound projections, and sound sculpture. He was recently composer-in-residence at the studios of the Institut de Musique Electro-acoustique de Bourges, France. He lives and works in Boston, where he teaches at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and Northeastern University.


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Chantelle Minarcine - Atlanta, Georgia
Untitled (2003)

Mixed Media

For two and a half years I have been focusing on interactive artwork and the use of senses other than sight. The work I produce satisfies my ability to eliminate the presence of the artist and allow the audience to gain their own sense of self-involvement in the process of art-making. The inclusion of the audience in this manner also allows the viewer to create a strong sense of memory or personal relationship around the artwork. For example, people will name their cars or boats but not their couches or beds, with which they spend an equal, if not more, time in. Because the cars and boats contain movement and a person’s ability to control that movement, we feel the object possesses a humanistic quality or we begin to personify the object because of its response to our own movement. This too, on average seems to be true with artwork that contains the same qualities as the objects mentioned above. Because of the audience’s natural response to interactive artwork, concepts that deal with complex social stratums can be discussed and acted out on a more effective level.  It is this unique form of communication that draws me back to interaction and sound. Although my constructional techniques and overall concepts shift from piece to piece, one constant is always the understanding and inclusion of the participating viewers and the dialogue I would like my artwork to obtain with each individual viewer.

Chantelle Minarcine is a kinetic artist and curator from Atlanta and has organized such exhibitions as Kultur, held at Artfarm in 2001, and co-curated Fresh and Collusion in Atlanta as part of the Fifth Class Art Collective. She is also currently assisting in the organization of 7 CGR Fellows, which is sponsored by CGR Advisors, MOCA GA, and The Atlanta College of Art.


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Douglas Irving Repetto - New York City, New York
crash and bloom (2001-2002)

Media: plastic boxes, colored LEDs, piezo speakers, custom circuitry

crash and bloom is an electronic sculpture that exhibits emergent behavior similar to the "crash and bloom" cycles experienced by many biological systems. The sculpture is a set of forty-two small plastic boxes that are connected to one another via short cables. The behavior of each box is very simple: if the box receives a "ping" on its input, it turns on an internal light and plays a short tone. The box then passes the ping on to whichever boxes are connected to its output. However, if a box receives a second ping before it is finished responding to the first one, it will "die" and will not pass either ping along. Each time a box receives a ping, the length of its response gets a bit shorter, until it gets so short that it resets and becomes long again.

Using special splitter and joiner boxes, it is possible to create complex connection topologies (or networks) between the boxes, including grids, feedback loops, spoke and hub configurations, etc. Each of these topologies, coupled with the simple rules described above, give rise to different sorts of group behaviors as pings move through the system, flickering and buzzing, propagating and dying.

The current topology is a series of feedback loops. Configuring the network of boxes in this way leads to "crash and bloom" cycles, similar to those found in many biological systems. For instance, insect populations or algae blooms often follow a familiar pattern: they expand rapidly in a given environment, quickly using up all available resources. Once the resources are exhausted, the large populations can no longer be sustained, so they crash. This crash enables the environment to recover, at which point the cycle begins again. Given enough time, similar cycles can be observed in the crash and bloom boxes. Usually at least one ping survives when the system crashes, allowing a new cycle to begin. Occasionally however, the system experiences a "ping extinction," at which point a new ping has to be manually injected into the network via the ping button mounted on the wall.

I am interested in creating and exploring physical (i.e. non-simulated) systems that display properties and behaviors that we're more accustomed to dealing with as abstract concepts or computer models. crash and bloom is one such system, and like many systems built out of simple parts, the complex behavior it exhibits is unpredictable, ever-changing, and hopefully compelling.

Douglas Irving Repetto is an artist and teacher. He lives in New York City, where he teaches at the Columbia University Computer Music Center. His work, including installations, performances, recordings, software, and lectures has been presented internationally. He runs a number of arts/community-oriented groups in New York City and on the web, including dorkbot: people doing strange things with electricity (http://dorkbot.org), ArtBots: The Robot Talent Show (http://artbots.org), the organism mailing list (http://music.columbia.edu/organism), and the music-dsp mailing list (http://shoko.calarts.edu/musicdsp). When not teaching or making art, Douglas spends much of his time cooking, coveting buildings and socializing with members of the plant kingdom.

Douglas Repetto’s participation is made possible with support from the The Columbia University Computer Music Center.

music.columbia.edu/~douglas


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Charlie Smith - Atlanta, Georgia
Sculptural Emanations Series: Discombobulator II (2003)

Media: fabricated steel, stainless steel and found objects of wood and various materials

The Discombobulator II is part of a series of large sculptural volumes acting as resonating chambers with metal appendages that create a wide range of audible tones.

Symmetric & asymmetric rhythms, through time and space are experienced while using the sculptural volume to explore the tension between surface and penetrating sound elements. A physical yet audible creature appears as individuals working together in sequence, or the singular participant, can create resonating sounds through interactive play. Persons are encouraged to freely touch, tap, turn, ring and strike the different elements of the sculpture to explore and create their own sounding experience.

Charlie Smith has a Bachelors degree in fine art from the Atlanta College of Art (1992). He worked with other artists and craftsmen until he founded The Facility Inc. in (1997). The Facility Inc. is a sculpture and art furniture business located in Atlanta, Georgia. The facility has been a successful art business and is tailored to specialty and one-of-a-kind creations.

Charlie has received art grants from the Burning Man LLC. to create large-scale fire sculptures for the weeklong art event held annually in the Black Rock desert of Nevada (2000, 2001, and 2002). He received funding to display his work at the Coachella Art and Music Festival in Indio, California (4/2002), and a grant from the Black Rock Arts Foundation to display his sculptural works at an art event in Austin, Texas (5/2002). He has also received funding from the Atlanta Contemporary Arts Foundation to display his fire sculptures for special events and gatherings.

Charlie specializes in working with a variety of metals and woods. His sculptural works are made from such metals as mild steel, stainless steel, copper, and aluminum. He has been working with the element of fire in his latest series, building both large and small-scale sculptural fire caldrons. Most of these vessels are fueled with wood although he works with propane and natural gas.

With this vision to spread the warmth of the hearth fire to humanity by creating focal congregation areas in both public and private spaces Charlie has placed and presented his sculptures in Los Angeles, CA, Austin, TX, Steamboat Springs, CO, Reno, NV, Memphis, TN, New York, and Atlanta, GA.

www.howhowhow.com
www.playahearth.com
www.westendfacility.com

 

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