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Interactive Installations : Quaver (2010)

Quaver (inside an 's')

Quaver, an interactive video installation, is a playful confrontation between language and the body... an exploration of voice as the place where the alphabet most directly meets flesh.

In the gallery space, the visitor is confronted with a large video projection and a microphone on a stand. Initially, the screen shows a swarm of three-dimensional letters floating around in an indeterminate deep red space. Blowing on the microphone or speaking quietly disturbs the swarm sending the letters off in different directions. A louder utterance attracts one of the letters and that letter form floats forward and engulfs the entire field of the projection. At this point, the viewer is inside a three dimensional space formed by the extruded profile of the letter. This unusual architectural space is ductile. It flexes and bends in response to the phonemic context of anything spoken into the microphone.

Each letter of the alphabet is wrapped in images of the artist's skin, making them resemble internal organs, while paradoxically retaining their sharp Helvetica edges. The overall experience is as though the viewer is floating inside their own flexing vocal tract, their own throat.

another view of an 's'

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