Fremantle Biennial
Perth ― Australia ― 2021
Created in collaboration with lead artist Nathan Thompson, Transitions is an elemental work, synthesising sound, light, movement and metallurgy to document passages of time from perspectives at geological scales.
“If metallurgy has an essential relation with music, it is by virtue not only of the sounds of the forge but also the tendency within both arts to bring into its own…a continuous variation of matter: a widened chromaticism sustains both music and metallurgy; the musical smith was the first ‘transformer’.”
A Thousand Plateaus, Deleuze & Guattari, “Nomadology” (1980)
A suspended vibrational body of liquid metal (gallium) is moved around the space by an automated robotic arm(co-bot), capturing past voices and future scenarios, and then in turn, displaying their light refracting frequencies on the surface of the metal itself.
With audio sourced from the local surrounds, Transitions also reflected the history of labour and automation that mark the landscape of Fremantle and Western Australia more broadly. The technologies of mining, shipping and heavy industry are readily recognised in the qualities of sound, light and movement.
Fremantle Biennial website: Transitions
CREDITS
Concept, Sound Design & Metallurgy
Nathan Thompson
Lighting Design & Robot Programming
Matt Gingold
MATERIALS
Universal Robot, 4-Channel Surround Sound, Resonators, Gallium Alloy, Aluminum, RGBW LEDs, Ableton, openFrameworks
DIMENSIONS
Variable (as pictured)
5000mm W x 5000mm D x 3000mm H (room)
2500mm W x 2500mm D (robot exclusion zone)