3ft x 1ft x 5ft | Video sculpture | 2010
ITP Spring Show, New York
Made with Michelle Temple
“Grandma Had the Hand of a Whip” forces people to advance a video projection of hand movements by pulling apart the knitted contents within. This piece grew from a series of conversations between the two artists about their matriarchal inheritance and delves into what goes on behind closed doors, how lessons were transmitted, and how emotions were sublimated through daily, repetitive chores like washing dishes, scrubbing the floor, knitting.
I. Abstract Diptych (Gk. dis “two” + ptykhe “fold”)
Diptych is a live duet between two artists who attach themselves to monolithic paper microphones in order to create soundscapes conducted by body movements. Balancing choreography with spontaneous attunements, this performance explores the types of metamorphoses that can arise when two distinct parts are continuously juxtaposed and torn apart, synchronized and individualized, in an ever-shifting diptych.
The most prominent example of such metamorphosis occurs between the performers’ bodies and the paper instruments. Attached by hair alone, the body becomes an extension of the looming paper structure’s nervous system. In turn, the body movements give voice to those structures who sing in feedback loops with the speakers cradled below. Sometimes we performers appear to be at one with the paper structures as if our human bodies have reconfigured into strangely familiar beasts. Other times, it is difficult to tell if we are the structure’s prosthetic instrument, or if it is ours. Thus the boundaries of the visual diptych constantly change shape.
This shape-shifting also occurs aurally. Counterposed to nested, mobile speakers, the contact microphones built into the handmade paper sculptures allow for frequency compositions where the surface area and edges of the paper catch and resonate the sound waves below. At first it seems as if movement drives sound, but oftentimes, the attempt to attain certain frequencies is what actually drives the body gesture. At the same time, the two instruments generate sine waves in a phasing effect that forms new frequencies from the combined parts. All these variables enforce a degree of spontaneous improvisation where frequencies slip and shift unpredictably into a site specific architectural soundscape.
Most basically, the concept of a ‘diptych’ speaks to the collaborative form between two women. Our co-creative process is characterized by shared intentions, counterbalancing perspectives, and dialectically strengthening individualities. As a relationship, the diptych of two individuals highlights the integrity of each even as together something new and whole gets created. Moving into a performative piece, this dynamic is reflected through the performers who begin in a ritual unity that gradually differentiates into complementary parts. The resulting parallax offers views of the whole via the twofold parts, as well as the individual units in context of the related whole.
II. Last Dress Rehearsal, night before the NIME show at Glasslands in Brooklyn:
III. Glasslands Show
Thanks to Nisma for organizing and editing the NIME videos:
Last week, Toby came over and we played with mylar and mirrors to see what sort of light we could direct down into airshaft spaces.
I. MYLAR
Around 3:00 in the afternoon we hung some mylar sheets from the roof ledge to see how light would reflect down into the airshaft/courtyard behind my apartment building. Below is a video of the reflections from three vertical sheets (~3×5ft) hung approximately 6ft apart from each other:
Mylar has the advantage of being light, flexible, and relatively cheap. I also like it because it is safer to work with from up high and would be less likely to hurt someone if it came loose. The light reflections was caused by the wind are pretty beautiful, and one could imagine how more intense it could be if there were more sheets.
One of the issues with mylar is the sound and the need to stabilize it against stronger winds: So right now I’m in the process of designing a few possibilities for housing, rolling/unrolling and weighting the mylar. Ideally it’d be nice to also design window versions that people could hang from the lower window sills in order to increase light reflections.
II. MIRRORS
Because the 1ft x 1 ft mirrors directs sharp sunlight so specifically, I think it is best used for focusing on people’s window sills where they can keep plants or install light diffusers to brighten up their room. Bending the mirror just slightly convex or concave will also cause the light to bend into vertical and horizontal columns.
We sketched some different possibilities for a solar panel mirroring system and we’ll be working on a small model to test the mounting, motor, and sensing system.
