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Artist Iain Mott coordinates installation pieces that use mixed media–especially sound–to explore the connection between participant-audience members and the environment.
Past projects, recorded on the Reverberant site, have included Summoned Voices, a work that used a series of doors and intercoms to create an aural bulletin board–an artifact of community memory that layered and recyled the contribution of each visitor.
The more elaborate Sound Mapping project relied on a GPS system to place a set of movement-sensitive sound generators. The suitcase-like generators played music in response to their architectural environment and the presence of passersby.
Squeezebox made the interface more tactile. By manipulating a set of artificial hands participants triggered changes in the audio environment and controlled a series of images displayed at the center of the installation. The pressure and movement exerted on the hands altered the location and tone of the sounds in the sculpture.
Music is produced algorithmically and is derived from a set of rules which respond to the spatial location of the sound mass. The system of rules however is never static. One spatial strategy gives way to another resulting in an evolution of sound, requiring a constant readjustment of focus in the listener.
The Talking Chair placed participants at the core of a sphere of sound. Enthroned in the installation, the subject used an “ultrasound wand interface” to control the trajectory and tone of the generated sound.
The pieces detailed on Reverberant invite users to actively consider the sound environment–the layering of tones and effects of architecture and movement, the role of perception and human agency.
