| The acoustic microwave (Body of work: Baryon Acoustic Oscillations) Video 207 seconds | The sound basin (Body of work: Baryon Acoustic Oscillations) Metal and sound installation 160 cm x 160 cm x 60 cm |
Disclaimer: The Acoustic Microwave and The Sound Basin artworks are part of a body of work called Baryon Acoustic Oscillations. The following artist statement qualifies for both artworks. I have chosen these two works from the body of work. I suggest viewing the video work before the installation work.
ARTIST’S STATEMENT
The cacophony of sound cries into its material with a voice so throttling it transforms matter.
In this body of work, I seek to qualify sound as a creator. Composed against a backdrop of noise, it is a spatial tenant, the locator of time, and the coloniser of matter (Cox, 2018, p. 34). The shooting range is a laboratory for sound. Chaos ensues when the target splays and gunshots pepper the landscape. A constant exchange of energy happens between the parts, shooter, and weapon – the shotgun becomes a sonic vessel, and the materials, documenters of its commotion. As the clay machine propels its target and the firing pin hits the primer, an entropic creation unfolds. Fragments are dispersed, and one part becomes many. The landscape takes part in this perpetual organic revolution; ephemeral and ever-changing, it reorganises itself on the preface of sound. I turn to this extreme space to demonstrate the impact sound has on its materials.
I revert to the medium of sculpture to make sound tangible. Parts that have been changed by sonically rich conditions are taken and reformed again. Mufflers are turned inside out to reveal the bright hues of their heated internals, charred shotgun shells are bent and dismembered, clays are split to form a shroud of sonic activity, and Aluminium is warped by rounds of lead bullets, fired repeatedly with a 12-gauge shotgun to form a sharp, jarring, and cosmic veneer. Some sculptures react to and disperse sound through their metallic bodies, while others try to visualize the infinite variations and modulations of the event that is sound (Stephenson, et al., 2010:6). Pieces are delicately and strategically placed to indicate sound’s behaviour as it “builds, trashes, and connects” (Voegelin, 2010:125) space and time. Finally, my video work is a collection of all the noise released in the process of building these projects. Be it the rushing of shotgun shells as they hit the floor, the twisting of a vice as it squashes metal, or the subconscious hum of the environment. These works are products of sound, their material shifted by the backdrop of noise.
Like energy, sound is transmitted from one material to the next, released on impact, chanting its visceral presence and rendering itself real. As we move to impose our touch upon the material, sound conjures itself up from a slumber, rearing its skillset. It is neither created nor destroyed, but the author of expansion itself. Thus, in my body of work, Baryon Acoustic Oscillations, we observe sound as the creator. It becomes the
founder, and the material, its keen secretary. A sonic ontology unfolds as sound now advocates for pattern, entropy, accumulation, and infinite passages of time (Stephenson et al., 2010:6).
So it seems, sound utters: “Be as I am! Amid the ceaseless flux of appearances, I am the eternally creative primordial mother” (Nietzsche, according to Cox 2018:24). Destruction is recontextualised as creation, and force, as sound.
–
Hannah Mae Silcock
GALLERY
Click on image to enlarge
The acoustic microwave
The sound basin
