Sound Art Installations, Public Art, Cross Discipline, Intermedia
(Selected Works)
A Backdrop for the Broken Hearted
A Backdrop for the Broken Hearted multi-room sound installation at the Museum of Broken Relationships (Zagreb).
Exhibition opened 30 April 2017
How does a breakup sound? Can we hear our hearts healing? Can hearing register a transformation in a relationship? You might think there is no answer, but if you listen very carefully together with us, you'll find them in the exciting soundscape created by the Australian artist Colin Black, from Sunday, 30 April at the Museum of Broken Relationships. Contrasting the eclectic museum exhibits, Colin Black creates a symbolic connection and collision of 'audio objects' to explore a world of allusions, separations, broken promises, healing and transformations of relationships.
Exhibition opened 30 April 2017
How does a breakup sound? Can we hear our hearts healing? Can hearing register a transformation in a relationship? You might think there is no answer, but if you listen very carefully together with us, you'll find them in the exciting soundscape created by the Australian artist Colin Black, from Sunday, 30 April at the Museum of Broken Relationships. Contrasting the eclectic museum exhibits, Colin Black creates a symbolic connection and collision of 'audio objects' to explore a world of allusions, separations, broken promises, healing and transformations of relationships.
Adrenaline
Adrenaline exhibition by David Istvan & Colin Black, openning on Friday, 4th November 2016, 8 pm, at the Alkatraz Gallery, ACC Metelkova. The exhibition was on display until 25th November.
Istvan David, a visual artist and Colin Black, a sound artist and composer presentation of thier Adrenaline new art production at the junction of several domains; among the painting, drawing, digital print and sound. The basic topic of the exhibition is adrenaline. Adrenaline or epinephrine is a hormone secreted when a person is feeling a strong emotion such as anger, fear, or excitement. It increases the pace and the power of heartbeat, expands respiratory tract, improves breathing, narrows blood vessels in the skin and gastrointestinal tract and increases the supply of blood into muscles, thus enabling efficacious functioning and quick response. This powerful bodily response to stress is an ancient principle, facilitating us to survive in dangerous situations. Besides intensifying some responses it also brings to a standstill the momentarily unnecessary functions such as metabolism, growth and reproduction, while it concurrently enables clearer thinking and strengthens certain aspects of learning and memorising, says Dr. Robert Sapolsky, an acclaimed researcher and professor of biological sciences, neurology and neurological sciences.
Loudspeakers pump like sonic glands throughout the space, creating a sculptural audio dynamic that expresses the changing levels of hormones secreted by the adrenal glands. Going beyond fight or flight the sound artist builds an abstracted sonic rush, pulsing symbolically through the gallery space in sync with the visual artworks strung up on the walls. The sonic spatialised landscape is an expression of a new language of audio adrenal.
Istvan David, a visual artist and Colin Black, a sound artist and composer presentation of thier Adrenaline new art production at the junction of several domains; among the painting, drawing, digital print and sound. The basic topic of the exhibition is adrenaline. Adrenaline or epinephrine is a hormone secreted when a person is feeling a strong emotion such as anger, fear, or excitement. It increases the pace and the power of heartbeat, expands respiratory tract, improves breathing, narrows blood vessels in the skin and gastrointestinal tract and increases the supply of blood into muscles, thus enabling efficacious functioning and quick response. This powerful bodily response to stress is an ancient principle, facilitating us to survive in dangerous situations. Besides intensifying some responses it also brings to a standstill the momentarily unnecessary functions such as metabolism, growth and reproduction, while it concurrently enables clearer thinking and strengthens certain aspects of learning and memorising, says Dr. Robert Sapolsky, an acclaimed researcher and professor of biological sciences, neurology and neurological sciences.
Loudspeakers pump like sonic glands throughout the space, creating a sculptural audio dynamic that expresses the changing levels of hormones secreted by the adrenal glands. Going beyond fight or flight the sound artist builds an abstracted sonic rush, pulsing symbolically through the gallery space in sync with the visual artworks strung up on the walls. The sonic spatialised landscape is an expression of a new language of audio adrenal.
Untouchable Sound
Untouchable Sound installed at the Sound Reasons Festival IV (Bangalore, India), 22 – 24 January 2016
About the work Untouchable Sound
Phenomenologically sound exists in the present as time is the medium through which sound travels. Like the ticking of a clock, if we freeze time, sound ceases to exist. But it also continues to live and evolve in our memories and minds long after the original sound event (as R. Murray Schafer claims) has committed suicide, never be heard again. When there is no one to witness or record the original sound, we tend to engage in a form of acoustic archaeology and imagine the past or dead sound.
This artwork presents the paradox that, though we can be touched both in a physical and emotional sense, by sound, as illustrated by the shattered wine glass, we cannot touch sound itself. Likewise, the memory of or imagining of a past sound (the sound that shattered the glass) can touch us in the present moment. Thus sound can have consequences that resonate across noncontiguous periods of time.
Moreover while this installation may appear static or mute it is in fact physically producing phonons of vibrational mechanical energy or sound, that is inaudible to the human ear.
About the work Untouchable Sound
Phenomenologically sound exists in the present as time is the medium through which sound travels. Like the ticking of a clock, if we freeze time, sound ceases to exist. But it also continues to live and evolve in our memories and minds long after the original sound event (as R. Murray Schafer claims) has committed suicide, never be heard again. When there is no one to witness or record the original sound, we tend to engage in a form of acoustic archaeology and imagine the past or dead sound.
This artwork presents the paradox that, though we can be touched both in a physical and emotional sense, by sound, as illustrated by the shattered wine glass, we cannot touch sound itself. Likewise, the memory of or imagining of a past sound (the sound that shattered the glass) can touch us in the present moment. Thus sound can have consequences that resonate across noncontiguous periods of time.
Moreover while this installation may appear static or mute it is in fact physically producing phonons of vibrational mechanical energy or sound, that is inaudible to the human ear.
Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment
Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment is an intermedia performance art/installation work that uses a range of sensors alongside artists acting as wetware to create a dynamic multi-modal data feedback loop between the movement of two dancers, a surround sound diffusion system and video projection.
This work explores the theme of “dynamic difficulty adjustment” (DDA) that Andrew Glassner has used to describe aspects of gaming. Glassner explains, “Games should not ask players to select a difficulty level. Games should adapt themselves during gameplay to offer the player a consistent degree of challenge based on his changing abilities at different tasks.” With this work the two dancers dynamically adjust to spatialised sonic “difficulties” and visuals that develop from the gathered data of the dancers’ previous movements. The work explores the evolving world of digital humanities as data is transmuted, projected, re-interpreted and resonated around the room in a cybernetic game of cat and mouse that in evolving, starts to question who or what is the creator and who or what is the created, metaphorically pointing to ethical questions relating to abiogenesis. Moreover, in a Marshall McLuhan sense the two dancer’s nervous systems are extended through this electronic media, but in this case transformed, deconstructed and turned in on themselves, as the two dancers endeavor to find their way through this dynamic, game like, multi-modal labyrinth.
Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment première was on Saturday 28 March 2015 at CSU Vodnikova domačija (Ljubljana).
This work explores the theme of “dynamic difficulty adjustment” (DDA) that Andrew Glassner has used to describe aspects of gaming. Glassner explains, “Games should not ask players to select a difficulty level. Games should adapt themselves during gameplay to offer the player a consistent degree of challenge based on his changing abilities at different tasks.” With this work the two dancers dynamically adjust to spatialised sonic “difficulties” and visuals that develop from the gathered data of the dancers’ previous movements. The work explores the evolving world of digital humanities as data is transmuted, projected, re-interpreted and resonated around the room in a cybernetic game of cat and mouse that in evolving, starts to question who or what is the creator and who or what is the created, metaphorically pointing to ethical questions relating to abiogenesis. Moreover, in a Marshall McLuhan sense the two dancer’s nervous systems are extended through this electronic media, but in this case transformed, deconstructed and turned in on themselves, as the two dancers endeavor to find their way through this dynamic, game like, multi-modal labyrinth.
Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment première was on Saturday 28 March 2015 at CSU Vodnikova domačija (Ljubljana).
Credits
Črt Trček (a.k.a. Gregor Kamnikar, Slovenia): Dance
Dayana Hristova (Bulgaria): Dance, Motion Capture
Colin Black (Australia): Original Concept, Sound Art, Sound Design and Musical Composition
Radharani Pernarčič (Slovenia): Dance
Bartłomiej Mróz (Poland): Motion Capture, Technical Assistance
Hanna Preuss, Atelier for Sonorous Arts: Production Company
Marko Ipavec: Executive Producer
Special thanks to Marko Ipavec, Hanna Preuss and the Sonorous Arts Centre CSU Vodnik Manor (CSU Vodnikova domačija), Robolab, Metrology and Quality lab and the Atificial Intelligence lab, University of Ljubljana for the motion capture equipment supply.
The CSU Vodnikova domačija Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment page can be found at
http://vodnikova-domacija.si/index.php/intermedijski-performans-dinamicno-prilagajanje-zahtevnosti-dynamic-difficulty-adjustment/
Črt Trček (a.k.a. Gregor Kamnikar, Slovenia): Dance
Dayana Hristova (Bulgaria): Dance, Motion Capture
Colin Black (Australia): Original Concept, Sound Art, Sound Design and Musical Composition
Radharani Pernarčič (Slovenia): Dance
Bartłomiej Mróz (Poland): Motion Capture, Technical Assistance
Hanna Preuss, Atelier for Sonorous Arts: Production Company
Marko Ipavec: Executive Producer
Special thanks to Marko Ipavec, Hanna Preuss and the Sonorous Arts Centre CSU Vodnik Manor (CSU Vodnikova domačija), Robolab, Metrology and Quality lab and the Atificial Intelligence lab, University of Ljubljana for the motion capture equipment supply.
The CSU Vodnikova domačija Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment page can be found at
http://vodnikova-domacija.si/index.php/intermedijski-performans-dinamicno-prilagajanje-zahtevnosti-dynamic-difficulty-adjustment/
Slice & Dice
Slice & Dice, 5 channel sound installation with visual artist David Istvan
Colin Black was invited to create a 5 channel sound installation for the Slice & Dice exhibition with visual artist David Istvan at CSU Vodnikova domačija (Ljubljana).
Collaborating with Istvan, Colin Black dispenses with notions of sonic intactness, linearity and noise-free transmission with his sound installation to form a dialogue with Istvan’s images that creates a multi-modal language beyond the horizon of established cultural rationales. Inspired by William S. Burrough’s cut-ups, Black creates an immersive muti-perspective sonic world that includes concrete sounds recorded by the artist in Ljubljana earlier in 2014. Black’s intention is to create a sonic atmosphere that invites the patrons of the gallery space to experience moments of synchresis (a mental fusion between the sonic and visual) with Istvan’s dynamically static images in an imaginary pseudo cinematic landscape.
Colin Black was invited to create a 5 channel sound installation for the Slice & Dice exhibition with visual artist David Istvan at CSU Vodnikova domačija (Ljubljana).
Collaborating with Istvan, Colin Black dispenses with notions of sonic intactness, linearity and noise-free transmission with his sound installation to form a dialogue with Istvan’s images that creates a multi-modal language beyond the horizon of established cultural rationales. Inspired by William S. Burrough’s cut-ups, Black creates an immersive muti-perspective sonic world that includes concrete sounds recorded by the artist in Ljubljana earlier in 2014. Black’s intention is to create a sonic atmosphere that invites the patrons of the gallery space to experience moments of synchresis (a mental fusion between the sonic and visual) with Istvan’s dynamically static images in an imaginary pseudo cinematic landscape.
The Double World
Colin Black was the sound artist for The Double World installation created by the tranSTURM collective of artists including Chris Bowman, Mike Day, Gavin Perin, Jason Benedek, Rachael Priddel and Michaela Coe.
The Double World installation (an expression of light, sound and animation) occupied the three large chambers of Building 20 on the Newington Armory site at Sydney Olympic Park and was open on Saturdays and Sundays from 19 October to 10 November 2013.
The Double World took the form of three discrete mixed reality “scapes” in which the audience explored and discovered their own relationship with “order” and “chaos” by travelling through different layers of experience - emotional, intellectual and physical. In this way the audience experienced a unique re-telling a critical part of the Orpheus myth through voice, code, sonnet, chamber, film and acoustic data.
Credits
Creative Director: Chris Bowman
Co-Directors: Gavin Perin and Mike Day
Sound Artist/Composer: Colin Black
Animation: Rachael Priddel and Michaela Coe
Film and Animation: Chris Bowman and Jason Benedek
Lighting: Michael Day
Featuring the poetry of Ranier Maria Rilke read by Yanna Black
Choreography: Meryl Tankard
Dance: Anton Lock
Motion Capture visualisation: Michaela Coe and Jessica Tse
In association with Holger Deuter, Roger Mills, Andrew Bluff, Dean English, and Dieter Mack
For more information see https://transturm.com/Double-World-1
The Double World installation (an expression of light, sound and animation) occupied the three large chambers of Building 20 on the Newington Armory site at Sydney Olympic Park and was open on Saturdays and Sundays from 19 October to 10 November 2013.
The Double World took the form of three discrete mixed reality “scapes” in which the audience explored and discovered their own relationship with “order” and “chaos” by travelling through different layers of experience - emotional, intellectual and physical. In this way the audience experienced a unique re-telling a critical part of the Orpheus myth through voice, code, sonnet, chamber, film and acoustic data.
Credits
Creative Director: Chris Bowman
Co-Directors: Gavin Perin and Mike Day
Sound Artist/Composer: Colin Black
Animation: Rachael Priddel and Michaela Coe
Film and Animation: Chris Bowman and Jason Benedek
Lighting: Michael Day
Featuring the poetry of Ranier Maria Rilke read by Yanna Black
Choreography: Meryl Tankard
Dance: Anton Lock
Motion Capture visualisation: Michaela Coe and Jessica Tse
In association with Holger Deuter, Roger Mills, Andrew Bluff, Dean English, and Dieter Mack
For more information see https://transturm.com/Double-World-1
Colin Black and Chris Bowman at the Newington Armory site
The Butter Churn Sound Sculpture
Colin Black’s Butter Churn Sound Sculpture installation was launched on Friday 27th July 2007 . The Butter Churn Sound Sculpture is part of the two new "Story Sites" which extend the "Wilsons River Experience Walk" in Lismore's Heritage Park.
The Butter Churn spatial sound sculpture installation aims to sonically animate and resonate the NORCO Butter Churnsculpture with local oral histories, sound art and electroacoustic composition.
The work explores the idea that the butter churn is a metaphor for the evolution of the local colonised rural culture of Lismore. Just like the fluidity of the cream it churned into butter, this churn helped to changed the uncertain liquidity of the Lismore economy into a stable community.
As all enclosures inherently have predominantly resonating frequencies, Colin Black with assisting artist Yanna Black explore the butter churn's latent sonorities with the creation of the sound installation’s "I Am Sitting In The Lismore butter churn" movement. Combining Alvin Lucier like recordings techniques with spatialised electroacoustic composition that pays homage to early electronic music, the work rings out the object's dimensions within its landscape and sonically impacts on the culture that it has helped to shape in the past. The idea is to give this object a voice after years of silence and inactivity, opening up the dialogue between the the past and the present while investigating how this object continues to influence the evolution of the local culture of Lismore.
Visitors to the site will be able to activate the Butter Churn Sound Sculpture installation between the hours of 9am to 9pm.
The Butter Churn spatial sound sculpture installation aims to sonically animate and resonate the NORCO Butter Churnsculpture with local oral histories, sound art and electroacoustic composition.
The work explores the idea that the butter churn is a metaphor for the evolution of the local colonised rural culture of Lismore. Just like the fluidity of the cream it churned into butter, this churn helped to changed the uncertain liquidity of the Lismore economy into a stable community.
As all enclosures inherently have predominantly resonating frequencies, Colin Black with assisting artist Yanna Black explore the butter churn's latent sonorities with the creation of the sound installation’s "I Am Sitting In The Lismore butter churn" movement. Combining Alvin Lucier like recordings techniques with spatialised electroacoustic composition that pays homage to early electronic music, the work rings out the object's dimensions within its landscape and sonically impacts on the culture that it has helped to shape in the past. The idea is to give this object a voice after years of silence and inactivity, opening up the dialogue between the the past and the present while investigating how this object continues to influence the evolution of the local culture of Lismore.
Visitors to the site will be able to activate the Butter Churn Sound Sculpture installation between the hours of 9am to 9pm.
The Flood
NORPA's 2004 production of The Flood featured Black's dynamic multi-site spatialized soundscape including the Starcourt Theatre Space sound installation entitled Floodscape
NORPA's free outdoor production The Flood, ran from the 8th - 10th April 2004, Starting @ the Cnr of Magellan & Keen Streets (Lismore, NSW), 6.30pm.
For more information
http://www.realtimearts.net/article/61/7484
http://www.scu.edu.au/news/media.php?item_id=340&action=show_item&&print=on
NORPA's free outdoor production The Flood, ran from the 8th - 10th April 2004, Starting @ the Cnr of Magellan & Keen Streets (Lismore, NSW), 6.30pm.
For more information
http://www.realtimearts.net/article/61/7484
http://www.scu.edu.au/news/media.php?item_id=340&action=show_item&&print=on
Other Installations Include
National Digital Arts Award finalist and exhibiting artist, at the Brisbane Institute of Modern Art
Parramatta: People & Place exhibition at the Parramatta Heritage Centre
XEG, Corfu Art Gallery, Art Room (Garden of the People), 2013 Audiovisual Arts Festival (Corfu)
2011 Verge Gallery's "BIG DAY IN!", Soundprints: Sealed in Sweden selected for installation to celebrate the launch of the "Sound Plaza"
2011 Ćišina, Sorbisches Museum, Bautzen, Germany
2010 On The Edge of Silence #1, the Hardware Gallery, Sydney
Alien In The Landscape: The Extended Enviro-Guitar (XEG) installation selected for the Sydney Conservatorium of Music’s Open Day
Alien In The Landscape: The Extended Enviro-Guitar (XEG) installation selected for the Australasian Computer Music Conference 2008, Sydney Conservatorium of Music, The University of Sydney, 10 - 12 July 2008
Parramatta: People & Place exhibition at the Parramatta Heritage Centre
XEG, Corfu Art Gallery, Art Room (Garden of the People), 2013 Audiovisual Arts Festival (Corfu)
2011 Verge Gallery's "BIG DAY IN!", Soundprints: Sealed in Sweden selected for installation to celebrate the launch of the "Sound Plaza"
2011 Ćišina, Sorbisches Museum, Bautzen, Germany
2010 On The Edge of Silence #1, the Hardware Gallery, Sydney
Alien In The Landscape: The Extended Enviro-Guitar (XEG) installation selected for the Sydney Conservatorium of Music’s Open Day
Alien In The Landscape: The Extended Enviro-Guitar (XEG) installation selected for the Australasian Computer Music Conference 2008, Sydney Conservatorium of Music, The University of Sydney, 10 - 12 July 2008
For more information about Colin Black's works see:
Colin Black (Dr Black) #thissoniclife