6 April – 25 May 2024
A river and a dialogue are central to two installations from the Haptic Room Studies Adi Hollander presents at the gallery. Haptic Room Study #4 questions tactile spatialization: between hearing and active listening, and comprises an interpretation of the sound composition A Sound Map of the Housatonic River of composer Annea Lockwood. The third installation of the Haptic Room Studies evolves around a dialogue visitors can engage in and feel.
Haptic Room Study #4: Questions about Tactile Spatialization: Between Hearing and Active Listening
Imagine hiking up a mountain, passing through rocks and trees until you reach a viewpoint. As you sit down, almost breathless, you take in the beauty around you – the vast blue sky above, the flowing river below, and the lush greenery surrounding you, accompanied by the vibrant colors and scents of spring. While others might continue to describe their experience made up of layers of sound – the birds, the water, the crickets, the leaves. The attention of artist Adi Hollander however, will be given to the absence of “noise.” The translation and filling of this gap between silence and noise, interwoven in many layers of form, texture, color, and space, became the driving force behind this research for Haptic Room Study #4.
For this installation, Hollander chose A Sound Map of the Housatonic River, a composition by the artist Annea Lockwood. What intrigued and challenged her about this piece, comprising four channels, is its ability to craft an immersive sense of place and time. It weaves a linear narrative, drawing from the concept of traversing (map) along, in, and over the river.
“In general, I experience sound so strongly in and through my body that it brings me a real visceral sense of connection to whatever I am listening to, which is probably true for many of us. That, to me, is a powerful, embodied, and ofter an unconscious reminder that I am not separate from the world around me.” (Annea Lockwood)
Concept, design and construction installation: Adi Hollander | sound engineer: Mathieu Debit | wood construction installation: Giorgos Gripeos | sound system and software design: Andreas Tegnander | tactile units: Adi Hollander, Ildikó Horváth, & Andreas Tegnander, and Sungeun Lee | graphic design: Anni Ruffin | thanks to: Andreas Tegnander, Claudio F. Baroni, Giorgos Gripeos, Ildikó Horváth, Sungeun Lee. Haptic Room Study #4 was commioned by the Echonance festival.
Haptic Room Study #3: Conversation Piece
The third installation of the Haptic Room Studies is designed as a space for two people to have dialogue: each person can feel their own voice and the voice of the other through haptics. A person’s voice carries meaning in its tone, rhythm, and melody, as well as their choice of words. Through pitch manipulation and filtering, the accoustics of the vocal sounds are reduced and translated into frequencies we can perceive through touch. This room study is part of our research in the multi-sensory experience of the human voice and how to create a space for an intimate meeting between body and voice.
Artists: Adi Hollander, Andreas Tegnander, Sungeun Lee. Supported by the Embassy of Inclusive Society.