Here are my silent sound art pieces:
Artist Statement
In my most recent work I have been exploring the physicality of both time and space. How can time be interpreted physically through my body, and then manipulated? How can physical space be encapsulated both internally and externally? To develop these ideas, I have been working with sound and movements of my body.
Here I and II are ma inspired videos about our relationship between silence, language, and the present moment. The ma, the gap or space between two temporal things, is the space between my pronunciation of the word now, and the viewers’ registration of this word. It is the space and time that it takes for the viewer to comprehend and repeat the word in their heads. After they have registered the word, what realizations and discoveries will they have with its significance?
The importance of the word now came as I read this quote by His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, “Yet if we say that the present moment is “now”, no sooner have we spoken the word than it lies in the past.” I gave a very literal interpretation of this quote by physically mouthing, and sounding out the the word now in my videos. As soon as the viewer has registered the word now, it is already a new moment. The present moment is a constantly fleeting moment that we are trying to obtain. Similarly, silence is an ephemeral state that we try to obtain but have lots of trouble with. Therefore, the lack of audio was an essential element to the pieces. I did not want to include sound, as it would not have allowed for the exploration by the viewers.
Similar to Beard’s piece, Yoko Ono’s installation Half a Room also creates a discovery of voidness. In this piece, Yoko Ono was tapping into the idea of seeing things “half-empty”. Only able to see half of these objects creates conversation of positive versus negative space and complete versus incomplete.
Lastly, an inspiration for my movement is Pina Bausch’s Kontakthof (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXGPDg0gll8). Although not a silent work, Kontakthof has many silent moments between the dancers. Bausch creates areas of contemplation, by using very small movements, such as in the beginning at 0:30 of the video. Using gaps of space, she creates more areas of contemplation at 16:06 in the video, in which two dancers are dressing in front of one another. These moments imbue a sense of silence in human interaction that is very influential when thinking of my movements.
Sound Material, Sound Art 