Dust to Dust
Dust to Dust is an installation that reflects on our relationships and emotional responses to sonic spaces. Recorded soundscapes or voices play through lightbulbs whereupon they are drastically altered, yet retain key qualities of their original character. Amplifiers power the filaments with audio signals and the sounds are naturally filtered by the lightbulbs. The timing and duration of the sounds are randomized, making their interactions unpredictable, much like independent variables in a natural setting.
The sounds interact in the space to create a new environment consisting of the remnants of the original recordings. Simultaneous with this creation, each of the sounds acquire light as a further form of expression, but at the same time there is a sense of degradation and disorientation from the loss of the rich character of each of the original soundscapes. This installation attempts to balance these conflicting ideas – our associations with different soundscapes, the changes and manipulations that can happen to those, and our multifarious responses to those changes. Iterations of this piece have been presented several times, including at the 2013 International SuperCollider Convention, the 2015 Megapolis Festival, and the 2018 Incantations Sound Art Festival.