Sound, for most of us, has shaped how we perceive our understanding of the world around us. My practice questions the role of sound and how it can not only be presented but utilised in a fine art context. Further, it challenges the aural senses in an optically dominant world and aims to communicate why these aural senses should not be underpinned. 

Merging sculpture, product design, and performance, I create interactive sound works categorized under the sub-genre ‘sound sculpture’. In doing so, I aim to take the powerful yet invisible qualities of sound and make them visible through sculptural forms.

Considering functionality, my sculptural works house designed and researched sound reactive technology which facilitates a theme I have developed, titled ‘translations’. By creating work that releases a varied function upon interaction, I am able to translate the engagement of the audience with the art. In that respect my work allows the audiences to control their own experiences to the extent to which they wish to act upon it. This focus on performative engagement exemplifies how my practice wishes to reject the traditional expectations of white-wall (often silent and stagnant) gallery institutions and seeks to bring the audience closer through interaction. Often this has meant that my work can also function outside the gallery, most notably, my collaborative and funded sculptures at Eiger Studios for Brain Dance and my collaboration with music producer, Dylan Wieser.

Visually considering sculpture, whilst prioritizing aural engagement, I utilize minimalist aestheticism as a way to invite the audience into my work but not distract nor overstimulate them away from the significance of the sensation of sound. The role of minimalism is navigated through my factory approach to design and production, alongside my repetitive use of geometry and considered pallet. Colour is initially limited in my work until it is engaged upon, as a result, colour in my practice has often become a sign/translation of true engagement. For example the flicker of a red light or a swish of a yellow sharpie pen upon detecting sound. 

A product of my designed approach to sculpture-making is that chance is not an operation pursued in my making, but instead repositioned as parameters for the audiences of my work. Meaning that my works are often realized and detailed in design and then, put into production rather than realized in process. Documenting this design process in publications (namely “‘CALCULATIONS”, December 2022) has become an essential part of detailing the development of my sound reactive technology and my own practice.

Fundamentally, my practice replicates our collective wanting for interaction with life. Now more than ever, we rely on technology to validate our positioning and relationships and my practice mimics this with the extension of sound.