Sound installation, University of Alberta Institute for Sound Studies, May 1-30 2023

in_between, an octophonic sound installation by SpokenWeb Alberta’s Artist-in-Residence Rémy Bocquillon, organized in collaboration with the Sound Studies Institute.

In_between explores what lies beneath reverberation, echo and resonance, both in their acoustic and semiotic expressions. From the original sound source to the reflected signal, often reduced to either a unique and indiscernible flow or to discrete and separated events, it deals with what happens in-between. What is the liminality of those sound events? A difference in repetition, a lapse in-between reflections? The time to take and make place. It is an in-between that enhances, repeats, but also one that can disrupt and reduce meanings. At once an addition to sonic flows, and a loss of information, of clarity.

In this installation, reverberation, echo and resonance will be understood in the midst of practices of (re-)defining “affective spacetimes” as making place, from the physical properties of a given room to the symbolic dualities of the ones able to speak, and the ones kept silent. From the voice as sound event, to the word as meaning, it becomes a question of individuation processes, a movement between smooth and striated spaces, ritournelles in-between bodies, listening underneath. As part of the SpokenWeb artistic residency, it is also a reflection about the practice itself, within DSC’s Makerspace: a particular process, in a particular spacetime, populated with its own echoes, reverberations, and rhythms.

The sounds of this installation exclusively originate from voices, either coming from a live “text-to-speech” processing and recording during parts of the installation, or from a polyphony of voices recorded beforehand at the University of Alberta, during the residency.

[Link to vimeo]

The voices are: Angelika Gabauer, Jeongwon Gim, Nicholas Hardy, Paulina Johnson, Jim Morrow, Juan Guevara Salamanca, Pradeep Sangapala.

Rémy Bocquillon is the SpokenWeb and Sound Studies Institute artist-in-residence. His research interests revolve around epistemic practices bridging the gap between arts, science, and philosophy, which he explores through his own creative work as a sound artist and musician. His latest projects include the publication “Sound Formations: Towards a Sociological Thinking-With Sounds” and the sound installation “Activating Space I Prehending the City.”