SQUEEEEQUE – SPEAKERDOME
An immersive environment, cosy as a children’s fort, built from items discarded by society. A sonic cocoon woven from the mutations of your own voice, reverberating across walls and ceiling. An audio sculpture. A speakerdome.
“Upon entry, gallery visitor is greeted by her weird dome, built out of a hodgepodge of different speakers, resembling something like a patchwork quilt of discarded audiophile detritus. The visitor is invited to enter, and speak, whisper sing or scream into one of the dangling microphones which are fed back into the speakers. The result is a natural resonance chamber, not entirely dissimilar from The User’s famed Silophone project, save that it’s presented on a more human (and ultimately social) scale.
Indeed, when one crouches in the pulsating dome with other gallery visitors, each interacting with the piece with varying degrees of inhibition or lackthereof, one feels as though they’ve entered a private, comfortable, womb-like space, where one’s own voice can be amplified or one can allow others’ voices to wash over them, aural ablution.
Ultimately, as people become more comfortable with the piece, voices get louder and musical forms inevitably emerge, sometimes evoking the howling wind of the shape’s place-of-origin, the arctic. Other times the sounds emanating suggest a new kind of electric campfire folk; the piece becomes sculpture, installation, womb and musical instrument.”
– Ali Rahman.
SKOL / ELEKTRA FESTIVAL – Montreal, Quebec, May 2009
OSHEAGA FESTIVAL – Montreal, Quebec, August 2009
CLUB TRANSMEDIALE – Berlin, Germany, February 2010
FESTIVAL VIA – Maubeuge, France, March 2010
FESTIVAL EXIT – Creteil, France, March 2010
GARE SAINT-SAUVEUR / LILLE 3000 – Lille, France, May 2010
EMMEDIA/CALGARY FOLK MUSIC FESTIVAL – Calgary, Alberta, July 2010
TODAYSART – The Hague, Holland, September, 2010
SHIFT FESTIVAL – Basel, Switzerland, October 2011
Solo exhibit – BHV/Délégation du Québec à Paris, November, 2011
MONACO DANCE FORUM – Monaco, December, 2011
VIDEO OF ORIGINAL VERSION – SKOL GALLERY, MONTREAL, MAY 2009
VIDEO OF OSHEAGA VERSION – AUGUST 2009
VIDEO OF BERLIN VERSION – FEBRUARY 2010
