BALANCING the SOUND – Renee Poisson – Sound Installation Performance with Audience Participation
CVAG Plaza
All Ages – Drop In + Live-streamed
Zoom link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/84849111056
‘The Soundgarden arose out of my sculptural life, a product, a byproduct. Fascinated by sound as well as form over the years I began to hang objects of varied resonance from trees outside my studio. As soon as I began shaping steel these past three years, I was caught by the audio possibilities of this medium. Developing balance as the tipping point between the physical seesaw of falling down and getting up, my central theme over the past 10 years, led me to install my third set of balances in my Soundgarden. Tipping and swivelling, they could be knocked on to emit bell like sounds.
The relationship of all of these objects to the forest they inhabit expresses my own connection with this environment. When I listened to the melodies created by rain dropping onto the Soundgarden assemblage, the whole area was singing. I had to record it. The downpour challenged my equipment. The sounds I was hearing of rainfall on suspended metal was overall random and at the same time a vast rhythm, intricate, impossible to imitate intentionally
My curiosity, the experimental intensity of my play led to trying tin cans as resonators, transferring sound waves through taut string. Making them into instruments I constructed a crude bow that could withstand the hard surface of the halibut line, so satisfactory for transferring sound under tension.
Balancing sound event with audience, is my recording of rain on the sound garden with some added resonance.’ – Renee Poisson