Liminalities
Revolve, Asheville, NC, 2018
An immersive 5.2 sonic installation focused on articulating our embeddedness within geophysical and atmospheric vibratory systems. Very Low Frequency (VLF) electromagnetic waves from the ionosphere and magnetosphere were transduced into acoustic waves and broadcast in the listening space. This was combined with natural infrasonic emissions: ‘tactile’ sounds which are felt more than heard. These nonhuman forces, always already surging and resonating through us, articulate the physical thresholds of both the sensory and the epistemic, as they impinge upon the liminal regions at the cusp of human perception and familiarity. As shadows of distant events, measurements of these hidden forces are used to monitor the effects of anthropogenic climate change. As these forces are rendered sensible, the natural encroaches upon the social, as the global terrain acts as a vibratory beacon turning the gestures of the Earth into lived experience. In closing the distance between percipient and event, Liminalities asks how radical of an act of intimacy it might be to open ourselves up and feel the collective din of geophysical forces, as a process of becoming-storm. The opening night included a reading of Pampillonio’s titular essay, and a performance by Berlin-based sound artist and lecturer Samuel Hertz. (Revolve, Asheville, NC)